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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

I am very grateful. We shall await the noble Lord’s proposals with interest. This has been a wide-ranging debate. By and large there is a coalescence of interest around particular issues which have arisen, and these are the ones that I think the Minister has addressed. On the specific proposals we put forward, I am sorry that the Minister does not see fit to limit the provision by designated area. I see real problems because the criteria for the degree-awarding powers relate, above all, to issues of governance within the institution, which can be satisfied in relation to the institution as a whole. It is quite clear that the academic standards required can be satisfied in relation to specific departments. It is also clear that a further education college is a very different institution from a university, or even from the former teacher-training colleges which are now recognised as universities. It poses some problems, and, indeed, will pose problems for the QAA in monitoring standards because it will be required to monitor specific standards within specific departments. I hear what the Minister says. I have a copy of the Burgess report regarding credit transfers and credit accumulation; our amendment was tabled partly to raise that. It seems to me that Britain has taken an unconscionable time to move in this direction; and that we need to move in this direction if we are actually going to provide the flexible framework that, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, in his report is looking towards. The sooner such a framework is set up and working the better. There is, as I said, a certain coalescence of agreement around a number of the issues. Clearly, we will be returning to this matter on Report, and talking at length about it. As some Members of the Committee know, I shall not be here for Report, but I shall read Hansard with considerable interest when I return.