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Mr. Willis: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin): With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following: New clause 10--London Learning and Skills Co-ordinating Committee--
'.--(1) The Council will establish a London Learning and Skills Co-ordinating Committee ("the Committee") to co-ordinate the activities of the local learning and skills councils in London.
(2) The Committee shall be appointed by the Council and shall consist of not more than 15 members and shall have a majority of members with business experience.
(3) The functions of the Committee shall be:
(a) to undertake research for the learning and skills councils and provide information on employment, skills and the labour market in London;
(b) to provide a forum for common decision making on the planning and delivery of the functions and responsibilities of the learning and skills councils;
(c) to agree common operational frameworks and guidelines for the work of the learning and skills councils in London;
(d) to liaise with the Mayor, the Greater London Authority, London Development Agency and other relevant partners on skills and employment issues;
(e) to co-ordinate the activities of the learning and skills councils in relation to the London Small Business Service.'.
New clause 19--Regional Learning and Skills Co-ordinating Committees--
' .--(1) The Council must establish a Learning on Skills Co-ordinating Committee ("the Committee") to co-ordinate the activities of the Local Learning and Skills Councils ("the local council") in each of the English regions as described in section 1 of the Regional Development Agencies Act 1998 ("the Region").
(2) The Committee shall consist of not more than 15 members.
(3) Committee members shall be appointed by the Council from nominations by each of the local councils that comprise "the Region" and must include representatives from the Regional Development Agency, Small Business Service, local authorities and the wider business community.
(4) The Chairman shall be a member of and be appointed by the members of the Committee--
(5) The functions of the Committee shall be:
(b) to provide a forum for common decision making across the Region on the planning and delivery of the functions and responsibilities of the learning and skills councils;
(c) to agree common operational frameworks and guidelines for the work of the local councils in each Region;
(d) to liaise with the Regional Development Agency and other relevant partners as agreed by the Committee on skills and employment issues;
(e) to co-ordinate the activities of the local councils in relation to the Small Business Service;
(f) to co-ordinate the activities of the local councils in relation to the Careers Services.'.
Amendment No. 104, in clause 12, page 7, line 3, at end add--
'( ) The Council must establish systems for collecting information which is designed to secure that its decisions with regard to information, advice and guidance services are made on a sound basis.'.
Government amendments Nos. 31, 91, 32 and 42 to 44.
Amendment No. 74, in schedule 3, page 74, line 31, at end insert--
', or to the London Learning and Skills Co-ordinating Committee established under section (London Learning and Skills Co-ordinating Committee).'.
Mr. Willis: My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) will speak to new clause 1, but I wish to speak to new clause 19, which deals with the organisation committees of the regional councils.
It has taken four hours, but at last we shall be discussing the essence of the Bill. For all that time, Conservative Members avoided talking about--
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should talk not about what has gone before, but about what is before us now--the new clause.
Mr. Willis: I am admonished, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
One of the real challenges in moving from the old organisation of post-16 education, training and lifelong learning is not simply to have a reorganisation but to do something much better. There is no point in getting rid of training and enterprise councils, the Further Education Funding Council or, indeed, the plethora of other organisations simply so as to swap the seats on the Titanic and replace them with different ones.
In Committee, in another place and in the House we have always argued that we wanted not a single Learning and Skills Council, but regional learning and skills councils coterminous with the regional development agencies--hopefully, the forerunners of the regional assemblies--so that the regions have not only an identity but, alongside the RDAs, the means to apply the skills and education agenda post-16. We lost that argument in Committee and we accept that. We do not wish to re-run it, as I am sure hon. Members will be delighted to hear.
In reality, many areas of Britain have ended up with a region, under the Regional Development Agencies Act 1988, and we now have sub-regional councils of the Learning and Skills Council. In Yorkshire and the Humber, for example, where my hon. Friend the Member for Hallam and I operate, we have three such
organisations. The point of the amendment is that we surely need an overarching organisation that will allow the three organisations to speak to each other.Much of the organisational structure set up by the Bill will hopefully work for the benefit of education and training post-16, but unless we have that co-ordination, the sub-regional committees of the local councils will go off on their own and will not truly speak to each other. All we are asking for is a co-ordination committee. The right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Brooke) has tabled a similar amendment for London. That is the essence--
Mr. Gordon Marsden: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says and the Liberal Democrats have pulled back from their position in Committee, but in stressing the need for the changes he is surely showing a lack of confidence in the regional development agencies. He is suggesting that they are not capable of, or will not be able to make, the sort of contacts and communication that has been suggested.
Mr. Willis: The hon. Member for Blackpool, North--[Hon. Members: "South".] It was pretty near. The hon. Gentleman is showing an uncharacteristic naivety. He has demonstrated his lack of knowledge of the Bill, which surprises me. Throughout, we have argued that the connection between the RDA and the Learning and Skills Council is tenuous. Indeed, those links were put in only at the last minute. I would be happy if there were a direct statutory link between the council and the RDA as that would solve our problem. That is not the case, which is why we are arguing for the new clause.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hallam will deal with our other amendments if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Peter Brooke (Cities of London and Westminster): Like the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), I regret the hour at which we are coming to these matters. After your stricture upon him, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will not enlarge on what he said. I hope that you will excuse my saying, however, that I noticed that the Minister who dealt with the previous debate declined to take an intervention on the grounds that we were short of time. As the House rose at 6 pm yesterday, such excuses seem funny in the conduct of Government business.
