Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 171, 202 and 213 in my name. Amendment 171 proposes that the chair of the quality assessment committee should be independent of government and party politics and builds on the remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, on the importance of independence. There are concerns that, throughout the Bill, the Government will have powers more than is healthy in the affairs of higher education institutions. It is important that the chair of the QAC should be a non-party-political appointment.

Amendment 202 brings us back to a may/must debate—so beloved of your Lordship’s House across a whole swathe of legislation. Here we propose that the OfS “must consult”, rather than “may consult”, about whether there is a body that is suitable to perform the assessment functions. This should not be a matter of choice. Amendment 213 adds additional conditions to any directions given by the OfS to a designated body, such as ensuring that the powers of the OfS to give directions to a designated body do not adversely impact on that body’s suitability to carry out assessment functions, must be compatible with other duties, and must not relate to operational activity without previous concerns having been raised. These measures are designed to safeguard the authority and autonomy of the universities while acknowledging the duties of the OfS. I hope they will be seen as helpful additions to the Bill.

I support the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for the quality assurance office. Without doubt, with the new measures in the Bill, we need a really robust quality assurance system, and I think the measures proposed could provide that.

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I support an independent quality assessment process, and I believe it is right that an organisation independent of the Office for Students should undertake this role. Most importantly, it needs to be a body that has the confidence of the sector to undertake assessment of quality on behalf of the OfS. As others have said, I would like to see a continuation of the co-regulatory approach to quality assessment, which would allow the QAA to continue in its current role. It is important to ensure that the relevant stakeholders, including the OfS, the Secretary of State and the sector, respect the principles of co-regulation.

Sector ownership of the QAA, with HEFCE and other devolved bodies as essential stakeholders that also fund and direct some of the QAA’s activities, has until recently been highly successful. It has ensured sufficient buy-in from the sector and the academic community, while providing processes for assuring the public about standards and quality that are seen as world-leading outside the UK. Also, the UK is a member of the European Higher Education Area, which is quite separate from the EU, and its standards and guidelines require that the body responsible for quality review be entirely independent of the Government.

I am rather anxious that a body appointed on a statutory basis would be for England only, so would undermine a UK-wide approach to quality. I hope that in his reply the Minister will address both those points. I also reiterate a point that has been made by others: I certainly would not want to see a quality assurance system that was vulnerable to political interference and would undermine the sector’s own vital role in quality assurance.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that I am not the only one for whom the particular solutions that have been presented are not ones that we wish to support wholeheartedly. However, the reason for them is, I think, one that would attract support across the House. We live in a society where the dangers to our liberal system become daily more obvious, so we should not do anything that would enable those who would use the system for anything other than the free, liberal debate of which our universities are so central a part. We do not want a system that could in any way inhibit that.

One difficulty of discussing these issues is that no one is suggesting that this Government, or these Ministers, are of that kind. But a lot of things have happened over the past two or three years that have led many of us to be much more worried about those fundamentals that we have taken for granted. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will understand that there will be a considerable lack of ease if he cannot assure us about the independence of that part of the structure which ensures both quality and independence. As I say, I am not entirely delighted by the various suggestions as to what one might do, and I am concerned about the proliferation of bodies, groups and persons; I am never quite sure how such things can be totally divorced from party politics, but I certainly think we ought to try. I hope that the Minister will understand that there is an underlying concern, which may demand a different answer, but which must be assuaged, because we live in times when none of us is any longer willing to risk any of the things that we hold so fundamental and so dear in our liberal society.