Clause 3
5:30 pm
Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)
I am not sure whether I can add much to what we said earlier. The clause allows the authority designated to issue apprenticeship certificates to charge a fee for doing so, if authorised by regulations. It also contains a power to make regulations to supply, and charge for, copies of such certificates. As I said earlier, I assure the Committee that, while the clause includes a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations to enable a certifying authority to charge a fee, we expect that the public funding that we make available to the National Apprenticeship Service will be sufficient to cover the costs of issuing certificates. However, we want to ensure that we have the ability to make regulations that will allow fees to be charged in the future to meet, for example, the administrative costs of issuing duplicate or replacement certificates.