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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend, in his typically learned and well-informed way, makes two points. First, he makes the point that the split into two Departments creates a problem of clarity—it is difficult to know where responsibilities will lie for different aspects of the previous Department’s work. He then made a second and even more profound point about the bureaucracy, over-regulation and micro-management that has typified the Government’s approach to further education and to skills more generally. Because I have high hopes of the Minister—rejuvenated by his reappointment—I hope that he will take the opportunity of the response to Leitch to clear away some of that bureaucracy and lift some of the burden on our excellent further education colleges, so that we can meet the skills targets that he wants to be met and on which we share a view. I do not take a negative view—I am not pessimistic—but unless the Minister rises to the challenge identified by my hon. Friend, I am afraid that my hopes will be dashed and the whole House, indeed the whole country, will be disappointed. According to the Times Educational Supplement,"““Billions of pounds in funding for colleges is due to be taken from the Learning and Skills Council and put under the control of local authorities. The handover of about £7 billion of the LSC’s £11bn-a-year budget will be the culmination of Gordon Brown’s reorganisation of education.””" The reform will require yet more legislation, presumably as part of the proposed Bill to raise the school leaving age to 18. We had a taste of it in what could be described as the early Queen’s Speech—the pre-Queen’s Speech Queen’s Speech—which hinted that there might be further legislation to do just that.