Education Bill

My hon. Friend will have seen over the summer some of the errors in the exams. They are unacceptable. We believe that the awarding organisations should not make the quantum and seriousness of those errors again. Other regulators have such powers, and if he bears with me, I will try to set out why we introduced those provisions. The provisions in Lords amendments 16 and 17 are broadly consistent with the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008. As many hon. Members will know, including my hon. Friend, the Act provides many other regulators with a toolkit of sanctions that are risk based, consistent, proportionate and effective. Ofqual currently has only two types of sanction available to it: the power to direct an awarding organisation; and the dramatic, nuclear option of partial or full withdrawal of recognition. In addition, before Ofqual can use its current enforcement powers, it must be the case that an awarding organisation's failure to comply with a condition has prejudiced, or is likely to prejudice, either the proper award of a qualification or students who might reasonably be expected to seek to obtain such a qualification awarded by that organisation. The Government believe that those tests unnecessarily limit Ofqual's powers and could reduce its capacity to take timely and proportionate enforcement action. Removing the tests and giving Ofqual a power to fine will help to prevent the kind of mistakes in exam papers that we saw last summer, which undermine the hard work of the pupils who sat them. That is the purpose of Lords amendment 16, and Lords amendment 17 confers similar powers on Welsh Ministers as the regulators of Welsh qualifications.