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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I thank the Minister for his reply and thank all noble Lords for supporting the amendment, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Low, for the perceptive points that he made. I was a little concerned about what the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, said. I am sure that he did not mean that access to apprenticeships by disabled people would necessarily lower standards. He is shaking his head, so I correctly interpreted that he does not mean that. However, he made another point about putting excessive burdens on employers. Of course we would not want to do that. There are many supportive organisations that can support employees and apprentices with disabilities and provide them with the wherewithal to enable them to do the work part of the job and the training part. With the help and support of those organisations, I am sure that there would not be excessive burdens on employers if apprenticeships should become equally accessible to people with disabilities as to fully able people. I know that that is an objective that we all share. The Minister relied very much in his reply on the DDA. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, pointed out, there is a lot more to it than that. I am reassured by the fact that the Minister told us that there are ongoing conversations about how to reassure people about this aspect of the Bill. With that reassurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 12 withdrawn. Amendments 13 and 14 not moved. Clause 10 agreed.