Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I have three amendments in this group, but I shall speak to Amendment 171 separately, in its own place in the Marshalled List. That amendment is to do with the exercise of powers by Ministers and not by Ofqual and, since I want to say a fair bit on it, I would rather say it separately. I start by welcoming Amendment 185, a perfectly drafted amendment, which absolutely meets the point that I made in Committee. I am extremely chuffed to see it on the Marshalled List. Amendments 163 and 180 also come back to discussions in Committee. Amendment 163, which amends Clause 128, looks at the powers that Ofqual has to limit the number of different regulated qualifications in similar subject areas or serving similar functions. We had a good explanation of that power from the Minister in Committee. What I hope that I have done in Amendment 163 is to reflect the way in which he thought that that power should be used, clearing up confusion to make it plain that when you have a number of different awarding bodies, particularly in the vocational area, offering qualifications that are essentially the same, they must be brought under one banner. It does not matter whether it is the institution of this or the association of that offering it, but it must all have the same name at the end of the day, so that the pattern of qualifications is clear to those who have to evaluate them—principally, I imagine, employers. That is an objective that I share, but as the clause stands it could be read much more widely than that and that Ofqual could go about striking out entire qualifications because it thought that there were enough of them. That is an activity that the Government are fond of; they are determined to limit the number of qualifications available for school use and not to allow any proliferation or variety. That is their present attitude. I very much hope that it will not be the attitude of the next Government. However, I do not think that it should be Ofqual's attitude under any circumstances. Ofqual ought to be there to judge the quality. Under Clause 128(3)(b), it ought to be improving the clarity and coherence of the offering to the public, but it ought not to be trying to remove variety and innovation. My Amendment 180 is very much on a similar theme. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has already said, Clause 145(1) allows Ofqual to, ""keep under review any connected activities of a recognised body"." My amendment aims to limit that power to the area where such powers are necessary and justified, by adding, ""where it has reasonable grounds to believe these may impact on the credibility of the qualifications offered or the effective or fair operation of the system"." Awarding bodies are large businesses with many activities outside the scope of Ofqual. In particular, they have succeeded in establishing throughout the world a system of British qualifications that is well known and extremely well respected. That is one of the main reasons why people from overseas wish to come here and study at British universities, and why our qualifications are respected throughout the world. They have a high degree of probity in doing that, and should not be subject to a degree of control by Ofqual beyond that which is necessary. In the context of their general activities, it seems to me that awarding bodies may want to brief parliamentarians or to research problems with existing qualifications and propose remedies. They may want to have particular marketing plans for qualifications which are the same as or equivalent to our own domestic qualifications; they may want to have quite a strong media presence. All of those are things that Ofqual should not have any ability to stick its nose into, so the objective of my amendment is not in any way to keep Ofqual out of the area in which it should be involved, but just to say that it should not stray. If one looks back at the history of the QCA, which was set up with a fine set of objectives, over time it reached and stretched out to see how much control it could exert over the whole educational system. At the point where it was put to death by this Government it had become a sprawling and invasive quango with all sorts of influences, most of them malign, in areas where it should never have had them. I would not like to see that happen to Ofqual which is, at its heart, an immensely useful body that should be set up to survive with a clear focus for many generations.