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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I certainly believe that what we need is more good comprehensive schools. One of the striking features of Finland's education system—the feature that is crucial to its success—is the quality of people entering education, and specifically the quality of people entering primary and secondary teaching. Its teachers are drawn from the top 10 per cent. of graduates. In the spirit of bipartisanship, I should add that the Government's support for the Teach First programme, for example, and the efforts Lord Adonis made when he was at the Department to ensure that more people from top performing universities with high-level qualifications entered teaching were right. We will do everything we can do to support such steps. However, it is important not only that we get good people into teaching, but that we know that the exams are of a high quality, and, as the hon. Member for Yeovil pointed out, it is worrying that Kathleen Tattersall herself, the current chair of Ofqual, has said she is not clear about how standards should be maintained over time. The Secretary of State was reticent about the role that he has, but I understand that, under clause 138 of the Bill, he has the right to intervene to specify minimum standards. He can lay out in a memorandum of understanding to the chair of Ofqual exactly what he may require in any examination. Independence is important for any regulator, but it is quite right for the person properly elected and chosen as the Minister to lay out certain minimum requirements, and I hope that in the course of debate in Committee the Secretary of State or one of his ministerial colleagues will have a chance to give us further and better particulars on what exactly he intends to do to ensure that there are certain floor standards in examinations.