My Lords, I thank the Minister for her constructive engagement on this Bill and for briefing Members at an early stage, along with the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, and the right honourable Member for Harlow. I also thank the Bill
team. Labour supports the Bill’s aim; we support the idea that people can access funding to undertake the learning they need throughout their career. With people undertaking portfolio careers and with continual changes in technology and society, it is no longer the case that what you learn through a traditional three-year degree course is all that you will need in your work for the next 45 years or so.
We had a number of interesting, if concise, debates as the Bill passed its various stages. The Bill is quite limited in scope and Labour still believes that there could have been scope for setting out a more formal review process on a number of its aspects. This would, not least, have helped to safeguard against unintended consequences, whether around distance and flexible learning or employers making a proper contribution to staff development.
There are a number of potential negative impacts on people who are less able to move to study or who are less able to study full-time because of caring responsibilities. From what the noble Baroness said, we hope and believe that the Government intend to monitor and review the lifelong loan entitlement as it is established and rolled out, to make sure that its promise and potential are fulfilled, and especially to ensure that every person in England can have their own promise and potential fulfilled.
I thank the team in the Labour group office, particularly Clare Scally, as well as my Front-Bench colleagues and mentors—my noble friends Lady Wilcox and Lady Thornton. Their patience and kindness in imparting their own lifelong learning and talking me, a relatively new member of the Labour Front-Bench team, through the process of the passage of the Bill has been hugely appreciated.