Clause 15
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill
9:45 am

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

I beg to move amendment 159, in clause 15, page 7, line 27, leave out ‘the purposes of this Chapter’ and insert—

‘all purposes or for purposes specified in the order’.

Joan Humble (Blackpool North and Fleetwood, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments 160 to 162, 164, 167 to 170 and 172.

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

Clause 15 enables the Secretary of State to make an order making certain transitional provisions in relation to apprenticeship frameworks. This is intended to ensure that apprenticeship frameworks that already exist when clause 12 comes into force can be treated as if they are a framework issued under the terms of the Bill. In turn, this is intended to allow a reasonable period for new frameworks to be developed and issued, under the terms of the specification of apprenticeship standards for England, and to ensure that existing apprentices and those who are embarking on apprenticeships over the next few years are not disadvantaged.

Amendment 159 is a technical amendment that will ensure that apprentices who are participating in the apprenticeship scheme in part 4, also known as the 16 to 18 apprenticeship entitlement, can benefit from the transitional provisions included in clause 15. Amendments 160 to 162 and 164 are consequential amendments to clause 15. Amendments 167 to 170 and 172 make the same changes to clause 20, which applies in Wales.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)

As the Minister says, clause 15, as originally drafted before these amendments, says:

“The Secretary of State may by order provide for an existing vocational specification to be treated... as if it were an apprenticeship framework”.

Obviously, there need to be transitional arrangements. Our concern is about what, precisely, will be in the order. Which existing vocational specifications will become  apprenticeships? Again, it is about quality, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings mentioned. The concern is to ensure that this is not just another method of creating vast numbers of apprenticeships out of things that are not actually apprenticeships. If the Minister listed all the vocational specifications that he intends to put in the order, it would help the Committee.

The Government amendments seem to broaden the scope of clause 15 further by extending the transitional arrangements to include apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds. An assurance from the Minister about quality will help to ensure that the amendments have a swift passage on to the statute book.

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

Existing apprenticeships are all that we are talking about. There is no question of reclassifying anything that is not currently an apprenticeship as an apprenticeship. The regulations will simply specify the various kinds of vocational training linked to employment that can be apprenticeships and define the existing apprenticeships as apprenticeships until transition. Those matters require regulation because the legislation does not exist.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister, Innovation, Universities and Skills; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)

Will programme-led apprenticeships be included?

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

No: as he knows, a programme-led apprenticeship is not defined as an apprenticeship now; we do not count it in our listings of apprenticeships or in our current targets. It is not an apprenticeship under the Bill and it will not be an apprenticeship in the future.

To restate my answer to his hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, an apprenticeship that is currently defined as an apprenticeship under the blueprint will, by these regulations, be defined as an apprenticeship for a discrete period. The day after the school leaving date in 2013 is the maximum final point. Until then, current apprenticeships will still be apprenticeships and nothing that is not currently an apprenticeship will be an apprenticeship under these regulations.

Stephen Williams (Bristol West, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment 109, in clause 15, page 7, line 29, after ‘certificates’, insert

‘following consultation with any institutions involved in the provision of education and training associated with the existing vocational specification.’.

In fact, we have just had some of the discussion about what courses may be rebadged as apprenticeships that would probably have occurred in the debate on this amendment. The amendment’s purpose is for providers of the existing provision to be consulted, whatevercourse is rebadged on a transitional basis as qualifying under the framework. The Minister said, in response to the hon. Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton and for South Holland and The Deepings, that this is a transitional arrangement while the Bill, should it be passed, takes effect. That arrangement will lapse, as I understand it, on the summer 2013 school leaving date.

Of course, in the summer of 2013, all sorts of other things are meant to be in place as well: the national entitlement to the new diploma lines and the raising of  the education, training and participation age to 17. An important period in education awaits us. In the mean time, there are many other Government targets to be met. There must be a temptation, but not an intention, for a future Minister—not the current Under-Secretary—to acquiesce in the rebadging of the existing provision to meet the requirements of the Bill.

We have tabled the amendment on consultation because there are students or learners-in-work who embarked on a programme of training not envisaging that it would have to meet the requirements of the legislation. There are training providers, which have designed and are teaching vocational courses, that did not envisage that they would have to comply with the provisions of the legislation. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton has already asked for examples of such courses. The Minister said that something currently considered as an apprenticeship is the only course envisaged as being rebadged to qualify under the legislation; I hope that he will confirm that. It is essential that if a change is made in order to meet the requirements of the legislation, existing providers are consulted on whether that will have any ramifications for them, or if it is something that they would want to agree to.

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

As I said, clause 15 is an enabling clause to ensure that we have adequate transitional arrangements to protect those apprentices currently training under existing frameworks. There is no question of re-badging anything as an apprenticeship that is not an apprenticeship. There are 180 frameworks, currently available for apprenticeship training, which meet the requirements of the existing blueprint. It is our intention, on introducing the new specification of apprenticeship standards for England in August 2009, to allow sufficient time for sector skills councils, and other organisations, to develop frameworks that are compliant with the new standards.

