10:30 am
John Hayes (Shadow Minister, Innovation, Universities and Skills; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
I want to be helpful to Ministers, because that is the right thing to do. Perhaps I can give them a bit of guidance on why people feel that this is a bureaucratic muddle. The relationship between the NAS and the SFA is unclear. The NAS cannot specify standards. As you know, that is the job of the SFA; clauses 21 to 30 detail that, despite the fact that the NAS will be dealing with everything else on apprenticeships. The NAS reports to both Government Departments and must develop apprenticeships, as the Minister suggested, in conjunction with local education authorities, which will decide the type and amount. There is very little on an explicit role for employers or providers, and the entitlement to apprenticeships is not matched by any major plans for implementation.
It is not surprising that in the Committee evidence sessions, the transition from the LSC was described as being likely to be “messy and complicated”. While I acknowledge that Ministers have had discussions with countless employers, I wonder whether they appreciate that the CBI was, at best, lukewarm and the British Chambers of Commerce was hostile. Does that not cause immense concerns? What about those relationships and lines of accountability? They are all over the place and so immensely unclear. We can barely understand them; what chance has anybody else got?