Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Rebuck Excerpts

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

[Baroness Rebuck (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest: I have the privilege of chairing the council of the Royal College of Art, ranked number one for art and design in the QS world university rankings for the second year running and one of the finest examples of British excellence in postgraduate education. I also work in business, where innovation and creativity are key prized qualities. However, I fear that increased control rather than creativity may be a consequence of the Bill.

I wish to make three points today. The first has already been referenced by many speakers. Our higher education institutions are world-class. While I agree with reviewing higher education in the light of changes in society, surely we must seek to preserve one of the principles that have got us to our global position—namely, institutional independence. Of particular concern is the withdrawal of royal charters, which have ring-fenced academic freedom, ensured high standards and avoided interference by government.

I recall a comment from a former Secretary of State. No doubt it was a chance remark, but it encouraged 16 year-olds to stop studying humanities and the arts as it was only the STEM subjects that would help them on their career paths. Yes, of course we need more science graduates, more engineers, more coders and especially more women studying STEM subjects—to whom these remarks were actually intended—but, I argue, not at the expense of the arts. It is the fusion of arts and science, that combination of humanities and design working in synergy with engineers and scientists, that produces the innovation on which our economy can flourish. Let us not forget that the creative industries in the UK are growing twice as fast as the rest of the economy and, according to HEFCE’s most recent survey, it is the UK’s Royal College of Art that has created the greatest number of commercial student start-ups, with a percentage of university ownership.

One such UK start-up is a tech company called ROLI Seaboard, which invented a revolutionary soft keyboard that is now exported to over 22 counties. This multimillion pound venture was launched by an international student after completing a Masters and PhD in design, and he was lucky enough to get a post-study work visa—a rare occurrence today, I fear.

My second point is about the shift in higher education to lifelong learning, which does not have the focus it deserves in this Bill. Where is the ambitious lifelong learning strategy to tackle skills gaps? Given the pace of technological change, our businesses constantly require new skill sets, and employees increasingly need to skill up or retrain for career progression and job security. There is an increasing demand for expert programmers, and we need more relevant skills to develop robotics, voice-activated home solutions, driverless cars or tech-related healthcare—sectors that did not exist 20 years ago. Nor does this new army of skilled workers need to be solely young graduates. Many of these new courses will also come from a fusion of design thinking and technology. To reskill in these important areas, we need more part-time, modular and online courses, as argued by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Dean, yet in England the number of part-time students has declined by 40% since 2010 while in the USA it has risen by 40%.

My final point is about social mobility. I share the Bill’s vision for greater participation by students from more disadvantaged backgrounds, and as much as I applaud increased transparency, I am concerned that better recording and publication of student data is not enough when 80% of universities are currently struggling to meet their access targets, and it is difficult to understand why the estimated £750 million spent to widen participation has not had a greater effect. The Bill is an opportunity to tackle this issue head on, but it is short on detail about how people who have no easy access, no role models and no means of supporting themselves at university will be better able to participate in higher education. What innovative pathways can the Bill offer? For example, a recent piece of research by the Social Mobility Commission blamed the progression gap on the lack of career advice to 16 year-olds.

To sum up, I believe that universities must hold on to the institutional autonomy that has made them global leaders—in particular, the independence of research councils free from any government rhetoric that could see one aspect of research dominate at the expense of another. It is STEAM—the fusion of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, design and the arts; that is, the interdisciplinarity of these subjects—where much of the UK’s creativity and innovation both begins and is commercialised, which is a process the Bill seeks to encourage. I also believe the Bill must support lifelong learning so that education can keep pace with the social change it seeks to support and that more rigorous interventions must be made so that higher education becomes fully accessible to all.