Higher Education and Research Bill

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, of course we need as much information as possible about universities so that parents and young people can make the right decisions about which university they choose. I am delighted that we are now focusing on the quality of teaching. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, was right to say that it must be about high quality. That means high quality throughout the university sector, in teaching, provision, and simple things, such as the ability to make sure that essays and dissertations are properly marked, and to make sure that there is high quality with regard to the size of tutorial and lecture groups. A whole host of issues will ensure high quality.

We sometimes forget that choosing a university is a huge decision for a young person and their parents. They do not pick one at random but do the research, looking very carefully. Again, not only do they choose carefully but they visit those universities. I know from my own experience that students and their parents will have put two or three universities down and will have one in mind as where they want to go to, because of the course they want to do. However, noble Lords will be surprised at how often they get there and do not like it. They do not get a sense of there being the right ethos about the place or they do not like the staff they meet. One of my friends, who is doing creative writing, had two universities at the top of her list. She went to visit them and they gave her sample lectures. Guess what—she went to the third one, because she found that the response and the quality of the lectures were not good enough for her. Let us not kid ourselves: when parents and students come to choose the university they will go to, they are already in the driving seat.

I have grave reservations about the notion of getting this matrix together, putting in things such as employability, and then, suddenly, there is a mark. Currently it is proposed that it be gold, silver or bronze. As I said at Second Reading, I cannot see many universities boasting that they have a bronze award—they will not do that. But you can bet your bottom dollar that those rated as gold will display that for everybody to see. That will be damaging to the university sector as a whole and, as we have heard many noble Lords say, it will be damaging for students coming to our universities from overseas. We therefore have to tread very carefully. The Minister told us on Monday that he was very much in listening mode. Speaker after speaker, right across the House, has raised considerable concerns about this issue. If the Minister is in listening mode, I am sure that he will want to ensure that when we come to Report he will take our points on board.

I do not have any interests to declare regarding universities but I have interests in mainstream education. We have been down this road of labelling schools. In my wildest imagination I never thought that we would see a maintained school system in which schools advertise their success on the backs of buses and on banners hung outside their schools. Parents are caught in this trap, wondering, “Do I send my child to an outstanding school or a good school?”. Of course, if a school needs improvement, while it is improving it has the problem of parents saying, “I’m not sending them to that school”. We have been there before in higher education. We can remember the days of universities and polytechnics. Polytechnics—higher education providers—were regarded as the poor relation. People would say, “I’m not sure I want my son or daughter to go to a polytechnic”, although in many cases the provision was as good and, in some areas, better than at universities. Thank goodness we decided to ensure that higher education institutions as a whole were labelled universities.

I hope that the Minister gets the message and that we provide as much information as possible and look at the quality of teaching. A noble Lord said that of course in the mainstream sector, your teaching is observed, and if you are not up to the mark, you will not teach. If we want to improve the quality of teaching in universities, maybe there has to be some sort of requirement to teach students. Teaching is not just about knowledge but also about how you relate to young people. The most knowledgeable and gifted professor may be unable to relate to a young person, and therefore cannot teach the subject. I therefore welcome the notion of improving teaching.

I know that it will be a small part of the matrix, but I have reservations about the concept of a student survey, or students marking teaching. Students should give their views; that is good and right. But students will rate highly teachers, lecturers and professors who give it to them on a plate: “Here is what you need to know—take it away”. Lecturers who are challenging, who want to push the students and make them think for themselves, are quite often marked down. I therefore have reservations about how we develop this idea of student feedback. That is not to say that student voices should not be heard, but that they should be a very small part of the whole. I hope the Minister will take that on board as well.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I have today sent a letter setting out some further detail following Monday’s debates, and attached a briefing note on the teaching excellence framework which I hope noble Lords have found helpful.

I am grateful for the thoughtful comments made in this prolonged debate on the teaching excellence framework, which is in the manifesto commitment. These comments go to the heart of what we are trying to achieve in incentivising high-quality teaching. I am pleased that there is no disagreement on the importance of high-quality teaching, and the importance of incentivising this. Many Peers have acknowledged this, and Governments from all sides have wanted it for many years. This is an important element of these reforms and this has been a key debate, so I hope that noble Lords will forgive me and that the House will bear with me if I speak at a reasonable length on the points raised.

A number of Peers raised a point on whether the TEF should be tested more and, in effect, go more slowly. This was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and other noble Lords. In effect, the question related to a pilot scheme. I reassure noble Lords that the TEF has been, and will continue to be, developed iteratively. We have consulted more than once, and year 2, which we are currently in, is a trial year. Working groups, including those in the sector, are under way on the subject-level TEF. That was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and I will say a little more about that later. Therefore, the sector has recognised this trialling aspect, and Maddalaine Ansell, the chief executive of University Alliance, has said:

“We remain confident that we can work with government to shape the TEF so it works well as it develops”.


The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, commented on the detailed metrics. She also spoke about iterating and reviewing the metrics, and made some constructive comments. The TEF metrics will continue to evolve. I stress again that, where there is a good case to do so, we will add new metrics to future rounds. I have no doubt that I will also be saying a bit more about this later.

