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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

I agree with a great deal of what the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) said. In fact, I think that I agree with all of it. I hope that the Under- Secretary of State for Wales, in what I guess is his first speaking role from the Front Bench, will address some of the comments made. Briefly, I want to touch on two points, the first of which is a point of process. The hon. Gentleman said that this is a matter for the Privy Council. Indeed, it is. When I was Secretary of State for Wales, I was regarded, as is the present holder of that post, as being the Privy Councillor for Wales, and it seems to me that the present Secretary of State for Wales should have been involved much more closely with this matter than he has been. There is no doubt that this has been a pretty messy development. We shall refer later, when discussing amendments Nos. 8 and 9, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), to the constitutional aspects of the Bill. However, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings was right to point to the procedure that was put in place after the enactment of the Government of Wales Act 2006, which ensures that there should be a proper legislative Order in Council to deal with these matters. Why? Because all of the detail we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman would have been discussed at much greater length. There would have been much greater co-ordination between the National Assembly for Wales and our Government, and that would have been done, if I may say so, in a particularly Welsh way. We could have discussed why it is that further education colleges in Wales will not be given the same opportunities as those in England. My second point concerns precisely that. I spent 17 years of my life teaching in further education in Wales, and since that time there have been enormous developments in the sector. All of us who represent Welsh constituencies can point to tremendous co-ordination and co-operation between higher and further education in Wales, which is to be commended. However, this legislation goes beyond that. I cannot understand why it is that the National Assembly for Wales—one assumes—and the Welsh Assembly Government are opposed in principle to giving the power to further education colleges to award degrees when in England such colleges have exactly such powers, particularly given that the body representing further education in Wales has clearly said that the principle of colleges having such powers should be accepted. Perhaps it is an example of seeing a chance to be different for the sake of being different. If that is the case, that is wrong. I look forward to hearing the Under-Secretary say that that is not the case and that there is good reason why the Government’s proposals for England are not good enough for the people of Wales.