Tuesday 19th July 2016
(8 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberHigher Education and Research Act 2017 View all Higher Education and Research Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text
18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 294 / Noes: 258 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
As the Prime Minister said outside Downing Street last week, this Government want to give everybody, no matter what their background, the opportunity to go as far as their talents will take them, in a country that works for everyone. Our higher education institutions are crucial to giving people the power to determine their own futures. They present opportunities for individuals to better themselves—to broaden their knowledge base, sharpen their skills, and participate in the groundbreaking research that can make the future brighter for everyone.
My time at Southampton University was one of the most shaping periods of my life. I should point to my time at the Department for International Development as another of those periods. For me, the chance to go to university was absolutely pivotal to being able to make something of myself. Today, I can still point to the telephone box in Kingsbridge, Devon where I rang through to get my A-level results while we were on holiday that year. In that moment, my whole future changed for the better. I was the first person in my family to be able to go to university. I remember, after that call, going to the pub across the road to celebrate with a drink. None of us really knew what going to university would be like for me, but we all knew that it was going to be the best thing and that it would improve my life chances. Opportunity is about giving our young people the freedom to fly, and universities are absolutely central to that.
My party’s record on this in government is one we can be proud of. We have taken away the limit on student numbers so that more people than ever before can benefit from higher education, and the participation rate among students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds is at record levels. We have put in place the essential funding changes that have placed our universities on a stable financial footing so that they are resourced for success, and we have protected investment in our world-class science base.
The universities that our young people attend are some of the best in the world. We punch well above our weight, with 34 institutions ranked in the world’s top 200 and more than twice that number in the top 800. But there is more to do to make sure that everyone can access a high-quality university place, and in spite of the progress made, we are far from meeting our economy’s need for graduates, so this Government are absolutely determined to support and nurture our universities, and to ensure that they are open to every student who has the potential to benefit from them.
The creation of new universities is an undoubted force for good, both academically and economically. Recent research by the London School of Economics shows that doubling the number of universities per capita could mean a 4% rise in future GDP per capita too. However, the current system for creating universities can feel highly restrictive, with new providers requiring the backing of an incumbent institution to become eligible to award its own degrees. This Bill levels the playing field by laying the foundations for a new system where it will be simpler and quicker to establish high-quality new providers. I am pleased that in May the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) confirmed that the Opposition do not object to broadening choice for students by expanding the higher education sector.
These reforms, which are the first since the 1990s, enable us to maintain the world-class reputation of our higher education institutions, because quality will be built in at every stage—from the way we regulate new entrants to how we deal with poor-quality providers already in the system. I recognise that there have been concerns about the quality of new providers—that they cannot possibly be as good as what we already have. It is not the first time that such arguments have been made. The same arguments were made when the new red-brick universities were being established just before the first world war, but today Sheffield, Birmingham and Manchester—which I visited very recently in my previous role—are world-class universities. This “quality” argument was made about the 1960s expansion, but in four of the past 10 years the Sunday Times award for university of the year has gone to one founded in that very period—currently the University of Surrey. In 1992, it was a Conservative Government who had the vision to set free the polytechnics to enable them to become universities. Now we are making it possible for a whole new generation of universities to help us to extend access to higher education for young people across our country.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
I welcome the Secretary of State to her new position and look forward to working with her over, I hope, the next few years. Does she agree that one aspect of the post-war universities and the post-1992 polytechnics was that students were not asked to contribute fees in order to receive a university education?
Justine Greening
I acknowledge that the Scottish National party takes a very different view of this issue. The reality is that the choice that it has made has resulted in fewer students being able to go to university in Scotland. One in five students in Scotland who apply for, and who have the grades to get, a place cannot go because the funding is not available. The hon. Lady’s Government in Scotland have made that choice, but it is not a choice that this Government want to make. We have to make sure that places are available for students who have the potential and talent to make their way in life. Putting a cap on opportunity and potential is not just bad for students; it is bad for our country more broadly.
Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)
First, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend on assuming her new role? She has been an outstanding advocate for greater social mobility in every role she has had in frontline politics, and I am delighted to see her in this job.
Is it not the case that, following the introduction of fees, we have seen more students from working class and poorer backgrounds go to university in England and Wales, while in Scotland educational inequality has worsened, to the extent that the First Minister of Scotland had to sack her Education Secretary in despair at the way in which inequality was growing north of the border?
Justine Greening
Since 2009, students from a disadvantaged background in England are 36% more likely to go to university. It is not good enough to come up with excuses and tell young people of great quality who have the grades that they cannot go to university because the Government who, unfortunately, are running the country in which they live are not prepared to take the decisions to enable funding to get to the sector and create the places that they need. We are prepared to do that.
