My Lords, I want to make a couple of points on these amendments. First, as I said at Second Reading, I very much welcome the desire and requirement to have learners themselves represented in the governance of the institute. I welcome also the fact that the Government have announced an apprentice panel for the institute, but I think it would be good if that was a statutory requirement in the Bill.
Secondly, it is important we ensure that the bodies creating the standards are employer led but, at the same time, represent a cross-section of organisations. However, there is a further point to make on that. Yes, we should have SME representation, but that is easier said than done. Most SMEs find it hard to devote the time, resource and energy to being involved in these quite complicated standard development processes. I am very interested to hear the Government’s thinking on how the views of SMEs—which, after all, deliver more than half of all apprenticeships—can be represented in a way that is comparable to the others that will be represented.
I very much agree that independent training providers need to be subject to accountability and scrutiny, and that learners need to know who they can complain to. However, at the same time, I believe that independent training providers deliver a very substantial proportion of the training needed for apprenticeships, and we should be rather careful that we are not killing that golden-egg-laying goose. It is very important to have the right balance. Again as I said at Second Reading, I have a feeling that the role of independent training providers, including commercial training providers, is not very well reflected in the Bill as it stands. It is a key role and we should make sure we understand how it is going to be delivered in a way that meets suitable standards and scrutiny.