John Bercow raises his concerns that the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill will preclude people with special educational needs from participation in apprenticeship schemes.

John Bercow (Buckingham) (Con): I have an unresolved concern about clause 84 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. My hon. Friend has at least two brains and probably an exemplary memory, so I trust he will recall that both on Second Reading of that Bill and at questions to the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills—that is to say, on two separate occasions—I raised my concern that clause 84 as it stands is overly prescriptive because it would preclude from participation in apprenticeship schemes people with special educational needs, who might be well suited to an apprenticeship but who do not have level 2 and level 3 qualifications. The Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Simon), and the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), said that that concern would be addressed. I hope that in the other place it will be.

Mr. Willetts: For a terrible moment I thought my hon. Friend expected me to remember what was in that clause, without jogging my memory. I am grateful to him for reminding us. It is an issue about which he is rightly passionate, and he is correct. One of our concerns about the Government’s approach to skills is that they are so obsessed with funding only the production of paper qualifications that people who, for whatever reason, may not be capable of getting a national vocational qualification level 2 are often deprived of access to training under the Government’s new model.

I remember a conversation at, I think, Coventry college, with a young lady with learning difficulties who was doing a course in horticulture. Because that course would not get her to an NVQ level 2, it was no longer going to be provided because of the priorities that the Government had set for the Learning and Skills Council. It is very important that people who can benefit from learning and from the most basic training, even if it will not get them an NVQ level 2, continue to have access to training and apprenticeships. My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that.

| Hansard