The Bill is about opening up the sector to enable new providers to enter it and create the extra places that our young people need. There will be rigorous tests for those new providers, as well as for those that already exist, centring on quality and making sure that they have financial stability. We are interested in enhancing the world-class reputation of our universities in creating opportunity for all, rather than in expansion for its own sake.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and offer her huge congratulations on her new role. Does she agree that the new university side of the Bill will lead us into a new era of focusing much more on gearing up our students for the workplace and on linking with business to provide the exact courses required to upskill our people for the future?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The good news is that we expect many—indeed, most—of the jobs created over the next few years to be graduate-level jobs. Our economy is creating opportunities, but we need to make sure that our young people are in a position to take them. That is part of the reason why this Bill is absolutely critical. Wherever and whatever a person is studying, part of how they are able to succeed is making sure that they get high-quality teaching. That is why we are delivering on the Government’s manifesto pledge to implement a new teaching excellence framework for universities.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
May I also congratulate the right hon. Lady on her new job? I was also the first in my family to go to university. Ashfield, which I represent, has among the lowest number of 18-year-olds in the whole country going to university. The Secretary of State says that she wants to see opportunities for people from ordinary backgrounds, but how is scrapping grants for the poorest kids going to help?
Justine Greening
The bottom line is that the evidence base shows not only that more young people are going to university than ever before, but that a higher proportion of them are from disadvantaged backgrounds. As I said to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), we do our young people a disservice if our system cannot be financed to create places for them.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I am going to make some progress, because it is important that I cover the teaching excellence framework, which is at the heart of the Bill.
The framework will assess and drive up quality by providing reputational and financial incentives for success, which is a proven approach to ensuring high standards at our universities. That approach is based on what we have learned from our experience. It was a Conservative Government who introduced funding for research on the basis of quality, which is now a widely accepted way of working. The research excellence framework is regarded globally as the gold standard for institutional research. By extending that principle to teaching, we can ensure that British higher education remains in the world’s elite, and that students at all universities—old and new—receive the quality teaching that they have every right to expect.
Let me be absolutely clear: the Bill does not raise tuition fees or change current procedures for secondary legislation setting the maximum tuition fee cap. That will, rightly, continue to require the same level of parliamentary scrutiny as before, and the Bill will allow the maximum fee cap to keep pace with inflation, which the last Labour Government allowed for every year from 2007. What we are saying to high-quality providers is, “You can access fees up to an inflation-linked maximum fee cap if—and only if—you can demonstrate that you are providing high-quality teaching and you have an agreed access and participation plan in place.”
The Bill allows fee caps to be set below the maximum, to reflect varying levels of teaching excellence framework awards. The providers that are not meeting those standards will have to charge fees beneath the maximum fee cap, and that cap will not increase in real terms.
Our proposal to maintain the real value of the maximum fee cap, but only for those with excellent teaching, is backed by those who know the sector best. Universities UK has described that approach as “balanced and sustainable” and argues that maintaining the real value of the maximum fee cap is
“essential to allow universities to continue to deliver a high-quality teaching and learning experience for students.”
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on her appointment. I am sure that she is as shocked as I am that vice-chancellors are welcoming the opportunity to put up university tuition fees. Does she agree that many students and graduates who have gone through that £9,000 system do not feel that that level of tuition fee has been justified and that they have not seen the benefits of the decision that this House took some years ago?
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. The real-terms ability of the maximum fee to keep up with inflation is enabling £12 billion of investment to get into higher education over the coming years. It is critical to make sure that students get value from the investment that they make in themselves and that teaching is of high quality. That is why the teaching excellence framework is such an important part of the Bill.
The proposed office for students is another part of the Bill that clearly shows that we are putting students at the heart of our higher education policy, as they should be. The creation of an office for students, which will be the principal regulator for higher education, will put students’ interests at the heart of regulation. It will have a legal duty requiring it to consider choice and the interests of students, employers and taxpayers, and it will look across higher education as a whole, with responsibility for monitoring financial stability, efficiency and the overall health of the sector.
The current system was designed for an era of direct Government funding of higher education when fewer people attended university. Higher education attendance is no longer a privilege of the elite. We lifted the limit on student numbers, meaning that more people than ever before have been able to benefit from a university education. The legislative framework needs to reflect that.
The office for students will create a new single register of higher education providers, replacing the current fragmented system and ensuring a single route into the sector. The simpler system means that this Bill will reduce regulatory costs on the sector and contribute to this Government’s deregulatory agenda. It also ensures that the requirements are clear and fair. Only those on the single register will be able to obtain degree-awarding powers, become universities or charge fees that attract student loans. Those providers will have to comply with conditions relating to, for example, their financial stability and the quality of their provision. The office for students will have powers to impose additional conditions—for instance, around access and participation for students from disadvantaged backgrounds—on fee-capped providers that wish their students to be able to access student support.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
Let me join in the congratulations to the Secretary of State on her appointment. Why is there no duty on the new office for students to promote collaboration? The crisis that we confront in this country is around technical education, not higher education. If we want to grow the number of students on level 5 apprenticeships, we need to transform the level of integration and collaboration that exists between further education and higher education. Why is that dual-track system not being encouraged by placing a duty to collaborate at the heart of the office for students?
Justine Greening
I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, which is an important one. I want universities to continue to work hard on the ground in many of the local communities of which they are part, to encourage a pipeline through which children can come and apply. If the percentage of university students from disadvantaged backgrounds is to rise, that is incredibly important.
