My Lords, this is an important area; enforcement is always important. The amendments relate to the enforcement of the measure to protect the term “apprenticeship” from misuse. They would require local enterprise partnerships to fulfil that function rather than trading standards. Noble Lords will know the high opinion that I have of trading standards, and I am glad to be able to put it on the record again.
As the apprenticeship brand grows, so does the risk that the term “apprenticeship” could be misused to refer to lower-quality courses. Therefore, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, explained, we intend to follow the precedent for enforcement that applies to unrecognised degrees, which is in the Education Reform Act 1998. Trading standards has a duty to enforce that legislation using its powers in the Consumer Rights Act 2015. That has ensured that UK-based operations with a physical presence are closed down, and there have been a number of prosecutions over the years. Since 2003, there have been successful enforcement cases against more than 18 offending bodies, with the closure of 10 and prosecution of a further three. In practice, although the duty extends to all trading standards teams, to answer the question asked, cases have tended to be concentrated in a couple of areas.
We are exploring whether it would be sensible to assign one trading standards team to act as the lead authority, with the ability to build the enforcement capability and expertise to deal with the challenge. This would be in line with the approach taken for other functions, such as the Illegal Money Lending Team, which is based in Birmingham City Council—another namecheck for that council—and tackles cases across England.
To respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, we judge that trading standards bodies would be more appropriate to enforce the measure than local enterprise partnerships because of trading standards’ specialist enforcement powers, history and experience. Trading standards will be there to carry out enforcement as a backstop, but with the SFA there—to respond to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson—to encourage compliance. As set out in the impact assessment, we anticipate that the number of prosecutions will be very few, because we know from experience of degrees
that this can have a totemic effect. We are in active discussions with the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Local Government Association and the Better Regulation Development Office to ensure that the requirements of trading standards in this area are achievable, effective and proportionate. I hope with that explanation of how we plan to take these provisions forward, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.