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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I absolutely accept that there may be a need to apply this to the Young People’s Learning Agency, but what I cannot understand is why, because it is necessary in that respect, it also has to be applied to local authorities, when there is already a general duty on local authorities in the 1999 Act. The danger is that every single piece of legislation brought to this House or another place that entails expenditure by local authorities will then have these clauses put in them. That is what I am seeking to prevent. Perhaps the Minister will take this back and consider whether we need to replicate it here. I can see why the Government may have needed it when legislation was introduced on the Learning and Skills Council some years back, but it looks to me as if there has been an automatic application of what applied to the Learning and Skills Council to local authorities when it is not necessary, because it is already embodied in legislation.