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Skills for Growth

My Lords, I endorse the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, on the crucial importance of careers advice, to which the Secretary of State responded very favourably. As I am sure he is well aware, the new engineering diploma for 14 to 19 year-olds has got off to a very good start. However, it is depressing to read the following in the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s report on the diploma’s first year. The report states: "““Careers education and guidance must improve in quality and quantity, in line with the increased … options available to students following the introduction of Diplomas””." Of course, that is the responsibility of another department—the DCSF. I hope that the Secretary of State will use his influence to see that this is done because if students do not know what the options are, they will not end up with the right training, the right skills and, eventually, the right careers. I wish to mention one other matter. I declare an interest as the honorary president of the National Skills Academy for Nuclear. The sector skills councils vary enormously in their competence and achievements. I would not have accepted that post if I had not been entirely satisfied that the NSAN comes right at the top of the league. However, a lot of them do not. When the Secretary of State talks about getting rid of some of the clutter, is he indicating that there will be a substantial rationalisation of the sector skills councils, so that those which are not making progress and have lost the confidence of employers will disappear and their functions will be taken over by those which can properly claim to be employer-led? Some of them have told me very firmly, ““Yes, publicly we say we are employer-led, but in fact we are not; we are led by the Government””. That is not a successful recipe.