Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

What the White Paper says—I have it here—is that the number of sector skills councils will be reduced to nine. The rumour is that the Government have rather less regard than the Opposition for sector skills councils, and that there may be further reductions, in both their capacity and budget. We would resist that hotly. However, given that we know from the leaked report that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition spoke about earlier that there are plans for swingeing cuts, we want an absolute assurance that those cuts will not affect sector skills councils or their capacity to deal with the matters that the Minister has just outlined.