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Regional Learning and Skills Councils Regulations 2007

I welcome these regulations and thank the Minister for explaining them. They are a follow-up to the Further Education and Training Act that passed through this House last year and embody the shift from the 47 local learning and skills councils to the nine regional learning and skills councils. The noble Lord, Lord Jones, may be interested to know that they will be backed up by 150 local partnerships in which FE colleges will undoubtedly play some part. The Explanatory Memorandum that accompanies the regulations explains that the immediate costs will be about £60 million, mostly redundancy costs for the many employees of the 47 local learning and skills councils, but in the long term there will be a saving to the Government of some £40 million, which will be ploughed into adult apprenticeship schemes. I hope that, in time, the Government may put a little more than that into adult apprenticeships because they will need a lot more money than that. I have three questions. One is trivial and perhaps shows my ignorance of the way these regulations are drafted. The Council with a capital C that is referred in the regulations is, I take it, the national Learning and Skills Council, but there is nothing in the regulations that spells that out. We normally get a little paragraph that tells us that the ““Council”” is the Learning and Skills Council. Perhaps it is unnecessary because it is spelt out in the Act, but I take it that it is the ““Council”” mentioned here. My second point is more substantive. The old local learning and skills councils had 750 non-executive members. They spanned business, local authorities, further and higher education institutions, trade unions, voluntary bodies and other local interests. These regulations do not specify any requirements for representation or membership. Members are to be appointed by the national Learning and Skills Council and approved by the Secretary of State, and the chairman is to be appointed by the Secretary of State. Will nothing spell out that these councils must be reasonably representative of different bodies within the region? It would seem appropriate for people from business, local authorities, the further and higher education sector, trade unions and the various voluntary bodies to be represented on these regional councils. Will there be further regulations or will guidance be issued? Will anything further be done? There is a danger that the whole thing could become a self-perpetuating oligarchy, with all our friends being reappointed in these positions. How do we stop that happening? Finally, the Minister talked about the need for strong and robust accountability. The only accountability for these regional learning and skills councils is through the Secretary of State. There is no accountability at a regional level to any elected, democratic authority lower than through Parliament. It is right that we have accountability through Parliament but it is a somewhat protracted, indirect accountability. Talking about strong, robust accountability is nice but I think that it is a bit pie in the sky.