The right hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that an element of the Bill tackles collaboration, specifically with UK Research and Innovation, which I will come on to shortly. There will also be time to debate this in the Bill Committee. I absolutely agree with the sentiment that he has expressed, and it is important that universities engage with local communities beyond their own campuses and encourage young people.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the Secretary of State to her new post. Before she moves off the subject of collaboration, I am disappointed that there is no mention in the Bill of collaboration with the new combined authorities, especially those, such as the one in Greater Manchester, that are to take on some of the skills agenda. What role does she think local government and local enterprise partnerships have in making sure that higher education is part and parcel of that partnership for a better local economy?
Justine Greening
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that those different parties have to work together at a local level. The University of Roehampton, in my constituency, does really great work in reaching out to our local community. As a higher education institution, it has a large proportion of students from more disadvantaged backgrounds studying for degrees. He is right about that. I am determined to make sure that the higher education sector plays its role in communities more broadly. I do not believe that collaboration necessarily has to be codified in the Bill, as he suggested, for it to happen, but I agree with the sentiments that he expressed.
Several hon. Members rose—
Justine Greening
I want to make a little more progress, because it is important that I continue to inform the House of how the office for students will work, and particularly how it will regulate providers.
If a provider breaches its conditions of registration, the OFS will have access to a range of sanctions, including monetary penalties and, in extreme cases, suspending or deregistering providers, to safeguard the interests of students and taxpayers and to maintain the world-class reputation of the sector. Our proposals have the support of those who know best, with the likes of Professor Simon Gaskell, chair of a taskforce that was established to review the regulation of the sector, commenting that
“there have been a number of significant changes to the funding of higher education and to the number of providers offering courses. Regulation of the sector needs to keep pace with these developments if confidence, and our international reputation, are to be maintained.”
Indeed, only today the University Alliance described the Bill as
“a raft that can take us to calmer waters”.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
The Secretary of State has emphasised the need for collaboration. Clause 2(1)(b) mentions
“the need to encourage competition between English higher education providers…in the interests of students and employers”.
She has identified that collaboration is in the interests of students and employers, so why is she objecting to putting it in the Bill?
Justine Greening
I feel as though we are already delving into the Bill Committee debate that will no doubt take place on this clause. I welcome the House’s engagement with the Bill. It is important to get it right, and we will have an important debate to make sure that it is properly structured. I look forward to the Bill Committee debate when Parliament returns after the recess.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Justine Greening
I will take one more intervention before I make some progress.
Roger Mullin
I welcome the Secretary of State to her new post, and I look forward to her future briefings on the Scottish education system being more accurate. May I provide some insight into one aspect of collaboration, which could usefully be strengthened? Twenty-five per cent. of all students who enter higher education in Scotland do so through the college sector, and many colleges are in collaborative arrangements with universities. We have 2+2 arrangements, as we call them—two years in college, and two years in university—and so on. That is something that the English system could well have a look at.
Justine Greening
The hon. Gentleman makes a further point about the need for universities to be part of their broader communities. It is probably worth my setting out how much I welcome the fact that the further and higher education briefs are now part of a broader Department for Education brief, which makes us well placed to look across the piece at how the institutions that help to develop our young people’s talent and potential can work effectively together, as well as with broader communities.
Thanks to the reforms we introduced in the last Parliament, the entry rate for young students from disadvantaged backgrounds is at a record level. In the final year of the last Labour Government it was around 14%, and today it stands at almost 19%. But we need to go further. As the Prime Minister said last week, this Government
“will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.”
This legislation supports the key principle that higher education should be open to all who have the potential to benefit from it, but this has to be about more than just accessing opportunity. Although application rates for students from disadvantaged backgrounds are at record levels, we want to ensure that those students are supported across their whole time at university. Too many disadvantaged students do not complete their courses, for various reasons, and universities can and must do more to help them to get across the finishing line. That will allow them not only to gain the degree that they set out to get, but to reap the career rewards of doing so.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
I, too, congratulate the Secretary of State on her new position. What does she think is an acceptable level of debt for a graduate?
Justine Greening
We need to look at the level of tuition fees that has been introduced, the rate of applications from disadvantaged students, and the number of disadvantaged students who are going to university. Those young people are taking a decision to invest in themselves, and they believe that it will offer value for money. The Bill will enable us to strengthen that decision by underwriting the teaching in universities with a teaching excellence framework.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend to her position, and I look forward to working with her. We have had much discussion of disadvantaged young people, but how will she encourage participation among mature disadvantaged groups, particularly women? There has been a large drop-off in the number of women part-time students. What progress can we make in that area, particularly in the teaching, nursing and caring professions, which women often go into after they have had their families?
Justine Greening
There are two areas in which the Bill can particularly help. First, it will provide transparency and give us a clearer sense of who is entering and going through our university system. One of the functions of the office for students will be to improve transparency, which will help us not only to improve access but to widen participation. Secondly, some of the financing changes will free up opportunities for people who find it harder to go to university because they cannot get the finance for a course. The Bill will allow us to take those two steps forward.
