I thank the Minister for her response. Like my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn, I do not want to appear churlish, especially at this time of night, but it was a predictable response and a rerun of the previous analysis. Of course, I do not want to introduce any level of bureaucracy that would act as an impediment to SMEs in bidding for contracts. That would be perverse. However, that does not need to be the case.
I am not suggesting that the words within this amendment are by any means perfect. We do not establish the criteria one would need to apply in introducing this. However, I do not believe that there is a legal barrier. We proved that with the Olympic requirement and the Crossrail requirement. If it was approached in the right way, this could be positive. I listened carefully and tried to think of a scenario where somebody bidding for a significant public procurement contract could actually say, “Well, no, we don’t need any apprenticeships in this circumstance”. I find that hard to believe. It is interesting: when I look at the analysis of the types of apprenticeships that have occurred under the Crossrail experience, they are rich and varied, including finance, accounting and business administration. There is a whole range. It is not just the engineering things. They have been much more imaginative in their approach there, so I am baffled by this idea that somehow there are significant public procurement contracts where no apprenticeships would be merited. Then, on the question of the role of local employment partnerships, of course we want them to flourish and be imaginative and proactive.
My concern is that we still have significant numbers of schools and colleges that are not carrying out their legal requirement to give a full range of career guidance to their pupils and students, and that they have not established the kinds of link with business that they should. The idea that it would again be bureaucratic to put a requirement on them to establish these links is not a bad one: it would be a good practice for them. They should also report annually, so that we could see the progress that they are making.
I hope that the Minister will reflect carefully on this brief discussion and see whether she will be able to address these issues when we come back to them on Third Reading. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.