My Lords, I am a little reassured but I have to say that I am still left in much confusion as to how the Government intend to get from here to where we all wish to be. The ability of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, to raise a very large number of fair questions about what is intended by all this simply demonstrates how unclear many of us in this House and outside are about how the Government will ensure that the extra skills are provided from within this country. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Green, that there is a long-term problem of companies in Britain finding it cheaper and easier to recruit direct from abroad rather than spending money on training their own employees. That applies not just to the Indian IT sector but also to long-distance truck drivers and all sorts of occupations in the private sector.
However, in the public sector the Government are responsible for training. As regards when we introduce this charge, I simply point out that it takes two or three years to train a nurse and longer to train a doctor, let alone a good maths teacher. Therefore, a year is not enough. We will find in the interim period that schools and hospitals will pay sums out of their flat budgets, out of which they are already paying for additional pension increases—so budgets are being squeezed—before any new training schemes have provided the additional skilled recruits from within the United Kingdom. That is part of the argument we are making about phasing in for the public sector.
I very much hope that we will have Labour support on this occasion. As I understand it, the Labour Party supports the public sector. I have heard reports that the Labour Party in the Commons has instructed the Labour Party in the Lords not to support this measure because it is a Liberal Democrat amendment and it is a bit queer about supporting Liberal Democrat amendments. I very much hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, will be able to bring his party along. However, I appreciate that sometimes in the Lords the Labour Party Front Benchers have to defend positions they are not entirely happy about, as, indeed, do the Conservative Party Front Benchers.