We are going further than Labour ever did to strengthen access agreements. Under the Bill, institutions wanting to charge tuition fees above the basic level will have to agree plans that look at participation as well as at access. We want to ensure they are doing everything they can to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds throughout their course to reduce the number of drop-outs and help all students into fulfilling careers.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
I join other hon. Members in welcoming the Secretary of State to her new post. On enabling students to access higher education, there is one group that has not been able to access it—Muslim students whose religious beliefs prevent them from taking out a loan. I know she will point to the new provisions in the Bill on sharia-compliant loans, but why does she believe that this specifically requires legislation? Many of these students have been waiting years, if not decades, to be able to go to university. Why is she making them wait even longer?
Justine Greening
The Bill puts in place the powers that we need to take a more flexible approach to funding. As the hon. Lady says, some students are less likely to want to take out a conventional student loan. We need to respond to that if we are to widen participation, and that is precisely what the Bill does. It will actually achieve the aims she talks about.
We will have transparency, which will require higher education institutions to publish application, offer and progression rates by gender, ethnic background and socioeconomic class. Across all its functions, the office for students will have to take into account the need to promote equality of opportunity across the whole lifecycle for disadvantaged students, not just access.
Academic autonomy is the bedrock of success for our higher education sector. The Bill introduces measures to safeguard the interests of students and taxpayers, while protecting academic freedom and institutional autonomy. It enables the OfS to be independent of Government and the sector, as a regulator should be. It will be an arm’s length non-departmental public body, just as the Higher Education Funding Council for England is now.
The office for students will operate a risk-based approach to regulation by concentrating regulation where it is needed and ensuring the highest standards are maintained across the sector, while reducing the regulatory burden on the best performing institutions. If a university is doing well, it should not have to worry so much about bureaucrats peering over its shoulder.
However, one important aspect of such risk-based regulation will be a more flexible approach to degree-awarding powers. We will move away from the one-size-fits-all approach, which currently requires smaller, specialist institutions to demonstrate that they can award degrees in any subject, and requires new providers—including some of the very best overseas institutions—to spend four years building up a track record in England, irrespective of a long record of excellence elsewhere in the global academic world.
The provision to vary degree-awarding powers will enable specialist institutions to gain such powers only in the subject areas in which they have an interest or a need. It will enable the office for students to give degree-awarding powers on a probationary basis to institutions that can clearly demonstrate their capability and have a credible plan to ensure they meet the full degree-awarding powers criteria after three years. As part of that, the OfS will require clear and robust protections for students when granting probationary degree-awarding powers.
Liam Byrne
The Secretary of State is being characteristically generous in giving way. Is it her expectation that many of our great further education colleges that are already providing higher education will be able to acquire their own degree-awarding abilities, in a much more generous way than is currently possible, as a result of this change?
Justine Greening
Broadly, the rule that 55% of students need to be studying on degree courses will remain. In the end, however, what we are trying to do more broadly with these changes is to open up the chance for new high-quality institutions to join existing high-quality institutions in our higher education sector in being able to offer degrees.
Wes Streeting
The Secretary of State is being very generous in giving way for a second time. She may not have seen the policy advice, but a briefing was caught on a long-lens camera outside No. 10 back in April. It said that the Government’s plans risk
“creating poor quality provision for marginal students”.
What is she going to do to mitigate that risk?
Justine Greening
The Bill is about ensuring that we have a strong, robust, successful, innovative and high-quality higher education sector for Britain’s young people. The hon. Gentleman sets out problems and then suggests we should not bring forward a Bill to tackle them.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
It strikes me that the Secretary of State is giving a lot of good detail on the safeguards, which should satisfy most reasonable people. Others may feel there is something of a closed shop on degree-awarding powers, and I am very glad that the Bill will, among other things, do its best to break it down. Such a closed shop is unacceptable, particularly in relation to global education provision, which, as she says, we benefit from and can push out to other parts of the world.
Justine Greening
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. For the many institutions that have spent years working steadily to get their own degree-awarding powers, these changes will be welcome. They should not have to wait so long, and once the Bill is passed, they will not have to do so.
Mark Field
I suspect institutions that have spent many years trying to get degree-awarding powers and have not quite got them will feel that they have spent a frustratingly long time doing so. None the less, I am sure this provision will be welcomed in the years to come by many of the institutions she is talking about.
Justine Greening
I will make a bit more progress, because I recognise that many hon. Members want to contribute to this debate. I will give way in a second, but it is important that I briefly set out for the House how the OfS will be able to act when students and taxpayers are not well served. When there are grounds to suspect a serious breach of a provider’s conditions of registration or funding, the office for students will have the power to enter and search a higher education provider, subject to the crucial safeguard that a court warrant must be obtained first.
Justine Greening
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because he has been trying to catch my eye, but I must then try to make some progress on this long Bill.
Mr Cunningham
I have two universities in my constituency. What did the Secretary of State mean when she said that other institutions can share in these changes? I was not clear what she meant.
