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Education: Adult Learners

My Lords, I should declare an interest as the vice-chancellor of the University of Greenwich. I have five questions for my noble friend. First, does he agree that the Leitch agenda will not be addressed unless we expand continuing professional development? If he agrees, will he accept that it is vital to exempt institutional credit and short-course awards from the ELQ policy? Secondly, will the Government include HNDs and HNCs, along with foundation degrees, in that exempt category, since the transition from higher nationals to foundation degrees is far from complete? Thirdly, why does the list of exempted teacher training qualifications not include the post-compulsory education and training certificates for lecturers in FE colleges? Is this an error by the Higher Education Funding Council or are the Government abandoning the commitment made when I was a Minister for further education teachers to be qualified teachers? Fourthly, does the Minister accept that blanket exemptions for all science subjects, some of which have little or no relevance to the knowledge economy, and the exclusion of a subject such as pharmacy, where there is a manifest shortage of practitioners, are wholly irrational? Fifthly and finally, will he ask his right honourable friend to delay the introduction of this policy until 2009, first, to allow universities to make the necessary adjustments to change their recruitment policies and, secondly, to allow for further thinking about the massive trap of unintended consequences into which, regrettably, the Government have fallen? I regret having to say this but I passionately believe that a little less haste and a bit more consultation would go a very long way, so I hope that my noble friend will be able to reconsider the matter.