Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Neville-Jones Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, given my membership of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the Foundation for Science and Technology and the council of Lancaster University.

As the Minister has said, this is an important Bill of considerable scope that makes major changes to the governance of higher education and research in this country. I have to say I do not think the timing is brilliant, given the major uncertainties created by Brexit for higher education institutions, as their income and so much of their staffing is dependent on contacts overseas and on building up the networks that are vital to their intellectual capital and livelihood. I say to the Government that, when the legislation comes into operation, it will be important for them to be very responsive to any signs of unwanted and unintended side-effects and willing to take early corrective action if necessary. We will have to watch the implementation of this legislation.

Many noble Lords have commented on the TEF. In recent years, research has undoubtedly gained a prestige that teaching has not had. I agree with those who have said that teaching is very important to undergraduates. I agree that a TEF is not a bad idea at all, and I am favour of it in principle. The important issue, obviously, is how quality will be measured and whether the measurement will be regarded by those who undergo it as having real value. We need to get that right, but there is too little in the Bill at the moment about how that will be done, and I hope to hear more from the Government about it. I am not enamoured of the “gold, silver and bronze” nomenclature; I do not think it is appropriate. I also fear it will send the wrong signals to foreign students who, not particularly understanding what it is all about, will nevertheless draw the worst conclusions about the quality of institutions in this country compared with elsewhere. The Government need to rethink that.

I want to make one more comment about the university side before I turn to research. It has been argued to me that the power being given to the Office for Students to validate degree awarding is a last-resort power and, if all goes well, may never be used. I remain to be convinced that consciously building a conflict of interest into a governance structure as a way of breaking a potential closed shop is really the way to go about it. I support the idea of opening up the sector to new providers—that is not my beef—and it is already happening, which I welcome. However, lowering standards will not be the answer. I hope we shall hear, in the course of the discussions on the Bill, more from the Government about how it is envisaged that the Office for Students will carry out this duty that it is taking on.

I turn to research. Research and innovation have played a prominent role in the life of this country since Charles II founded the Royal Society and, frankly, post-Brexit their role is going to be nothing short of vital. The new money announced by the Government for research and innovation is a welcome sign of their recognition of this, and I look forward to their plans for an industrial strategy, which we are going to hear about shortly. The contribution that is going to be made by the research and innovation community will be key, so the new structures have to work well from the word go. We are not going to have the luxury of a period in which we can get it all going and working properly; it really will have to work properly from the outset.

I was initially pretty sceptical about the need for so major a change in the set-up to correct what was perceived as a problem of insufficient co-ordination and co-operation between the research councils. Frankly, I am still not sure if I have been persuaded or simply worn down by the arguments that I have heard. However, the Government have made a powerful case for a more strategic approach, though there are some inherent dangers in the degree of centralisation that will now come about with the creation of UKRI and we need to watch that. I also think the proposed design is top-heavy. As drafted, the Bill will, as with the universities, abolish the royal charters of the separate councils, and that affects autonomy. Other provisions will have the same effect. The staffing and size of each council board will be smaller. The membership will be “drawn from the community” and chaired by the chief executive, who will be part of an UKRI committee with other chief executives. We see the building of a top-down structure.

As things stand, the councils have many consultative and communication functions to carry out with academic institutions, and it is vital that that continues. Frankly, I doubt that the smaller boards that we will have if this goes through as drafted will be able to do this properly. I also think it a pity that people like myself, who cannot claim to belong to the “community” as understood in the Bill but who take a close interest in research and innovation, will no longer find a place on a research council board. Perhaps the Government think that is a good idea, I do not know, but diversity is an important attribute on those boards.

The authority of the individual research councils is being considerably weakened. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the flow will in future be from the top down, not the other way. That carries with it the danger of too much policy-directed research and not enough research freedom and blue-sky thinking. The Government say they uphold the Haldane principle, and it would be good to see that in the Bill. Perhaps the Minister will say more about the specific range of functions to be carried out by the councils and the protections that will be available to protect their autonomy.

Other noble Lords have spoken extremely powerfully about the position of Innovate UK, notably the noble Lords, Lord Broers and Lord Mair, and my noble friend Lady Rock. I am not going to repeat what they said but I entirely agree with it. I would have preferred it to have stayed as a separate institution with autonomous status, and I doubt that its problem is really the relationship with the research community. It must remain business facing and properly funded.