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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, it is very seldom, if ever, that I have the temerity to disagree with my noble friend Lady O’Neill, but there is a first time for everything and this may well be it. I refer to the comments that she and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, made about government Amendment 172. Perhaps overnaively I simply read this, first, as a partial compromise but, secondly, as a way of ensuring that we know the relative powers of the Secretary of State and Ofqual. That is essential if we are to ensure the independence of Ofqual. The one way of being assured that these powers are limited is to demand that there are public statements and scrutiny in both Houses. The temptation to which Ministers and Secretaries of State—present company excepted, I am sure—are subject often leads to meddling behind the scenes. There have been difficulties in the past over the work of QCA and its predecessor. The whole drive of many of us has been to bring all such comment into the public arena so that the Secretary of State or any other Minister must say publicly what the advice and activity are and, particularly through these amendments, must be subject to the scrutiny of Parliament. It may be that party politics occasionally breaks out down the Corridor, but I am sure that in the cooler and more temperate discussions that we tend to have here we might move a step beyond that. I support the Government and think that they have moved significantly.