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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

The Government’s approach has a touch of rearranging the deckchairs and changing the sheet music for the dance band on the Titanic as we face our journey to the lifeboats. One wonders whether, expecting some massive change, the Learning and Skills Council is desperately trying to reorganise itself before it is reorganised in a way not of its own choosing. We need the Government to be straightforward, and the hon. Lady’s new clause and amendments give them an opportunity to be so. Do they envisage a long-term future for the LSC in its current form, in the context of the new clause and amendments? Do they expect it to continue much as it is now, or do they anticipate fundamental reform of the funding and management of skills of the kind that is hinted at, indeed identified, by Leitch, and which Members in all parts of the House consider now to be necessary? As I have said, there is mention of further legislation, presumably as part of the proposed Bill to raise the school leaving age to 18. Conservative Members have concerns about the proposal to return college funding to local authority control. We are proud of what many further education colleges achieve. I make no apology for repeating what I have said before—that the House should celebrate their work, congratulate the professionals in them, and applaud the achievements of the many students who pass through them. Conservative Members trace those achievements back to the crucial Further and Higher Education Act 1992, which gave further education colleges their freedom from local authority control and set them on a path to the success that they now enjoy.