Justine Greening
I was talking about the changes to degree-awarding powers. For institutions that may currently feel they cannot go down this route because it is simply too complex and long-winded, we will open up the sector to enable great institutions to step up to become, over time, an institution that awards degrees directly and then for excellent institutions to become, after a further three years, a university. This is important for Britain. If we are to be a country in which our young people have the number of places they want at high-quality institutions, with the range of different degrees that they want and that our economy needs, it is important to have a higher education sector that can respond and that is what the Bill seeks to address.
The Bill enables the OfS to require registered higher education providers to have a student protection plan in place. Students will want to know what to expect from their providers if their course of study cannot be delivered. Although some providers currently have student protection plans, the new requirement means that students of all registered providers will be protected.
This Government believe that no one with the necessary ability should be denied a place at university. That is why, for the first time ever, we are providing direct financial support for those undertaking postgraduate masters study. We also intend to extend direct financial support to postgraduate doctoral study and to introduce part-time maintenance loans comparable to those we give to full-time students.
The Bill will make significant improvements to higher education and research, but let me reassure the House that none of these changes will be delivered by undermining other routes into highly skilled employment. We are committed to creating 3 million apprenticeships by 2020, and the Government recently launched the skills plan, which is our response to Lord Sainsbury’s independent review of technical education, setting out an ambitious overhaul of the post-16 skills system. Taken as a whole, those changes will allow young people to make well-informed decisions about their futures, giving them every opportunity to achieve their potential and, at the same time, improving the quality, relevance and value of learning.
I have talked a lot today about teaching and students, but the UK is also a world leader in research and innovation. Established and emerging economies alike look on in envy not just at the quality and breadth of our research, but at our incredible track record of turning innovative ideas into life-changing, marketable products and services. The Government are protecting science resource funding at its current level of £4.7 billion, which will rise in cash terms every year for the rest of the Parliament. At the same time, we are investing in new scientific infrastructure on a record scale, delivering on the £6.9 billion science capital commitment in our manifesto.
Few people understand the research landscape better than the Nobel prize-winning geneticist Sir Paul Nurse. Aside from being an inspirational example of how social mobility can happen in our country, last year he completed an independent review of our seven research councils, recommending that the seven existing bodies be brought together into a single body. The Bill will make his recommendation of
“a formal organisation…which can support the whole system to collectively become more than the sum of its parts”
a reality.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Coventry University, Birmingham City University and the University of Wolverhampton recently launched a partnership to bring together their applied research and training expertise. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the measures in the Bill to implement Paul Nurse’s recommendations support such innovative collaboration, so that, as she says, the public investment in our research can add up to more than the sum of its parts?
Justine Greening
The Bill will help in two ways. Not only will it naturally bring the research councils together under one umbrella organisation; it will give that organisation a much more powerful voice when developing links with the business community. I know from the time I spent in industry before entering the House that the link in Britain between academia and research and business is a strong one, but one that can be strengthened further. As we consider how our country will be successful as we navigate through the Brexit process, making the most not only of our young people’s talents, but of our most world-class research institutions and the brains within them will be key.
The Bill will bring into being a new body called UK Research and Innovation that will strengthen the strategic approach to future challenges, while maximising the value of the Government’s investment of more than £6 billion a year in research and innovation. UKRI will provide a strong, unified voice for the UK’s research and innovation funding system on the global stage, cementing Britain’s world-leading position. UKRI and the Office for Students will work closely together to ensure that there is a co-ordinated, strategic approach to the funding of teaching and research in England.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Welsh universities have traditionally had an awful deal out of the seven research councils structure. In 2014-15, we received 2% of the total budget, whereas our population share would demand at least 5%. Does the Secretary of State think that that 2% is fair for Welsh universities, and what will the new structure do to address the situation? Would it not be better to create four research councils for the four component parts of the British state and Barnett-ise the funding?
Justine Greening
The Bill is about strengthening our capacity to do world-beating research. The money will follow where the excellence is. I have no doubt that there is significant excellence in Wales. That is why there has been significant funding for some of our world-class research that is taking place in that part of the UK. The Bill is about enabling the seven research councils to add up to more, as Sir Paul Nurse said, by bringing them under one umbrella.
The Bill will ensure that the UK is equipped to carry out more multidisciplinary research and to better respond with agility and flexibility to the latest research challenges. By bringing Innovate UK into UKRI, we will harness the opportunities across business as well, so that business-led innovation and world-class research can better come together and translate our world-class knowledge into world-class innovation. Innovate UK will retain its individual funding stream and continue its support for business-led technology and innovation.
We are protecting in law, for the first time ever, the dual-support research funding system in England—a system that many people consider to have underpinned universities’ confidence to invest in long-term research and that has contributed to our well-deserved global reputation for excellence.
