---

Education and Skills Bill

I have listened carefully to the points made and have picked up on an interesting horticultural slant for this time in the evening. I want to do justice to the remarks of noble Lords opposite, and I hope they will forgive me if I detain them a little at this hour. I want to make clear what we are trying to do. The Bill seeks to strengthen and streamline the QCA’s role in maintaining standards and qualifications. If the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, were not so frustrated by his concerns, he might feel that he could support this clause because our direction of travel should give him some comfort. The QCA will be given additional powers to recognise awarding and authenticating bodies rather than just accrediting individual qualifications. This will mean that the QCA can adopt a more risk-based approach to regulation, placing more weight on the general competence of awarding bodies and their processes rather than scrutinising each and every qualification separately—very much as the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, suggested. I think that I can offer her the reassurance she is looking for. In this way the regulator can focus its efforts on where they will make the most difference, providing a leaner and stronger system for safeguarding standards. The provisions in the clause can apply to all regulated qualifications and are an important plank in our programme for strengthening the system for assuring qualifications standards. They are a forerunner for the legislation that we aim to bring forward in the next Session, when I hope we can give the noble Lord the flowers that he is looking for by establishing a fully independent regulator. We consulted on the proposals in December last year and, in the light of a generally positive response, we are currently drafting a Bill. On vocational qualifications, the clause is part of the Government’s commitment to implement the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Leitch, and the proposals in the White Paper, World Class Skills, which we published a year ago. Again, this will move the QCA away from detailed scrutiny of vocational qualifications, enabling more streamlined, strategic and effective regulation. This policy is rooted in the vocational qualifications reform programme launched in November 2005. Clause 142 is an important step in delivering our commitment to accredit good employer training and to developing a demand-led vocational qualification system. On the wider policy context and the reform of the QCA, I should make it crystal clear that it is not being reformed because it has failed but because we want to improve the way in which standards of qualifications and assessments are safeguarded. As noble Lords have pointed, at the moment the QCA wears two different hats: first, the regulatory one, which safeguards standards and keeps awarding bodies on their toes over qualifications and the National Assessment Agency over the national curriculum assessments; and, secondly, it has a non-regulatory hat, which develops the national curriculum, provides advice to Ministers, delivers national curriculum assessments through its delivery arm, the National Assessment Agency, develops criteria for 14 to 19 qualifications and helps to reform the vocational qualification system. We accept that there is a tension within the current arrangements for safeguarding standards. The QCA is a regulator but it is also the key adviser to Ministers on curriculum matters and is responsible for the design and delivery of the national curriculum tests. To make these roles more clearly separate and to remove any potential conflict of interest, we have decided that the time is right to make the changes if we are to set up an independent regulator and the Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator, Ofqual, and the QCA are to evolve into the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, QCDA, concentrating on curriculum development, assessment and qualifications delivery. The highly regrettable problems we have witnessed recently over the late delivery of national curriculum test results clearly illustrate the need for an independent regulator. If we had not already established Ofqual in an interim form, the inquiry being led by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, would be reporting to QCA on aspects of the delivery of its own tests rather than to Ofqual. As the new independent regulator, Ofqual will give the public, schools, colleges, higher education and employers greater confidence that exam standards are being maintained. It will therefore ensure that young people and their teachers feel that their hard work and achievements are properly recognised. Because of the need to set up a regulator there is a knock-on effect that change is needed to QCA, hence the new QCDA, which will inherit QCA’s non-regulatory functions. The QCDA will build on the firm foundations laid by the QCA. It will be the key source of expertise supporting Ministers in the design of the curriculum and related qualifications and of learning and development in the early years, and it will be the organisation that develops and delivers national curriculum tests and ensures the safe delivery of public qualifications. Removing this clause would be to prevent more effective and strategic risk-based regulation by the QCA in its current form. I am disappointed that there is no button on the website for the noble Lord to use. I shall go back and have a look at that, because it would be an innovation worth pursuing. There is cross-party consensus about the need for a national curriculum, but I accept that innovation has to be a good thing. There is an awful lot of it going on with regard to A-levels. The QCA has a record of reducing bureaucracy, but I believe that the clause is the right way to go. It is a forerunner of a Bill that is being developed now. I hope that Members will feel able to support it.