We have committed to, and just discussed, streamlining the process for issuing frameworks. It is an important and serious business. Quality, as the hon. Gentleman is fond of saying, is also important and so the development and introduction of the new frameworks is not going to happen overnight. We need a transitional period to allow for the new frameworks to be developed. Sector skills councils will be designated as issuing authorities; they will continue to issue frameworks in England. It is right that the 180 existing frameworks continue to be available throughout the transitional period, so that existing and prospective apprentices are not disadvantaged while the new frameworks are developed. To require consultation on individual frameworks, in the way suggested by the hon. Gentleman, would clearly slow that process down. In the terms of his amendment, we would have to consult on the existing frameworks.

John Hayes (Shadow Minister, Innovation, Universities and Skills; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)

Perhaps I could be helpful to the Minister while he seeks, or reads, inspiration. The nub of the argument is about whether he expects, and the Bill facilitates, a growth in the number of apprenticeship frameworks by the translation of some of what is being taught and tested now. In other words, does he anticipate much of a metamorphosis from existing vocational training specifications to apprenticeship frameworks? If he does, is it not important, in line with the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bristol, West, that that type of process is possible?

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

I am not sure if that is the implication of the hon. Member for Bristol, West’s amendment. Ultimately, the number and content of the apprenticeship frameworks will be the responsibility of the employer bodies, the sector skills council. I do not anticipate an immediate expansion in the number of frameworks. It is possible, subject to consultation, that there could even be a slimming-down of the number of frameworks. Ultimately, that will be a matter for employers, through the sector skills councils, to decide.

The point at issue in the hon. Gentleman’s amendment is whether we retrospectively consult the stakeholders on whether the existing frameworks, which are about to become obsolete, should be deemed as frameworks for the purposes of the transitional period. We do not believe that we need to do that. It is clear what an existing framework is; it is anything that is a framework under the blueprint. Anything that is a framework under the blueprint will remain a framework. Effectively, what we are talking about is calling a framework a framework.

Stephen Williams (Bristol West, Liberal Democrat)

What is also required is some assurance that the re-badging of existing provision—to provision that that meets the requirements of the Bill—will not require any change in the delivery of that apprenticeship, or in the training that is part of that apprenticeship, by an existing provider; that is part of the assurance that is being sought. If there will be a change, then that is why there needs to be consultation on its nature. If there was no change—if it is simply a semantic re-badging of something that already exists to something else—the Minister will have a point in saying that the amendment is unnecessary, but that is not clear at the moment.

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

In that case, that is my fault, because I failed to explain the matter sufficiently clearly. Nothing is being re-badged. Existing apprenticeships will continue to be deemed apprenticeships until all the new frameworks have come in—they do not have to be changed. The frameworks will change over time, as they move to the new arrangements, but the point is that anybody who is currently doing an apprenticeship, or who starts an apprenticeship before the new frameworks have all come in—who is doing, or will start before the end of the period, an old apprenticeship framework under the old blueprint--will still count in exactly the same way as having and doing the apprenticeship that they thought they were doing when they started. That is all that is happening in the transitional arrangement, which will lapse in 2013, as he said.

Stephen Williams (Bristol West, Liberal Democrat)

I think the Minister, after a couple of interventions, has clarified the Government’s provision. It is a shame that subsection (1) states:

“The Secretary of State may by order provide for an existing vocational specification to be treated”.

If it said, “to an existing apprenticeship framework to be so treated”, then the uncertainty would not have arisen.

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

I cannot remember who was speaking and who was intervening, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I understand the point that he has just made. It took me a little while to get beyond that point, but as he will understand, there are all kinds of arcane legal reasons for that. There is a definition of an existing vocational framework in subsection (5), and I think that the point that he is making—in an ancillary  fashion—is that currently, we lack legislation such as this one, which enables us to call an apprenticeship, an apprenticeship. So the purpose of this piece of legislation—during the course of which will move to an apprenticeship, where everybody knows exactly what it means—is that during the transitional period, we will have to call a vocational specification “an apprenticeship”, even though in reality, it always was an apprenticeship.

Stephen Williams (Bristol West, Liberal Democrat)

Thank you, Mrs. Humble; you indulged my long intervention. The Minister is right that sometimes—he has been here longer than I have; I have only been here just short of four years—draft legislation is opaque. It was not clear to me, but more appropriately, perhaps, it was not clear to many people in the sector, who may have encouraged us to probe that particular point—that what the Government envisaged was simply a re-designation of an existing provision without any inherent change to provision that qualifies or meets the requirements of the Bill. As the Minister has assured us that all that is intended is that the change is effectively neutral—it is just a badging exercise, which does not change the inherent nature of what is being taught or provided—I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.