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Education and Skills Bill

I shall attempt to respond. The noble Lord has a great deal of wisdom in his remarks. I had a wonderful sentence which I could not bring myself to read out—and I shall not do so now—which said that adequate could be defined as sufficient and, of course, sufficient as adequate. I am not sure that that helps to take us forward. The Learning and Skills Council is operating at a population level and the Adult Advancement and Careers Service is operating at a one-to-one individual level. The argument that we are making is that aspirations are defined at an individual level and requirements less so. I am very happy to write to noble Lords and we can have this discussion again, if the noble Baroness will be kind enough to withdraw her amendment and give me another chance. I appreciate that these are very important definitions that need to be clear, so I am not belittling her amendment in any way. I have just been handed a further note that says that this—whatever ““this”” is—reflects the current duty on the Learning and Skills Council in relation to young people in the Learning and Skills Act 2000. That refers to another point that I have not made clear, about consistency with the legislation applying to young people. The adult provisions here are consistent with what already exists for young people. We are keen not to create an inconsistency. I have another note saying that aspirations are subjective, while requirements are measured against national priorities—literacy and numeracy, level 2 and level 3.