I have to say I was surprised by these amendments coming forward at Stage 3, because there was nobody calling for an exclusion—there was nobody calling, at all, in any of the evidence that we received, for learners undertaking higher education courses in further education colleges to be excluded from the new additional learning needs support system.

Now, as far as I'm concerned—and the Cabinet Secretary's just stated this aim herself: she wants equality of access to support all learners. She doesn't want to extend this to universities. I'm not asking for it to be extended to universities, the scope of this Bill. But I think within a single institution, there ought to be some equality in terms of access to additional learning needs support. If these amendments pass, you have the potential of two individuals going to a further education institution—one doing a higher education course and not getting any additional learning needs support, and the other doing a further education course and getting all the support that they need. That cannot be right. We need to make sure that there's a level playing field. It is not fair to exclude a group of students from the additional learning needs system just because they happen to be taking a higher education course at a local college, and I think that these amendments are very misguided indeed. 

Everybody who enrols at a further education institution ought to have equal access to support. You're taking away some of the access to that support with these amendments, and I certainly won't be supporting them.