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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I shall speak also to Amendment 60. These amendments address the same issue that caught the eye of my noble friends on my Front Bench. We are addressing the question of the preparation of the first draft specification. Seeing the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in his seat, I am reminded of the process by which the first model of anything is produced and of the great importance of taking everyone’s views before it is produced. When I did my National Service, I was in a regiment equipped with the Centurion tank mark 1, which had a magnificent 600-horsepower Merlin Rolls-Royce engine to power it. However, people had forgotten that the tank was not always being moved around by this massive piece of machinery. It had to stay still in one place for a long time and, when you started that piece of machinery after a long time, it produced a large puff of smoke, which told the enemy where it was. Also, while you were in that place, you had to listen on your wireless to your superior officer—who, if you were extremely fortunate, was someone like the noble Lord—and that took electricity. In order to charge a 12-volt battery about once every four hours, you had to start the main engine, again emitting a little puff of white smoke and telling the enemy where you were. One would not want the same process to befall those who were designing the first draft that we are discussing here. I am sure that the noble Baroness will tell us the very good reasons why the requirement to consult is specifically excluded in both the English and Welsh sections of the Bill, and I look forward with great enthusiasm to hearing those reasons. I beg to move.