Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Baroness Watkins of Tavistock and Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 16th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests, as declared in the register.

I support the amendment, to which I have added my name. As the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, has already pointed out, the majority of higher education will be undertaken in traditional higher education institutions, including further education colleges. Those institutions are accountable for innovative, appropriate curriculum design, as outlined earlier by my noble friend Lady Brown. It is appropriate that curriculum design includes enabling students to have degrees awarded when a proportion of their programme is either with employers or on placements. In health, for example, students need to learn in hospitals and communities, and some very innovative new approaches in higher education are associated with degree-level apprenticeships. At the University of Exeter there is an ambitious approach to the new degree-level apprenticeship schemes, which involve working with employers and their staff. The first of these programmes commenced in September 2016—a BSc honours in digital and technology solutions. It involves working with four employers, including IBM.

A degree-level apprenticeship offers a new route to achieving a university degree in collaboration with employers. Apprentices are full-time, paid employees of the business partner, but a proportion of the student’s time is spent participating in a programme, using blended learning, residential teaching blocks and assessed projects and placements.

Therefore, it is imperative that we are clear in the Bill about the definition of higher education and that we recognise that, whether it is in health or industry, part of students’ higher education experience is increasingly in a workplace. Amendment 72 would encompass, and make provision for, this approach through the definition that it provides, thus strengthening the Bill at this point.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, when the Minister replies, can she clarify a key term of the Bill—namely, the English higher education provider? I think we all understand—and this clause makes it very explicit—that we expect a diversity of institutions to provide higher education in England. What is unclear to me is whether English higher education providers have to be incorporated under English law. May they, for example, be incorporated under the law of the Cayman Islands? If they are for-profit organisations, may they pay their taxes—if any—there? It would be clarifying to know whether English higher education providers are to be incorporated under English law.