Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady O’Neill, to which I have attached my name. I wish also to address government Amendment 172. We are all agreed that it crucial to protect as far as possible the independence of Ofqual. The problem with standards in this country will never be resolved if the public believe that these questions are subject to political intervention. That would inevitably raise doubts, so there has to be an independent body, in so far as we can achieve that. I accept that in the course of the debate the Government have moved to meet the concerns of Members of the House who want to protect the independence of Ofqual. Today we have been offered, in effect, a new solution to that problem. Amendment 161, on which my noble friend Lady O’Neill has expanded, is none the less a calm and precise way of dealing with and modulating the problem by accepting that there are circumstances in which the Secretary of State may intervene. She has put context around that, whereby an intervention would be practical, pragmatic and have proper objectives. The difficulty with the solution proposed in Amendment 172 is that it is profoundly messy. To put it simply, the best argument—and it is a very good one—to be made for Amendment 172 is that, given the requirement to go before Parliament, the Secretary of State will avoid intervening in this area because it will be such a time-consuming and controversial activity. I can well accept that the news within any government Whips’ office that the Secretary of State wanted to devote parliamentary time to a determination in this area would be greeted with some disfavour. I understand that the Government are proposing an inhibition; to that extent, there is greater protection for Ofqual. I value the attempt to do that, but there is a difficulty. Ministers may be of a more excited and interventionist disposition in this matter than perhaps they ought to be. Even today, the decision by the Minister responsible for schools, Ian Wright, on the Cambridge international certificates suggests that there is a degree of an interventionist disposition. It may be stronger than we suspect; it may be that Ministers are drawn like a moth to this particular flame. When this matter reaches the Floor of the House of Commons, there is a danger of petty, partisan wrangling and, in particular, on historical questions—I speak as a practising academic historian—of non-productive debate in which people strike poses. No conceivable advantage to the academic reputation of qualifications in this country is likely to flow from such debates. We respect the Government’s intention. We have to concede that there is serious enough logic behind the proposal, but even at this last moment I would be grateful if the Minister might consider that Amendment 161 is a quieter and calmer way of achieving the same type of compromise.