Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

I do not think it is appropriate for anybody—I do not think the noble Lord would have done it—to say that there would never be any development or new qualifications introduced into the 16 to 19 landscape or that there should ever be any ending of any qualification. So the qualifications landscape should not be set in stone. However, I can repeat, as I said to his noble friend, that the Government do not envisage a qualifications landscape in which there is only a choice of T-levels or A-levels. That is one of the reasons why the work of the curriculum and assessment review in setting out its views on what should remain in order to provide appropriate routes for young people will be the basis for any future decisions made there. It is my view that there will always need to be qualifications that are neither A-levels or T-levels, but they need to be of sufficiently high quality to ensure that we are not selling short the young people who take that route. No sooner have we solved one problem than the noble Lord quite rightly pushes us to get on to the next one. Skills England is currently consulting on some of the current flexibilities that we will be introducing to develop the growth and skills levy, and of course we are also working hard on the implementation of the lifelong learning entitlement. I hope it will not be too long before we will be able to say more about both of those and, as the noble Lord also suggested, how they will link together. But I will just have a little break over Christmas before we come back to do that, and I hope all noble Lords also have a very restful break when it comes.