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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I shall speak also to Amendments 232A, 237 and 254. Before I do so, I shall comment on what has just been said. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made a good point when he suggested that there should be somebody on the Ofqual board who understands public opinion and knows how to deal with it. There is nothing wrong with PR companies—I used to work for one—and they are experts in understanding how the public will respond to the message an organisation puts out. The Bill contains no duty on Ofqual to carry out its functions in a timely manner. Although I have no reason to believe that it would not do so, I think it is necessary to put Amendment 227 in the Bill among Ofqual’s objectives. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, has a similar amendment—Amendment 243—in this group. There are times when the good offices of Ofqual will be required to move into action quite quickly to adjudicate on qualifications when things go wrong. It is important that we should be able to rely on the chief regulator to report on relevant matters when we need to know, as often young people’s whole careers depend on the results of examinations. When things go wrong, it can be disastrous for them. They could lose a whole year at college or university, or lose out on a job if something goes wrong with the recognition of their qualification. That is why Amendment 227 is needed. Amendment 277 should be clearly differentiated from Amendment 232A to Clause 125(4), which relates to public confidence. In that subsection, the public need to know that the standards of regulator qualifications remain consistent over time, which is why I have put into the amendment the same phrase, "(including over time)", to be found in previous subsections. The Government might think it superfluous to put it in twice, but, if this is so, perhaps the Minister could reassure us that the public confidence objective is linked to the assessment standards objective. Amendment 237 relates to Ofqual’s general duties in Clause 126(1). We believe that it is so important to relate Ofqual’s duties to the interests of learners that we want to put that in here. Qualifications are not just things by which employers or further education providers can assess an individual’s suitability for a certain job or course; they are for the learner himself to know what he has achieved, to act as a matter of pride and self-esteem, and to encourage him to believe that, perhaps having achieved this, he can go further. There must be nothing more demoralising than to work hard for a qualification only to find that there is something wrong with it and that it has been downgraded in some way. That is why this should not be left to market forces. The interests of learners really need to be in there. Amendment 254 in this group is also in the interests of learners. This would ensure that if the accreditation of a qualification is withdrawn, there must be a transitional period to allow learners either to complete the course or to arrange to withdraw from it and do something else without being left without options or put out of pocket by having to pay for another course. The amendment would fulfil your Lordships’ very famous tradition of changing "may" to "must"—I know that we all like to debate that one. Those are the brief explanations of my group of amendments. I beg to move.