I want to respond quickly to the amendments on the TEF and immigration. This picks up a theme raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, my noble friend Lord Jopling and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. Following our useful debate last week, and as I set out in my subsequent letter, I confirm again that we have no plans to cap the number of genuine students who can come to the UK to study, nor to limit an institution’s ability to recruit genuine international students based on its TEF rating or any other basis. This applies to all institutions, not just to members of the Russell group.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the issue of international students, and I move on to the proposal to publish the number of international students. The TEF will be a world-leading assessment of the quality of teaching and student outcomes achieved by higher education providers. Students should have a better idea of what to expect from their studies here—better than anywhere else in the world. However, a dataset that simply links the TEF to international student numbers fails to recognise the much broader international student recruitment market place. I should add that all the relevant information requested by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, is in the public domain.

Moving on, I remind the Committee that the ability to raise fees according to inflation is not new. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, it has been provided for since 2004. Indeed, as I think he said, the process was established under the then Labour Government and was routinely applied from 2007 to 2012. I reassure noble Lords that, as the Government set out in the White Paper, our expectation is that the value of fee limits accessible to those participating in the TEF will, at most, be in line with inflation.

As the Liberal Democrats will recall, the coalition Government used the legislation that had been put in place in 2004 by the Labour Government to increase tuition fees above inflation in 2012. We have no such plans to increase the value of fee limits above inflation. Increasing the upper or lower limits by more than inflation would, under the Bill as currently drafted, require regulations subject to the affirmative procedure, which requires the approval of Parliament. In the case of the higher amount, it would also require a special resolution. That is in line with the current legislative approach to raising fee caps.

I now turn to the link between the TEF and fees. Schedule 2 builds on well-established procedures in setting fee caps. Under the schedule, different fee limits will apply depending on whether a provider has an access and participation plan, and what TEF rating they have been awarded. Crucially therefore, this schedule will, for the very first time, link fees to the quality of teaching and thus increase value for students. This will recognise and reward excellence, and will drive up quality in the system. It will mean that only providers who demonstrate high-quality teaching will be able to access tuition fees up to an inflation-linked maximum fee.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, said that since the increase in fees in 2012 there has been no increase in teaching quality. Therefore, this Government are, for the first time, putting in place real incentives, both reputational and financial, to drive up teaching quality. My noble friend Lord Willetts picked up on this theme. We believe that this is the right way forward. I have already mentioned the iterative aspect of this process.

The principle of linking funding to quality is familiar from the research excellence framework, which was introduced in the mid-1980s, and it has been an effective incentive. The REF has driven up the quality of our research, ensuring that we continue to be world leaders in global science. Tuition fees have been frozen since 2012 at £9,000 per year. This means that the fee has already fallen in value to £8,500 in real terms and, without the changes we propose, it will be worth only £8,000 by the end of this Parliament. Therefore, these changes are important if we want providers to continue to deliver high-quality teaching year after year.

As far back as 2009 the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said:

“We … need to look in my view for ways of incentivising excellence in academic teaching”.


He went on:

“We have to face up to the challenge of paying for excellence”.


I believe that the measures in Schedule 2 finally deliver that. The schedule allows a direct link between fees and the quality of teaching, with differentiated fees for different TEF ratings—a principle supported by the then BIS Select Committee and the wider sector—along with a clear framework of control for Parliament. This will ensure that well-performing providers are rewarded so that they can continue to invest in excellent teaching.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I am sorry to interrupt, but can the Minister tell us whether there will there be a sub-bronze level, because otherwise, if bronze is the bottom, it is very difficult to see how it will be seen as representing quality?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

As I mentioned, there has been a full consultation on this. It came down to the best way forward, which we believe is to have three ratings. I should stress, and hope that I have stressed, that bronze is a good level and is highly respected. I want to make that quite clear to the Committee, and I hope that noble Lords will accept what I have said.

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, the question is: is anybody going to fail the exam? You cannot just have first, second and third, with nobody failing. If nobody fails, the third rating will be counted as failure.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

As I have said, the consultation has led us to believe that this rating system is the best that we have come up with. I have explained already that various other systems have been looked at and we believe that this is the right way forward. I understand that there is some passion around what methods should be used, but we believe that this is the right way forward.

I will continue on the same theme. My noble friend Lord Jopling and the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, suggested that the TEF metrics will be gamed. We expect the assessment panels to take a holistic approach in assessing all the evidence, not just the metrics, and therefore it will not be easy to game the system. In addition, the role of the external examiners, a robust quality assessment system and the ONS review of the data sources we use are all important in tackling this issue.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, suggested that the TEF will mean that some students will be forced to study at bronze institutions due to their circumstances. However, as I said just now, a bronze provider is still one that has passed a high bar on the quality we expect it to offer. The TEF assesses excellence above that baseline and will, we expect, incentivise and encourage that bronze provider to offer a better quality of teaching to that student than they do at present.