New clause 10 and amendment No. 74, which is consequential on it, stand in my name and I speak to them. They are of a probing nature. Amendments to the same general effect were moved at columns 836 to 843 on 10 February in the Standing Committee in the House of Lords by Lord Tope and Lord Harris of Haringey, neither of whom are of my party, but both of whom have been long involved in London local government. Lord Tope was once briefly a London Member of Parliament.
9.15 pm
I should in all honesty acknowledge to the House that in the debate on 10 February, Baroness Blatch advised the other place against the propositions that I am putting forward. But that was 10 February, and we have not heard further from the Government since Lord Tope, in acceding to the Government's request to withdraw his
amendment, said that he hoped that the Government would say more on the subject later. Since then, we have had silence.I wish to probe the Government's position on a London co-ordinating body for the five learning and skills councils that are to be established in the capital. The subject was debated in another place--I have given the reference--but it has not previously been covered in this House. Lord Harris of Haringey explained the debate that had occurred in the London Development Partnership when it made its recommendation, by a narrow margin, that there should be five local learning and skills councils in London, but also recommended that there should be a co-ordinating body. The concept of the co-ordinating body was accepted by the Government, through Baroness Blackstone, in the other place when she responded to the debate.
I understand that the reason the Government have rejected the concept is that, although they have endorsed the concept of a co-ordinating body, they believe that it should not be on the face of the Bill. But although stakeholders in London understand the need to avoid another layer of bureaucracy, they are anxious to ensure a Londonwide approach to the many issues that cannot be decided solely by a single sub-region of London. The complex travel-to-work and travel-to-learning flows in the capital mean that unilateral action by one learning and skills council could adversely affect the actions of another. London's stakeholders are looking for a more powerful model than the one the Government appear to have in mind.
A stronger co-ordinating body is needed for the following purposes. It is needed to provide a focal point of contact for Londonwide employers and bodies, including the mayor and Assembly and the single Small Business Service. It is needed to provide labour market forecasting and analysis. There are significant economies of scale to be achieved by a joint approach, and the valuable work of the London skills forecasting unit needs to be sustained in the new learning and skills council arrangements. A co-ordinating body is needed to share and co-ordinate London plans and priorities--the fact that funding will follow learners and providers will require a Londonwide approach to planning and rationalising provision if real benefits are to be achieved. A co-ordinating body is also needed to agree operating frameworks and procedures so that learners and employers can be treated equally in London; and, finally, to provide a forum for agreeing collective action and overcoming disagreements.
We would not be building from a zero base in this respect. It is important that the good work that has been done by the London training and enterprise council and the skills forecasting unit on behalf of TECs, and the work by the London office of the Further Education Funding Council, should be incorporated in a new London co-ordinating body.
Since I tabled new clause 10 and amendment No. 74, the regional director of the London region of the Association of Colleges has written to me to say:
- A co-ordinating body would make a great improvement to the provision of post-compulsory education and training in the city under the LSC. As things stand at present London will be divided arbitrarily into five areas whose boundaries defy the fact that the capital is a single labour market and also one travel-to-work and travel-to-study area. Although they bear no relation to reality, the
- boundaries--once established--will begin to acquire the status of fiefdoms. Local council members and executive directors will soon believe that they know what is best for the individuals and firms in their own geographical patches, and begin to act without reference to either their population's wider interests or the greater interests of London as a whole.
At the very time when we have gained a body, in the form of the GLA, to look after the strategic interests of London, the Government intends to remove both the overarching powers and duties of the FEFC's regional office and the co-ordinating influence of the London TEC Council. We will now have to rely on a head office in Coventry to determine a framework for collecting and analysing information, for agreeing priorities and for bringing together plans. It would be much better to fulfil these functions regionally.
The hon. Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs) is in the Chamber. When I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the working population of my constituency alone exceeded the entire working population of Northern Ireland by 50 per cent. If there is such a great concentration in one constituency--which will of course fall under one particular learning and skills council--one fears that the benefits of that engine of economic activity in the heart of the capital will not be felt by the rest of London unless there is serious co-ordination. I have already referred to the London skills forecasting unit.
The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, the hon. Member for Croydon, North (Mr. Wicks), is himself a London Member. Since I have been a Member of the House, we have seen increasing integration of the health service of London; policing has become borough based; and we are about to welcome the mayor and the Greater London Assembly.
I have one suspicion about the Government's action. As London will be the first of our cities with a mayor, that will give it pole position. That is why a co-ordinating committee has a relevance in London that it might not have in Birmingham or Manchester--as the Minister for Education and Employment made clear in the House of Lords. If London has such a committee, there is a risk that other people will want one too--as is revealed by the Liberal Democrat proposals. That would be easier to avoid if the issue were left out of the Bill.
Through the Government's initial response in the House of Lords and the impression they give us that they should be trusted--as there has been silence on the matter since then--they are saying, in effect, that they can be relied on to deliver a sensible arrangement, or that such an arrangement will emerge because they endorse the reason for it. However, there seems to be no reciprocity in other amendments tabled for debate; although the Government are asking London to trust them, they would not necessarily be trusted because of the statutory provisions that they want to implement--especially in relation to the cessation of TECs and their assets.
I do not want to leap forward to a discussion of those proposals; in tabling my provisions, I want only to be given a clearer idea of the results the Government envisage from a co-ordinating body whose importance--[Interruption.] I realise that the Minister is not trying to speak to me, but inevitably I can see his lips moving.
The Government should make clear what they think will occur in London--with much greater substance, structure and form than has been given so far.
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