Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, this group contains Amendments 154 and 155, which are tabled in my name. I shall speak to them in a moment. First, I welcome government Amendments 146, 148 and 152, which were laid at our instigation. Amendments 146 and 152 relate to the appointment or removal of the deputy chair, and we are delighted that the Government have accepted that this person should be elected or removed by the members of Ofqual rather than by the Secretary of State. This goes a small way towards reducing the power of the Secretary of State over Ofqual and thereby increases Ofqual’s independence. Government Amendments 148 and 153 concern the Secretary of State consulting with the chair or deputy before appointing ordinary members. Again, that consultation is at our instigation and we welcome it. However—here comes the but—we do not like the last part of each of these amendments, which enable the Secretary of State to appoint or remove a person without consultation if he or she thinks that it is "not practicable" to consult. These appointments usually take weeks or even months and the idea that it would not be practicable to consult during that period is ridiculous. The Government say that this paragraph is only there to take care of rare situations where perhaps both the chair and the deputy are ill or have been killed in an accident. In these situations, the Secretary of State will deal with the matter without legislation. The Lord Chancellor endorses the appointment of lots of people, but the statutes are not full of clauses about what happens if he cannot consult or if he himself lands under a bus. It is over the top to legislate for a highly unlikely occurrence such as this. The problem is that it makes me suspect that the Government want it there to allow the Secretary of State to appoint without consulting if he feels like it. If the amendments are carried, I will seek some means or another of removing those paragraphs at a later stage. I am afraid that we do not support the Opposition Benches on Amendment 150 because we have confidence in the fact that the public appointments procedure is now moving in the right direction and would ensure that nothing inappropriate happens in relation to conflicts of interest. I now turn to my own amendments. The first chief executive of Ofqual will have an enormous influence on the way that it starts its new duties, so this is an important appointment. Amendment 154 would ensure that the first chief executive is an interim appointment whose confirmation as a permanent employee or replacement by somebody different as the first permanent CEO will be done by Ofqual itself. The Minister has been quite clear about that today and I thank her for it. I am also grateful to the Bill team for confirming it in a letter dated 2 November—it arrived five minutes before we started Report on Monday—so I am quite happy about that. I will not pursue the matter further, but will the Minister say how long the interim appointment is expected to last and what is the mechanism for the confirmation or replacement of that person as the first permanent chief executive? Amendment 155 would simply give Parliament a role in the appointment of the first and subsequent permanent chief executives. Because this post is such an important one, Parliament’s voice should be heard about the suitability of the people appointed and the terms and conditions of their appointment. I was somewhat reassured by the Minister saying that if Parliament expresses a view about these things that will be taken into account, so I will not be pressing that matter.