Then noble Baroness, Lady Lister, asked how lecturers and teachers will know how to improve their teaching on the basis of the TEF ratings. The TEF provides clear reputational and financial incentives for providers to improve teaching quality, but it is not for us to tell universities how to teach. However, all TEF provider submissions will be published and we would expect those in the sector to learn from one another and to continue to feed back to us as the TEF develops.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, raised the issue of the impact of the TEF on social mobility, which is a very fair point. She asked what effect the Government think that the linking of fees and teaching quality will have on social mobility. Fears about only the Russell group providers doing well in the metrics are, we believe, misplaced. The metrics have benchmarks that recognise the student body characteristics of each provider, and a number of other safeguards are in place to ensure that the TEF should actually enhance the quality of teaching for disadvantaged groups. I know that Les Ebdon has made some comments on that, which will be very much known by the Committee.

In conclusion, while I recognise the concern that has been expressed around the ratings of gold, silver and bronze, we should not deceive ourselves. Both home and international students already make judgments as to the relative merits of different universities, based on all sorts of unreliable measures. The TEF will allow those judgments to be better informed, based on evidence rather than prejudice. These amendments would undermine the TEF’s ability to provide clear ratings and clear incentives to the sector to drive up teaching quality.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has requested this stand part debate, I remind noble Lords that removing this schedule in its entirety would remove any link between quality and the fees that a provider was able to charge. It would also mean that the sector would not receive the additional £16 billion of income by 2025 that we expect the TEF to deliver. I do not think that this is what we, or the noble Lord, want.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I am sorry to intervene on the Minister, but I really must challenge that. The situation, as he has already described it, is that fees have risen, substantially and then gradually, over the past period. That has been achieved perfectly straightforwardly by bringing forward statutory instruments that allow for an increase in fees relative to inflation. Although we have questioned some of the issues behind it, we have supported that. We are about to engage in a discussion in your Lordships’ House on the fee increases that are to apply from next session. Those fee increases are detached from any considerations of quality, are entirely related to inflation and are done on the basis that the House will consider and approve them. What exactly is the difference between that and what he is proposing? I do not get it.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I reiterate that the main way forward is that we want to link the issues of fees and performance. The TEF is a manifesto commitment, and I know that we are all agreed on the importance of recognising excellent teaching. As I have said very clearly to the Committee today, the Government have consulted extensively on the form of the TEF, and we will continue to listen to and engage with the sector as the TEF evolves. I say again that it is an iterative process, and that is why we do not need in primary legislation the detailed provisions that we have been discussing, as we believe they would hinder the constructive development that is already taking place. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will agree to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, is there a risk with the direction the Government are taking that, in supporting the thriving, successful and very good teaching universities and, some might say, putting in a bad light the less well-performing universities, we will move to a culture of universities that is less rich and diverse, with fewer local universities and specialisms, and just a few thoroughbred universities that everyone will want to go to and a diaspora of rather struggling universities? Is the Minister prepared to go away and think about whether that is a consequence that might result from this and whether that would be helpful?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I thank the noble Earl for his point. However, I think it is right that we should be bold and look ahead to bring in the performance-related measures that we have been talking about—the sector has been waiting 20 years for this. We are bringing it in carefully, with some consideration, and I hope the Committee today recognises that there have been a lot of checks and controls in this. I do not think we should stick to the status quo, in which there is no consideration of assessing the performance of universities or teaching. It is very important to be sure that we raise the quality of teaching in this country.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as pro-chancellor of Lancaster University, where we support strongly the principle of the teaching excellence framework. However, what I have found in this debate is that the Minister appears very reluctant to admit that, in any of the excellent speeches that we have heard tonight, good points have been made that are worth him thinking about and coming back to the House on at Report stage. This is disappointing. Does the Minister acknowledge that this might be the reaction of Members all around the Committee, and will he reflect on that?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I will reflect on that. I may not have said it, but I have appreciated the contributions from all noble Lords this afternoon. There have been a number of different angles to this and we had an interesting contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Desai. There is not a conclusive way forward—this is an iterative process—but I must say that, yes, I am listening. We believe that this is the right way forward. Although I have been listening, I will say again that this is a manifesto commitment and we are very keen to take it forward.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe]

My Lords, several noble Lords around the Chamber—probably all of us, actually—are anxious about the risks associated with this process; that is what we have been trying to describe. We are not resisting the way forward but trying to assess the extent of the risk. Can the Minister tell us whether there has there been a risk assessment and whether he can publish it if there has?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I will reflect on what the noble Baroness has said. It may give her some comfort if I say that we are not rushing this in. The proposals that we have are not all in the Bill; that is why this is an iterative process. I will continue to engage, as will the team and my honourable friend in the other place, on rolling out the TEF.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, we do not question the fact that this is a manifesto commitment. We support the fact that it is a manifesto commitment. We want to ensure that the system which comes out of the noble Lord’s manifesto commitment works for all universities in this country and ensures their excellence in the future.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, we all want that. I hope that in my considered response I have given my views as to how we see the way forward. I will say again that I have listened to all the views and will reflect carefully, when I read Hansard, on what noble Lords have said. I am sure that that will be read widely. I am listening but I do not wish to go any further from my views on how we go forward.