The formation of UKRI will provide crucial support during this period of change in our relationship with the European Union. As we face new challenges, we need a strong and unified voice to represent the interests of the research and innovation community across Government, across Europe and around the world.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
Unison, the union, has about 40,000 workers in higher education institutions, which represents a great range of staff. It is very concerned, as am I, that the vote to leave the European Union has produced real uncertainty that will create challenges in terms of funding, research, staffing and students. It asks a question that I would like to put to the Secretary of State: why is there a rush to do this? Should we not look at the new landscape, think very carefully and then decide what we should do?
Justine Greening
I do not agree with the hon. Lady, but I recognise the challenges that she talks about in making sure that the universities sector and the higher education sector more broadly come out of the process of Brexit stronger. That is why we are engaging in a structured way across Government and outside Government in sectors such as HE to ensure that we have a smart approach to taking Britain through the Brexit process. I refer her to the point that the University Alliance made earlier today about the Bill being
“a raft that can take us to calmer waters”.
The Bill is how we will provide the security, vision and direction for a strong higher education sector.
Justine Greening
I have taken an awful lot of interventions, but I must now make some progress and allow the debate to continue.
Our universities are world class and our researchers are world beating. That is because over the years, over the decades and over the centuries, they have evolved and adapted to face the challenges and changes of the world around them—the world that they do much to study, understand and explain. We have to make the bold moves that are needed to secure their success for many more years to come. These changes are about further unlocking and unleashing the talents of our people and our best brains. I want the young people of today and tomorrow to be given every opportunity to succeed. That is why I am proud to put the Bill before the House. I pay tribute to the Minister for Universities and Science, who has done so much work to get the Bill to this stage.
The Higher Education and Research Bill will put more information and more choice in the hands of students. It will promote social mobility so that every person in this country has the opportunity to make the most of themselves. It will boost productivity in the economy as we realise our future outside the European Union. It will enhance and cement our position in the world as leaders in groundbreaking research, and ensure that students and taxpayers receive value for money from their investment in education. It is the right thing to do and the smart thing to do.
The Prime Minister told us last week that
“together we will build a better Britain”.
I am clear that education has to be at the forefront of that. Our universities deserve the best, our students deserve the best and our researchers and innovators deserve the best, so that they can play their role in building that better Britain. The Bill will provide them with nothing less than the best, and I commend it to the House.
Mr Marsden
Lord Mandelson and I are at one on that; I welcome a range of universities, but I want to make sure—I am sure most Members would agree—that they do what they say on the tin and can be trusted in the first place. That is the whole point of what we are saying. [Interruption.] I know, from a previous incarnation, that the Whips are trained to say things like that, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Mr David Evennett)
Wait and see.
Mr Marsden
I will indeed wait and see.
The Government should take into consideration proposals in the new report that has been prepared for the all-party parliamentary group for adult education, “Too important to be left to chance”. They should study the Fabian Society’s new proposals: it recommends gradually doing away with loans via national insurance and education learning accounts. The Open University, City and Guilds, the TUC, the Institute For Public Policy Research, Unionlearn and several other organisations have produced ideas to facilitate both credit transfer and personal careers accounts, and I have added my own thoughts. They build on the magisterial 2009 NIACE report “Learning Through Life”, co-authored by Tom Schuller and the late lamented Professor David Watson.
Knowledge is power, as shop stewards and industrial injury lawyers know only too well. Today we have an opportunity, but also a duty, to extend that power through learning to millions of workers across Britain. Lifelong learning should not be “siloed”. It contributes to social cohesion, so it is an issue for the Department for Communities and Local Government; it helps people to live longer, so it is an issue for the Department of Health; it helps to return offenders to society, so it is an issue for the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice; and it contributes to preparing economically inactive people to enter the world of work, if that is appropriate. I have laboured those points because I realise that, given the smaller budgets that the Education Ministers may have, they may have to go to some of the other Departments with the begging bowl if we are to see any progress in this regard.
Knowledge is not merely power, but the key to empowerment. We should be bold in the world of lifelong learning that we offer our citizens for 2020: we should offer practical skills along with pure knowledge. Instead, however, the Government have been content to make welcome but incremental changes, while the capacity of adult learning is unravelling further. As was pointed out earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), the Bill contains little reference to the part that devo-max can play in expanding new providers, or to the productivity and job needs of the 21st century. That fear is echoed in the alternative White Paper, which states:
“'A private, for-profit university would have neither an interest in meeting a broader public remit nor the interests of the local economy in which it is located—its primary responsibility will be to its owners, investors and shareholders.”
Instead of looking at urgently needed and constructive ways of reducing the financial fees burden on our students, the Government have produced mechanisms which dodge Parliament’s ability to judge and regulate them. Instead of strengthening and shoring up our universities and higher and further education at a most critical time, they risk seriously undermining them by obsessively pursuing a market ideology. Instead of presenting analysis in the wake of Brexit, offering relief, assurances and strategies to safeguard both research excellence in our traditional and modern universities and the involvement of higher education in the local communities and economies that they serve, the Government have presented no answers to the urgent threats, such as brain drains, that are emerging post-23 June. Instead of strengthening our UK HE brand in the uncertain world in which we must negotiate post- Brexit, they have produced what many regard as a hotchpotch of structures in research and science, with unresolved tensions between new structures for England and the devolved nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They have continually ducked the suggestions made to them about pre-legislative scrutiny to try to iron out some of these issues, although, thank goodness, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool has initiated an inquiry.
