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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

New clause 5 and consequential amendments Nos. 26 to 28 are essential probing amendments designed to tease out the Government’s intentions with regard to 16-to-19 funding, following the announcement of a new departmental structure. The effect of those amending provisions, taken together, is to remove the statutory duty on the Learning and Skills Council to provide education, training and leisure activities to 16 to 19-year-olds. The Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education may recall our previous debates on the subject. For example, he said:"““Lord Leitch made it clear—as the Government have made clear—that the role of the LSC can and should continue to evolve and change, but Lord Leitch also made it clear that instinctively he was not in favour of ripping up structures and starting again simply for the hell of it, but that we had to reform the process overall.””" He also said:"““The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) made a criticism of 16 to 19 funding, and she advocated that it be transferred to local authorities. I am not convinced by her argument, and it is usually the case in these issues that the Liberal Democrats support the view of providers. In my experience of talking to college principals up and down the country, there would not be support for her proposition. .””—[Official Report, 21 May 2007; Vol. 460, c. 171-74.]" That is interesting, as just two weeks ago the Prime Minister announced that that money would be transferred to local authorities. First, I warmly welcome that announcement and that change and I invite the Minister to do likewise. I believe that if it is done well, this could offer an exciting shift in policy. It could finally allow us to join up 14-to-19 education in a genuinely coherent way. It could provide an opportunity finally to end the invidious gap between students in the sixth form and those at further education colleges. It could herald the opportunity mentioned in the White Paper for funding to follow the student, so that people in the 14-to-19 range could move between institutions if required in the light of the Government’s reforms of diplomas. I view this as genuinely exciting and I hope that the Minister has reflected on the change over the past two weeks and will feel as excited as I am and willing to embrace it. In order to generate the necessary change, we need legislation. I am trying to be helpful by tabling amending provisions to repeal part of the Learning and Skills Act 2000, which would be required for enactment. It will also be necessary to amend the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to place a new statutory duty on local authorities for 16 to 19-year-olds. That is not in order for this Bill, so I cannot do that, but I have done what I can to help. I hope that the Minister will receive it in the helpful spirit in which it is intended. I assume that the Minister will respond in a few moments and say that he does not wish to enact these provisions now, but to go away, consult and consider them very carefully. If so, will he tell me when he wishes these changes to be brought forward and whether it is his intention to repeal the relevant section of the Learning and Skills Act? If not, why not? Does he intend to continue to use the Learning and Skills Council as a conduit for money for 16 to 19-year-olds? If so, does he not think that it could be an extra barrier of bureaucracy? If he thinks that the LSC should continue to play a role in 16-to-19 education, is it mainly in respect of apprenticeships? There seems to be a bit of turf war going on at the moment between the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. I hope that the result of that turf war will be that, eventually, many apprenticeships will be transferred to the DSCF and not continue to remain with DIUS. Only in that way will we get genuinely joined-up treatment of all 14-to-19 provision. It would be unfortunate if that were to generate weird barriers between part-time and on-the-job learning. The important thing is how the transfer of 16-to-19 money is done: the transfer alone will not generate what we want if the money continues to be ring-fenced, and if the 0-to-16 funding continues to be ring-fenced in a separate grant. If there must be ring-fencing—which, on the whole, I am not in favour of—it would be much better to ring-fence 14-to-19 funding, and then to have 0 to 13, or at least 0 to 10 and 11 to 13, in separate grants. The announcement has enormous implications for the Bill. Indeed, it renders some aspects of the Bill redundant. Does the Minister intend to bring forward legislation at a later stage to amend the Bill in the light of the announcement? We are being asked to pass a Bill that contains a number of powers that will be irrelevant if the Government move the 16-to19 money—in particular, clause 17, which we will debate at some length on the next group of amendments, which gives intervention powers to the Learning and Skills Council. Were the money for 16 to 19-year-olds moved, however, many colleges would no longer have the LSC as their funding partner. That would seem to bring the proposal into question. Similarly, with regard to clauses 14 to 16, which refer to the merger, dissolution and publication of proposals for new colleges, the Learning and Skills Council may not fund such colleges at all, and would certainly never be the major funder. Of the £9 billion now provided by the LSC, the Government propose to move £6 billion to local authorities. I hope that the Minister will tell us whether he intends to amend the Bill in the future. I do not feel comfortable passing a Bill now that gives powers to the LSC that will clearly become irrelevant in a relatively short period. It will be unhelpful if the Minister cannot assure me on the record that the Bill will be amended when the new proposals come forward, with respect not only to the duties on local authorities, but to other clauses that relate to LSC powers over colleges. Lastly, what will remain with the LSC and what might its role be? In Committee, the Minister said:"““Even under the demand-led approach that we are moving towards—we envisage most of the funding going through the demand-led process—there would still be a relationship with the Learning and Skills Council. Funding would still come from the council. If it will not have the ultimate power of intervention, and if we want to protect the public purse and the public interest, who will take on the responsibility?””––[Official Report, Further Education and Training Public Bill Committee, 14 June 2007; c. 110.]" In the light of the recent announcement, does the Minister still believe that to be the case? Does he still see a role for the LSC? Many rumours abound about the Government’s intention to move that money for 19-plus adult skills to regional development agencies or to sector skills councils. I was hoping that the Treasury sub-national review might have been published by now to give us at least some hint of the direction of the Government’s travel. Although ministerial appointments have been published, those proposals have not.