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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

The Minister said that we need the specification, the standards and the agreement. They are all defined in the Bill. The problem is that the definition of an apprenticeship is spread out in bits and bobs throughout the Bill. I started by saying that we have some sympathy with the notion that we need to start by having a clear definition of what this is about. My noble friend Lady Walmsley has pointed out to me that while I was objecting to some extent to the notion that an apprentice must be employed, the wording of the amendment is that an apprenticeship is, ""an agreement with an employer to train a person"." The Barnardo's or Rathbone type of scheme frequently involves an agreement with an employer. As far as the Skills Commission was concerned, if we looked to programme-led apprenticeships, they had to involve a great deal of workplace-based learning leading on to an agreement with an employer. We have all this business about the specifications and so forth, but they mean much more if they start off with a general definition. We may want to add to it, but it does not exclude the rest of the Bill in any sense. The rest of the Bill builds on a definition that could be at the beginning.