Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will be aware of the proposals by our party for a transformation in rail policy to deliver high-speed rail from the south to the north, to reduce air travel and CO2 emissions. To deliver that vision—on which the Government, as in so many other areas, are belatedly copying us—we will need many apprenticeships in railway engineering, whoever is in government. My hon. Friend will also be aware that the numbers applying for construction apprenticeships dwarf the number of places that have historically been available, and the number has fallen again this year. We have had some discussion of standards today, and the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) rehearsed one side of the argument with passion. There is august jousting between the parties on this issue, but we need to move on. We can all agree that Ofqual is a good thing, if it acts independently. It needs to provide us with accurate information so that this false battle about the figures can stop. Exams now have a different purpose, so we need to recognise that many more people take A-levels than used to do so, and the number going into higher education has increased. An instrument that was designed to measure a small proportion of the population is now being used to measure a much greater proportion and it may need to be retuned in some way. We need a common understanding, not faux battles that help no one, least of all the students who work so hard and deserve praise for what they achieve, rather than having questions asked about the importance of what they have done. The head of Ofqual is appointed by the Crown, and all the other non-executive members of the board are appointed by the Secretary of State. Personally, I have doubts about whether that is the right form of governance to foster confidence when so many people have lost faith in the system. It will be worth considering whether we can give Ofqual greater constitutional independence from the Executive. I know that the Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee, who is no longer in his place, would certainly welcome the opportunity to play a part in that, and that might be one way to restore confidence, whoever is in government. The Bill transfers all control of 16-to-18 education currently held by learning and skills councils to local education authorities—a form of localism. There has not been much talk of localism today. Instead of simply abolishing the Learning and Skills Council, which is, as has been said, the largest quango set up by a Government who are so fond of them, or providing a light-touch funding council that would allow most decision making to be local, two quangos are to be set up. Perhaps the Minister can explain in his summing up why we are to have two quangos for the price of one. Can he throw some light on the experience that FE colleges will have? Three excellent FE colleges serve my constituency: Hull college, which is in a neighbouring constituency; East Riding college in Beverley; and Bishop Burton college near Beverley. Trying to work out how many organisations the principals of those colleges will have to deal with under the new settlement is frightening. The Government have rightly said we need a simplified system that is lighter of touch and less bureaucratic. We all share that vision, but we cannot see it realised in the detail of the Bill; instead, we face the possibility that a local college in my area will have to liaise with the local education authority in whose area it sits, neighbouring local education authorities and a sub-regional body of local education authorities that will take on certain provisions not left for individual local authorities to deal with—although they will deal with some things themselves—as well as the YPLA, the SFA and of course the NAS, which members of the Children, Schools and Families Committee may think sounds remarkably like the NAA, a body that had pretensions above its station as a division of the QCA, and helped to lead to the exam delivery fiasco last year. The NAS as a subdivision, with its own chief executive and its own amour propre, could lead to similar problems in that regard. The proposal is not a simplification. I do not know whether a fundamental change can be made in Committee, but I put it to the Minister that to make local FE colleges and their principals deal with such a huge number of organisations cannot be right. It does not fit with the vision that Ministers have rightly set out. As the appropriate Minister is on the Treasury Bench, it would ill behove me not to mention the importance for East Riding college of moving from its poor, portakabin-laden, cramped, dangerously accessed current premises on the leafy side of Beverley. The college desperately needs to move to the centre of town, close to the railway station and the new park-and-ride scheme, and close to the Swinemoor estate so that it can be a symbol of learning and hope to people on every side of Beverley. I do not want to abuse your patience too much, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but at a cost of just £23 million, after the sale of the current site, the proposed move will have an enormous impact for the money. Compared to many other colleges, the Minister will find that the move will offer regeneration, tackle disadvantage and give hope to isolated rural communities. I recommend it strongly to him when the time comes. We have had some discussion of children's trusts. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) made a powerful speech, in typical fashion, about his belief that making trusts statutory was the right way to go. With respect to him, I struggled to follow the thread of his argument all the way through. He rightly highlighted the fact that the Audit Commission has pointed out that to date children's trusts have not been delivering as might have been hoped. Perhaps putting hope ahead of experience, my hon. Friend believes that if trusts are driven—I think that was the word he used—by making them statutory and universal and by working up common practice and sharing it, they can somehow be made to work. I fear that they will be great talking shops. If the Minister does not go all the way and force them to have budgets that are used to drive local commissioning—if they continue as they are, and people continue to turn up to meetings because they feel that they ought to, but the organisation does not give them the authority to make decisions or allocate budgets for the delivery of goals on which there has been joint decision—we will continue to have the dysfunction that marks children's trusts today.