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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

I have not discussed these proposals with the AOC since the machinery of government changes. However, I have worked long enough and hard enough with the AOC to know that, in the two weeks since these announcements were made, if it had a fundamental problem, it would have beaten a path to my door to ensure that I was aware of that message, and it has not done so. I am confident that we have responded; we have listened; we have moved; and we have addressed the concerns that Opposition Members and colleges have put forward. This is about getting the balance right. These powers of intervention will be very rarely used. We want governing bodies to take responsibility for their own circumstances and to deal with underperformance of their own volition, but it must be right that, in extremis, when all else has failed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) said, there should remain a power of intervention. There have been a number of instances over the years, particularly during the 1990s, when there have been real cases of failure in the system. I am sure that, if that occurred in Opposition Members’ constituencies and they were told that the LSC, the Government or anyone else had no power of intervention, they would be the first to complain.