Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Brown of Cambridge Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I did not speak at Second Reading, so perhaps I should begin by declaring some non-financial interests. I was a university lecturer before entering full-time politics, I am a member of the Court of Newcastle University and am associated, through honorary fellowships, with the Universities of Durham and Sunderland.

This issue is dear to my heart. I certainly know through contact with the University of Sunderland, of which my noble friend Lord Puttnam was chancellor, that it has a good record on participation and access. What advice is the Minister taking from those institutions that already have a good record in this field? Their work should be associated with the development of the Bill’s provisions. Having said that, I endorse the point made by my noble friend Lady Blackstone: having a good system of participation and access across the board does not limit the choice for students and gives them the knowledge they need to find the most effective course and most appropriate institution to meet their needs. That is also very important. I also warmly endorse the opening remarks made about this amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I raise an issue that I think we have not spoken about under the important heading of access and participation: widening participation in higher degrees. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, rightly mentioned the impressive progress that has been made, although it is not enough yet, in widening access to undergraduate degrees. I would like the Minister to assure us that the Director for Fair Access and Participation will also be interested in widening access to higher degrees, because this is increasingly an important part of social mobility and access to good jobs. Students who have the capability and interest, but are from low-income backgrounds and finish their undergraduate degrees with significant debts, may well be put off thinking about moving on to higher degrees, and may scupper their future employment prospects and progress by not going on to do those degrees. So that should be an area of interest for the Director for Fair Access and Participation.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I should have said at Second Reading that I am a member of the Council for the Defence of British Universities—whatever impact that might have. The government amendment seems to cope with the different layers of responsibility that exist in relation to access and participation. The director will certainly have responsibility for seeking agreements with institutions about access and participation. Then there is the question of whether institutions have fully performed what they agreed to, which becomes another responsibility of the Office for Students. Another aspect, which the noble Lord, Lord Willis of Knaresborough, mentioned, is the degree of participation open to a student who wants to move from one institution to another. There are a number of aspects to this duty, so the phrase chosen in the government amendment is appropriate at that level. I do not think that the director can be responsible in the same way for all the levels involved in this idea. To have oversight of the responsibilities that the Office for Students performs in this matter is perhaps the appropriate way to deal with the issue. Saying that the director is “responsible for” is certainly different from saying that he has “oversight of”, but that is more appropriate when there are more different levels of responsibility involved in access and participation than might at first sight appear.

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[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, this group has one amendment in my name and two in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown. We should focus on Amendments 508A and 509A. My Amendment 22 has been grouped with them although they come late in the operations because we are talking about the OfS and its responsibilities in general terms. It is therefore appropriate that we have some focus on that, but I am sure we will return to some of these issues when we get to that part of the Bill later on.

In relation to Amendment 22, the request here is simply for better communication and better identification. Jointly or severally, the OfS and the UKRI, in whatever form they finally come to us as part of the Bill, will be required to take responsibility—at least in the public view and within the sensibility of the sector—as the custodians of higher education in this country in its full range, from undergraduate foundation degrees right through to postgraduate work and of course the full panoply of research funding that goes through UKRI and its bodies.

It is important, and will become increasingly important, that these bodies communicate well. I am sure there will be an opportunity later on to discuss that, not just on these amendments as I said. But this particular amendment, which we will not spend time talking about, suggests that as part of that process there should be a mechanism under which the two bodies get together to produce an annual report in the hope that that will allow a growing understanding of the work between the two institutions. It will make how they work together more transparent and will be more informative to the general public about how the system, which looks a bit disjointed, has the capacity to develop and produce the efficiencies and effectiveness that are hoped for in the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

My Lords, I support this amendment and will speak to Amendments 508A and 509A in my name. The Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation will need to work closely together on many important issues for the higher education sector. Particular examples that come to mind are: the granting of research degree awarding powers, in which many of us feel very strongly that the research community should be involved; the quality and access issues that were spoken about earlier in higher and research degrees; issues to do with the higher education innovation fund, HEIF, which I understand from discussions with the Minister’s team will be delivered through Research England and therefore under UKRI, which covers undergraduate enterprise and innovation as well as postgraduate and research issues; and the really key area of reporting on the health of the sector across the closely interrelated areas of teaching, scholarship, research, enterprise and innovation. These links are extremely important and I would urge the noble Viscount that the OfS and UKRI should have a duty to co-operate and that, indeed, there should be an element of cross-membership of each other’s boards, which is what these two amendments would deliver.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support these amendments. The Bill will set up two very powerful new bodies in the OfS and UKRI and so the importance of them collaborating and working together cannot be overstated. Teaching and research are two vital components in the university world, and to have separate bodies looking after them—compounded by the fact that, not for the first time, they will find themselves in different government departments, so that although there is a single Minister, there are two Secretaries of State—means that anything which sees them working more closely together, particularly in the early days, is of the utmost importance. The proposal in Amendment 509A for the exchange of board members is a simple and straightforward measure to try to make sure that that happens.