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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I have just had a brief thought on what the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said about consultation. It is perfectly true that the sector skills councils are where the serious thinking about the nature of training and so on is going on, and consultation with them is key and a starting point. Nevertheless, further education colleges are, by their nature, local institutions and it is the local employers, on the whole, who will be providing the apprenticeships. They are the ones who have to be engaged sufficiently to understand the value of providing apprenticeships. My experience of negotiating with employers is that this is the last thing on their list of priorities. They have other urgent priorities in keeping their businesses afloat and they need a lot of persuasion and engagement if they are going to make a real success of the apprenticeship scheme. So I have a great deal of sympathy with the idea of consulting local employers, getting to know them and pushing ahead in their minds the importance of the apprenticeships that they will offer.