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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

There is a wide consensus in the House that the idea of foundation degrees in further education is an important and progressive step. It does what the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) said, helping to create better, wider and stronger progression routes through further and on to higher education. It is particularly important among many of our most disadvantaged communities, where participation rates in further and higher education are nowhere near as high as they should be. The idea of creating intermediate steps to engage people more fully in further and higher education will be warmly welcomed by all of us. As the Minister said yesterday in a different context, the settlement for Wales is very complicated. Sometimes even Members of Parliament find it difficult to get our heads around the process with which we must engage. As many Members have said, the process by which we have arrived at this afternoon’s discussion has been far from ideal. I am sure that those lessons will be taken back for consideration. Will the Minister tell us a little about the specific issue in relation to the Privy Council? While it is right and proper that elected Members of Parliament should debate here all matters that are of interest and importance to our constituents, the proper place for a decision on the shape, structure and future of further education policy in Wales lies in Wales. It is perfectly proper to hold the web review to which the hon. Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire (Nick Ainger) referred, and for a decision to be made in that context, but we should enable the Assembly to decide whether foundation degrees are the way forward. My party believes that there is a strong case for their introduction, but that is ultimately a decision for the National Assembly. Is the constitutional hurdle that the National Assembly in no circumstances has the power to confer functions, issue instructions or whatever the polite terminology is with regard to the Privy Council? Is that the case for the Scottish Parliament too? Alternatively, could we provide the enabling power to them through an amendment to the Bill? I hope that the new Welsh Assembly Government will allow that minority of colleges in Wales that currently wish to proceed with foundation degrees to do so. It should be possible for us to enable the Welsh Assembly Government to make that decision. The last thing that Plaid Cymru Members would want is to prevent the Welsh Assembly Government from conferring that power on further education colleges in Wales that wish to go down that route.