---

Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, it was very pleasant indeed to hear from the noble Baroness’s lips the echo of what I had been saying on new Section 56G. She gave a very clear exposition of the limits of "have regard to", which is exactly what I had been trying to take her up on. I am therefore confident that she understands exactly what I was on about then and look forward to a very positive reply. However, I think that the noble Baroness took the amendment of my noble friend Lord Eccles too lightly. The key thing is transparency. There is nothing in the Bill that says that the direction must be given in public. Let us suppose that it is government policy—it could be said to be so at the moment—to raise educational attainments. If Ofqual is told to "have regard to" that, that is pushing Ofqual off course; it is giving Ofqual an incentive to come up with the answer that standards are rising. Ofqual must be insulated from that. Therefore, the very least that we should look for here, which I hope my Front Bench will take seriously on Report if we do not make progress on it, is that any use of this provision be made public. There should be no question of any such direction being given without it being made public.