Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I, too, think that the Government’s compromise is liveable with, although I should have preferred Amendment 179. The Government have demonstrated today that JACQA gives them all the power that they need by demolishing the possibility of the IGCSE in English state schools. That is a terminal enough decision to give the Secretary of State all the power that he wanted over the qualifications system. People will pay attention to that. They will say, "We will not produce qualifications that the Secretary of State will blow out of the water at the last moment when we have spent a great deal of money trying to get them through the system". I think that the Secretary of State will find himself consulted at a fairly early stage. I really do not think that the powers that the Government are retaining for themselves in their new amendments are necessary, but at least, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, says, they are restricted and public and I think that I can live with them.