Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Indeed, that was precisely the point that I was trying, rather ham-fistedly, to make earlier. Between us, we have probably got there, and I hope that the Minister will respond. I have two final points. First, I do not think that anyone in the House would disagree with the view that scrapping the current careers organisation and starting afresh is desperately needed. We have some really good people working in Connexions; we have some good people working on careers in local authorities; and many in the private sector have good skills for dealing with careers. Putting them all together into a new service will not be easy, but it needs to be done and done effectively. During my exchange with the Secretary of State, I was quite surprised by his response to my question about careers advice relating to apprenticeships. Unless we can get high-quality vocational guidance into schools so that young people of all abilities can get access to opportunities for apprenticeships, quite frankly, apprenticeships will be seen as something to do if people are not very bright or no good at traditional learning. That is entirely the wrong approach to take; everybody must be offered this. The explanatory notes to clause 35 make it clear that"““any consideration of what careers advice would be in the best interests of their pupils covers consideration of whether it would be in their best interests to include apprenticeships as part of their careers education.””" What that says, and what the Bill says, is that, again, the teachers or somebody in the service will decide who gets advice on apprenticeships. That is fundamentally wrong. Every single student must be exposed to the same careers guidance. Of course it can be tailored to individual needs, but organisations simply saying—I think some schools will say this—that apprenticeships are not for them, that they do not want their students doing them and that they want students to stay on in the sixth form must be knocked on the head. My final point, Madam Deputy Speaker, is about progression into higher education. I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise; I get excited. My Committee was absolutely clear about the fact that, to have the status to attract the brightest youngsters, advanced apprenticeships at level 3 must be seen as a progression route into higher education. We recommended that UCAS points be allocated for advanced apprenticeships and I see no reason why that should not be the case. The Minister disagreed with the Committee, but I hope that that aspect can be revisited during consideration of the Bill so that, before it leaves the House, we have a clear statement of intent that UCAS must be involved to accredit apprenticeships for points for higher education.