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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am sure that we have acted absolutely properly in every decision we have taken in respect of the London Skills and Employment Board, but I will write to the noble Baroness and set out precisely how we havedone that. In conclusion, I return to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Moser, which in many ways is where we started in terms of the crusade to enhance further education. He said that he doubted whether our commitment was as strong now as it was back in 1998 when he produced his important report. Let me emphasise to him that our commitment is every bit as strong. We have met all the targets we set in respect of the improvement of the basic skills of the adult workforce in 1998. They were ambitious targets, as the noble Lord knows. We worked closely with the Basic Skills Agency in doing so. Funding has increased every year since then to tackle the basic skills deficit in the adult population and it now totals £500 million per year. We expect another target to be set in the spending review next year that will further enhance our work in this area. I simply say that by way of conclusion, because a great deal of the debate has rightly focused on the interface between further and higher education. But let none of us forget that in many ways the most valuable work that further education does is to give second chance opportunities to those who alas, for whatever reason, were not able to make effective use of their first chance in the school system. Their own career prospects and their lives are too valuable to us to allow them to slip through the net and not have those opportunities. For many tens of thousands of young people and hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, who are later in their lives, further education offers the only prospect they have of being able to equip themselves with the skills and the life chances that those of us who are more fortunate in our initial education take for granted. This is central to our work. It is why everything that we do in further education is so important. On that basis I commend the Bill to the House. On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Grand Committee.