Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Deech]

511: Clause 113, page 67, line 4, at end insert—
“( ) an order under section 43(1) (variation or revocation of other authorisations to grant degrees etc.);”

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I shall speak to this amendment although my name is not on it. As we got to the end of this Committee stage, this group of amendments struck me as a chance to give Parliament more oversight into fleshing out the Bill. The Bill—and now we are nearly at the end—is not much more than a framework, albeit a very heavy framework, on which later policy is to be hung. We have no detail on the metrics in the teaching excellence framework or the detailed criteria that the Office for Students may use to establish or abolish universities. It is not clear how a lot of this Bill will work in practice. Over and over again we have been asked to take matters on trust and have been told that details will follow. We do not know how much of a light touch or not the Secretary of State will be using in guidance to the UKRI and the OfS. We do not know what providers will do to the market or how the status of the sector will hold up. We do not know how much there will be a fracture between teaching and research to the detriment of both. Now that we have reached the end of the Committee with so many gaps in the Bill, can the Minister assure us that there will be some process of post-legislative scrutiny to ensure that this experiment is working? I beg to move.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I take this opportunity simply to congratulate the Minister on having taken over this intricate and important part of the Bill. He has discharged his responsibilities with great skill.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, because of the invitation to reflect, I will take a slight liberty and make two points. The worst time of my life was when I occupied a post in the British film industry and was involved in trying to get decisions for funding for films. We were often engaged in trying to deal with larger, richer and often foreign bodies, which were prepared to tantalise us with the thought that they might invest in our films. It became well known in that process that the worst decision you could get was the slow maybe. I am afraid we are in that situation. The Minister has said that he is reflecting and thinking, but we have not been able to get clarity. It is easier to have a straight, “No, we are not taking this forward”, than it is to have variations on “thinking hard about” or reflecting. I appreciate the gesture that he has made, but it has been a bit of a frustrating period, and I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, will also say that sometimes it has been very hard to understand where the Minister has wanted to get to with a particular issue because we did not get clarity about it.

However, that is all past. We are now into a period of calm waters, and perhaps we can pick up the threads of some of what we are doing and try to take forward the ideas for Report and possibly onwards from then. I hope that that will be a fruitful time, and I look forward to it.

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, I am happy to withdraw the amendment, but given that this is such a massive Bill with so many unknowns in it, I and probably others will be calling on Report for some sort of post-legislative scrutiny and checking. However, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 511 withdrawn.