Clause 2
Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]
11:30 am
John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
The Minister asked me a question, so I thought I should respond through the Chair.
The critical matter is not what the Bill says, but what it does not say. If the Government’s response to Leitch reflects the principal message in that report, which is to move to a demand-led system with a very different structure—the Learning and Skills Council is not mentioned until 70 pages into Leitch—we anticipate that further statutory change would be needed to facilitate that new structure. We are not arguing that the Bill is necessarily unhelpful in that respect, but that it is a missed opportunity; it does not pave the way for such fundamental change. That is the essence of our point about the Bill.