Given the result of the Brexit referendum and the collapse of the Cameron Government, we see how wise it would have been for the Government to reflect and take time. Instead, they are going hell for leather with a Bill that is obsessed with a toxic combination of market and competition-driven ideology. The small measures of progress and relief that they have offered in respect of social mobility could have provided an opportunity for them to paint a bold new picture of a system that would encourage social cohesion, but instead they have undermined their own social mobility agenda in the ways that I have described.
We could have had a Bill which addressed those issues, and which would have commanded wide support across the House and among the institutions that that supply HE and research, but instead, after a week in which the very structures of the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have been turned upside down, we are pressing on as if nothing had happened. Maynard Keynes famously said:
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
This is not the Bill that this Parliament needs. It is not the Bill that universities and HE institutions needed. It is not the Bill that our country needs—that our countries need. It is a Bill that is currently not fit for purpose. Especially post-Brexit, we need a Bill that will provide direction and structure, and tackle and settle the needs of a crucial part of our national life for the next generation. That is why we cannot support this Bill’s Second Reading tonight.
The Minister for Universities and Science (Joseph Johnson)
This has been a terrific debate, in which there has been very strong consensus across the House that our universities rank among the very best in the world, our research base is a global envy and our higher education sector is generating the knowledge and skills that are fuelling our economy and providing the basis for our nation’s intellectual and cultural success.
However, there has also been an acknowledgment in all parts of the House that we can do better still. The world of higher education has changed fundamentally since the last major legislative reforms of 1992. With student number controls now lifted, we are in an era of mass higher education that is no longer limited to the academic elite within a small and primarily Government-funded set of institutions. The majority of funding for undergraduate courses now comes from the students themselves, via Government-backed loans.
The sector has long acknowledged that the current regulatory framework is simply not fit for purpose. We must do more to ensure that young people from all backgrounds are given the opportunity to fulfil their potential and the information they need to make good choices about where and what to study. The Bill provides stability and puts in place the robust regulatory framework that the sector itself agrees is needed. It joins up the very fragmented system of regulation across the current sector, giving us what will be a best-in-class regulatory framework.
Joseph Johnson
I will not give away for the moment, because I have a significant amount of material to get through in a very limited time.
The Bill creates a level playing field, making it easier for new high-quality providers to compete with established degree-awarding universities. This will drive up innovation, diversity, quality and capacity, ensuring we remain attractive internationally. It will give students better access to information, empowering them to make the best choices about where to study. It ensures incentives are in place for providers to focus on the quality of the teaching they offer to students.
This Government are committed to equality of opportunity for all. The Bill delivers on that commitment, with a renewed focus on access and participation for disadvantaged students. The new office for students will be required to consider equality of opportunity across the entire student lifecycle, and our reforms to the research landscape will deliver a system that is more agile, flexible and able to respond strategically to future challenges.
This afternoon, we have often heard concerns that now is not the time to proceed with the Bill and that we should press the pause button. That is wrong: the time is right to press ahead, and important sector representatives agree. As Maddalaine Ansell, the chief executive of University Alliance, put it in an article just the other day, the Higher Education and Research Bill
“is a raft that can take us to calmer waters”.
I urge Opposition Members to get on board.
The Bill delivers on pledges in the Conservative manifesto on which we were elected. It will provide stability for the sector, putting in place a robust regulatory framework. The sector has been calling for this legislation since the tuition fee changes were put in place during the last Parliament, and it welcomes the stability and certainty that the Bill will provide. As GuildHE, another representative body, has put it:
“Pausing on the Bill and risking further damage to our international reputation for quality through regulatory failure would be a mistake”.
Tristram Hunt
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way, because I appreciate that it is so annoying when someone interrupts your lecture. As we know, this is a Brexit Government, and many of the leading Cabinet Ministers promised not only £350 million a week for the NHS, but security for all our science funding. Will the Minister at the Dispatch Box give assurances to Staffordshire University and Keele University in my constituency that all their science funding will be secure by Brexit?
Joseph Johnson
I encourage Opposition Members to be optimistic about our future as a global leader in higher education and science. The UK has been at the centre of scholarship and science for hundreds of years. Many universities were powerhouses of scholarship long before the European Union came into existence, and I am confident that they will continue to be so for years and years to come.
Our universities are world leading and, although it is too early to say what the new EU settlement will be for science, I am confident that we will continue to thrive following the referendum result. That is why I have been engaging closely with Commissioner Moedas in Brussels and many other people in Governments across Europe, including my Italian counterpart. I welcome their commitment to ensuring that we will not be discriminated against in the period we find ourselves in. I welcome this morning’s statement by the League of European Research Universities that British universities should not be viewed as a risk to research projects and that they will continue to be “indispensable collaborative partners” in the months and years ahead.
