Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2024

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my business interests in Wales as set out in the register. The draft order we are considering will make changes to UK legislation arising from the establishment of the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research in Wales under powers in the Senedd’s Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022. The 2022 Act provided for the establishment of the new Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, which I will hereafter refer to as the commission. The commission will be the regulatory body responsible for the funding, oversight and regulation of tertiary education and research in Wales. The 2022 Act also provides for the dissolution of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, which is the existing regulatory body for higher education funding in Wales. I will hereafter refer to this body as HEFCW.

The Welsh Government have announced that the commission will become operational in August 2024, and that HEFCW will be dissolved at the same time. The amendments to various pieces of UK legislation in this order, many of which replace reference to HEFCW with “the commission”, are therefore needed in advance of this change taking effect. Article 2 of the draft order amends the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 so that members of the commission in receipt of remuneration will be disqualified from membership of the House of Commons in the same way that members of HEFCW are currently.

Article 3 replaces references to HEFCW and the Welsh Ministers with the commission in Section 82 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. This section makes provision about the assessment of maintaining academic standards in higher education institutions in Scotland and Wales.

Article 4 amends Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which lists public authorities for the purposes of that Act. Once it comes into force, the 2022 Senedd Act will repeal Section 62 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Section 62 is referred to in Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in order to define institutions in the Welsh higher education sector within scope of the 2000 Act. Given the repeal, Article 4 replaces this cross-reference with an equivalent definition, ensuring that there is no material change to the institutions in the Welsh higher education sector subject to the 2000 Act.

Article 4 of the draft Order also amends Part 6 of Schedule 1 to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 by adding the commission to the list of public authorities for the purposes of that Act and removing the reference to HEFCW from the list.

Article 5 amends Section 32 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which makes provision about monitoring the performance of further and higher education bodies in discharging their duty to prevent people being drawn into terrorism. In line with Section 32 of the 2015 Act, the Home Secretary has delegated this monitoring function to HEFCW in relation to higher and further education in Wales. Our amendment will allow this function to be delegated to the commission in the same way once HEFCW is dissolved. The Home Office and Welsh Government are working closely together to ensure that the function is delegated to the commission from the date on which it becomes operational.

Finally, Article 6 updates the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, ensuring that the commission is able to enter into joint working arrangements with education and research bodies across the UK, including UKRI and the Office for Students, as HEFCW can currently.

I welcome the establishment of the commission and hope that it will have a positive impact on the tertiary education and research sector in Wales. I am pleased in particular that this draft Order will support collaboration and joint working between the commission and its counterparts in other UK nations, supporting the continuous improvement of the education and research sectors in Wales and more widely across the UK. I commend this draft Order to the Committee and I beg to move.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, the Order is consequential on the Welsh Government’s Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022 which changed the way post-16 education and training is to be funded and regulated in Wales. The Act itself dissolves the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, or HEFCW, and creates the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, the CTER—I wish we could find a little name for that—which becomes fully operational in August this year.

Currently, HEFCW has responsibility only for higher education, and the Welsh Government are responsible for the remaining areas within the sector. Under CTER, or the commission, higher education will join further education, LA-maintained school sixth forms, apprenticeships, adult community learning and research and innovation to form a new commission. It will have a budget of around £800 million, which will be one of the highest allocated budgets to an arm’s length body in Wales. The new commission will therefore be responsible for the whole of the tertiary research sector and for the funding, oversight and regulation of all post-l6 education and training.

Having worked in both the secondary and lifelong learning sectors, I am fully in favour of the Act and its intention of bringing all parts of the sector together. For too long it seems that HEFCW was required to operate at arm’s length from the rest of the sector. Its inclusion in the commission will bring the benefit of its knowledge and expertise, which will be invaluable. I understood that the commission would be operational by April this year, but it now appears that it is unlikely to be so until August. Could the noble Lord explain the delay? Perhaps it is unfair to ask that question, because it is not his responsibility, and it would be more appropriately aimed at a Welsh Minister, but perhaps he could hazard an answer.