The inter-departmental committee is a part of the machinery of government for securing co-ordination between the Government Departments concerned on important training issues. It is in no sense a substitute for the Central Training Council. The Council will remain the principal forum in which the views of leaders from industry and the educational world can be focused and brought to bear on the development of policy in the field of industrial training. Discussions on the inter-departmental committee will, of course, be very much influenced by the views of the Council, and both I and my colleagues will give the greatest weight to these views in the decisions we have to make.