My Lords, I have already spoken to the amendment but, to sum up, the point of the question is that we are asking the Minister to give us a reason why those who join apprenticeships should not be paid the living wage.
Amendment 49H in this group is about the need to ensure that managers supervising apprenticeship programmes have appropriate training. There is a well-established discourse on the question of whether management, particularly in private sector companies, is up to the job of increasing productivity, growing the economy and providing the jobs of the future. That receives its main focus around training and there is plenty of evidence on this issue, which I am sure others will wish to speak to. It would be a sensible Government who thought through all the issues relating to this new duty on the public sector, in particular, if it were also applied to the private sector, to ensure that management was up to the task concerned.
We have other amendments on the details needed to create a better policy on apprenticeships more generally and the role that they play in the development of the economy, but Amendment 50AC sets out—I hope for public bodies and for private companies, but if companies are not included then just public bodies—the sort of information that will be needed if we are to make a good job of this. We hear too much in anecdote and we do not get enough publication. The Minister said that she will write with such a lot of information already. Maybe she has access to the sort of information listed in this amendment, but we are interested in whether we can get a bit more of a sense of the progression, success and value that people are placing on these apprenticeships. This would be a good place to start. I beg to move.