Turning to our rationale for opening the market in the Bill, it is generally accepted that competition between providers in any market incentivises them to raise their game and offers consumers a greater choice of more innovative and better quality products and services at lower cost. Higher education is no exception. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) said in her excellent remarks, there is certainly room for improvement. Students’ perception of value for money is continuing to fall. In the Higher Education Policy Institute student experience survey published last month, just 37% of student respondents felt that they received good value for money. That was down from 53% in 2012.
We need to address the fact that many students are starting to ask whether university is worth it. Many employers have similar questions when they look at the labour market mismatch in our economy. While employers are suffering skills shortages, especially in high-skilled STEM areas, at least 20% of graduates are in non-professional roles three and a half years after graduating. If the students who are paying for the system and the taxpayers who are underwriting it are not completely satisfied, the market needs help to adapt. This we will provide as a Government. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who made an outstanding speech, I make no apology for seeking to expand higher education provision and give students more choice and more opportunities at every stage of their lives.
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), I welcome the contribution that alternative providers are making and that they will be able to make all the more easily in future. There is no longer a one-size-fits-all model of university education. Students have a sharper eye for value than ever before and they are calling out, as my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) said, for pioneering institutions offering alternative educational models and an increased focus on skills that will prepare them for the future with the mindset and agility needed to fulfil roles that may not even yet exist. I welcome his engagement with the Milton Keynes institute of technology, which is a flagship for the challenger institutions that we want to come into the sector.
Critically, as other Members have stressed, it is vital that no institution is able to enter our system and access student finance without meeting the very high academic standards that we expect of the sector, as set out in the White Paper. On longevity, we expect institutions to meet the same financial sustainability rules that exist for incumbents. The Bill makes no changes to those demanding requirements. The reforms will, however, make it easier and quicker for new providers to enter the HE market. They will drive innovation, promote choice for students and increase opportunity, but they will also ensure that new providers can enter the market only when they demonstrate that they are able to deliver academic services of the quality that we expect.
The Bill reflects our determination to accelerate social mobility in this country through higher education. When we reformed the student finance system in 2011, some, including Labour Members, said participation would fall. In fact, the opposite has happened. We have a progressive student finance loan system that ensures that finance is no barrier to entry. It is working as a system. Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are going to university at a record rate—it is up from 13.6% of the bottom quintile in 2009 to 18.5% in 2015. I am afraid Labour Members were wrong then and they are wrong now. Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are 36% more likely to go to university than they were in 2009, but we can and must go further. Our new Prime Minister has rightly prioritised a country that works for everyone and not just the few.
Our reforms in the White Paper and the Bill support that ambition. The Bill introduces a statutory duty on the office for students to promote equality of opportunity across the whole higher education lifecycle for disadvantaged students, and not just at the point of access. That includes Oxbridge and other elite institutions, exactly as the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) would want us to ensure. We will bring together the responsibilities of OFFA and HEFCE for widening access into the new office for students. As part of that body, the new director for fair access and participation will look beyond the point of access into higher education and across disadvantaged students’ entire time in higher education. We will also require higher education providers to publish application, offer and progression rates by gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background.
I welcome the cross-party support for our focus on teaching excellence. We are committed to introducing a teaching excellence framework in our manifesto because we want to drive up teaching standards throughout the sector. The Bill delivers on our pledge to drive up teaching quality and to provide students with robust, comparable information on where teaching is best in the system. It will rebalance the priority given to teaching and learning compared with research, and will mean that the funding of teaching is based on quality, not just quantity—a principle long and successfully established for the funding of research.
On the link between tuition fees and the teaching excellence framework, it is worth noting that the previous Labour Government raised tuition fees in line with inflation in every year from 2007 to 2010, regardless of teaching quality. We will allow fees to rise with inflation only for those institutions offering the highest-quality teaching. Maximum fee caps will be kept flat in real terms. We will allow them to increase only in line with inflation each year, as provided for by the Labour Government. Both Universities UK and GuildHE—expert sector groups—have made clear that allowing the value of fees to be maintained in real terms is essential if universities are to continue to deliver high-quality teaching.
Our reforms go well beyond education and also cover our research base. We have heard comments about our outstanding research base. Its strengths in adding to human knowledge and improving our lives are not in doubt. They will continue to be protected, but we have the opportunity to maximise the benefits of our investment through a strengthened strategic approach, removing the barriers to more inter- and multidisciplinary research, and ensuring that we capitalise on links between our research base and business. We have long recognised the contribution of science and research to our wellbeing and wider economy. Our reforms build on those strengths, placing research and development at the heart of a national industrial strategy.
We have heard many passionate voices from both sides of the House today. The House can unite in support of the excellence of our universities and our research, but the Government are not willing simply to celebrate the excellence already achieved—we want it to continue and to build on it further. Our reforms will create a level playing field for new providers and increase competition in the system. We will encourage innovation in the higher education sector, transform the sector’s ability to respond to economic demands and the rapidly changing graduate employment landscape, and ensure that we remain attractive internationally for decades to come. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.