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Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]

Rather curiously, a Labour Whip has been going around asking everyone to speak for as long as possible. I assume that another Department is attempting to table some amendments in the Table Office at the moment. At this point, however, I am probably allowed to be brief. This is a small Bill, as the Minister said, and I am afraid that it is not a particularly inspiring Bill either. Curiously, it was published between the Foster and the Leitch reviews without directly referring to either. Even more curiously, much of the Bill has been superseded by Government announcements on moving 16-to-19 funding to local authorities. We are left with a Bill that contains a number of new powers that will effectively be made irrelevant by the Government’s proposals to move funding to local authorities. Disappointingly, the Minister was unwilling to acknowledge that during the earlier stages of debate, which makes it difficult for us to appreciate the full implications of the Bill a couple of years down the line. Unfortunately, the Bill still contains intervention powers for the Learning and Skills Council. Given that those have never been used by the Secretary of State, that seems largely pointless. By sleight of hand, the LSC will still be allowed to instruct colleges to dismiss senior staff. That is even more bizarre, given that the Government intend to transfer funding powers for many colleges away from the LSC altogether. Nevertheless, with those provisos, I wish to acknowledge how far the Government have moved since the Bill was first published in the other place. The Bill is much better than when it was first discussed. One of the sections of the Bill that has been improved considerably is that which relates to foundation degrees. The Government accepted Opposition criticism about progression routes, and made them much clearer. Similarly, in response to concerns that I raised in Committee, the Minister has agreed to amend the guidance on franchising such that it is no longer automatic on completion of a probation period. The Bill is therefore much improved, albeit that many of the new powers will be made irrelevant, unfortunately, in no time at all. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches—I say ““we””, but I appear to be left on my own at this point—will support the Bill. I hope, however, that the other place will continue to press the Government on intervention powers. I hope that it will extract further reassurances on the Government’s intentions with regard to moving 16-to-19 money to local authorities. Given a little time, I suspect that the Government’s thinking might have advanced, and that they might be able to give reassurances in the other place that they could not give to me today. During the progress of the Bill, we spent a great deal of time discussing foundation degrees. As I have said to the Minister during those proceedings, and on other occasions outside the Chamber, the danger is that the controversy over foundation degrees will obscure the real challenge, which is to provide better, more flexible routes to move between further and higher education. When the Government have thought through the implications of moving 16-to-19 money away from the LSC, I hope that one of the reforms that they will consider next will be to make it much easier for students to move between further and higher education. We know that further education transforms lives, and if we had a more flexible system that allowed young and older people, depending on their caring and other responsibilities, to move from an institution close to their home to somewhere else, as their responsibilities and choices changed during their course of study, we might have an exciting opportunity to transform lives in the future. I thank the Minister for being willing to make changes during the Bill’s progress, and I hope that further reassurances will be extracted in the other place.