Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Debate between Baroness Wilcox of Newport and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Report stage
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

Amendment 1 proposes the widely accepted requirement that the learning hours associated with credit must be consistent with sector-wide standards. It would be beneficial to have 10 hours written in the Bill in order to cement its definition, because that would mean that no new definition could be introduced or imposed at a later date for the purposes of setting fee limits.

We continue to express concern that the lack of detail in the Bill could mean that in the future the policy could significantly change from the intentions of the current Government, and there is little constraint against decisions made by the Secretary of State—often a “here today, gone tomorrow” Minister—but I recognise that on Report we are unlikely to be able to change the powers of the Secretary of State.

Amendment 2 proposes the insertion of a new clause to review the provisions in the Act. Businesses are reporting having difficulty recruiting employees with the relevant skills. In August 2022, the Federation of Small Businesses found that 80% of small firms faced difficulties recruiting applicants with suitable skills in the previous 12 months. The Recruitment and Employment Confederation estimates that if labour shortages are not addressed, the UK economy will be £39 billion worse off each year from 2024.

Despite the rising population, many employers are facing skills gaps. Some 28,300 London employers report that not all their employees have the right skills for the job. Almost a quarter—23%—of all vacancies in London are due to a lack of applicants with the right skills, while almost half of firms—42%—are not confident that they will be able to recruit people with the higher-level skills their organisation needs over the next five years. It is possible that many of the migrants waiting to be processed will have the skills that the country urgently needs, so when will the Home Office speed up the processing so that we can see if that is the case?

We are not convinced that the introduction of the lifelong loan entitlement will help to plug the gaps. The Liberal Democrats have called for grants, rather than loans, to encourage adult reskilling, concerned that many adults will be reluctant to take on debt for their further training. Will the LLE allow people to upskill effectively? Will they want to take out loans to upskill? It will be important for the Government to review the impact of the provisions of the Bill to assess whether these measures alleviate the skills shortages.

I am not my party’s expert on sharia finance, but I am aware of the Islamic belief that benefiting from lending money by charging interest or repaying more than the initial amount borrowed—riba—is forbidden. The investments made by loan companies, which might be in industries such as gambling or alcohol, are also considered problematic. For these reasons, Muslim students are deterred from taking out student loans from the Student Loans Company to cover the tuition fees and living costs associated with higher education. Research has shown this can act as a barrier to higher education for Muslims or cause financial hardship for those who do choose to study at university.

The UK Government first proposed a student finance product consistent with Muslim beliefs about interest-bearing loans in 2013. The Higher Education Research Act 2017 allows the Government to introduce such a product, but it has yet to do so. The issue has been raised in Parliament a number of times, with the delay described as shameful by my noble friend Lord Sharkey, who is indeed an expert on sharia finance.

In March 2023, in their response to the consultation on the lifelong loan entitlement, the Government said that a sharia-compliant alternative student finance product would not be available as part of the launch of the LLE in England in 2025. In July 2023, the Government said that they remain committed to delivering alternative student finance as soon as possible after 2025. Can the Minister say why the Government have yet to do this? It would be useful to understand their thinking behind the delays and whether they could explain how the introduction of the LLE would impact those who require sharia-compliant loans.

The other part of the amendment calls for a review before the end of 2026, and preferably earlier. I have also added my name to Amendment 4, which Labour will introduce. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I beg to move.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 4, which would require the Secretary of State to publish a review of the lifelong loan entitlement before bringing in further regulations on fee limits. I welcome the Minister's comments in Committee, and I fully understand her feedback about what information will accompany further regulations as these changes are rolled out.

We have brought this amendment back to further raise the point about ensuring that students, the sector and Parliament are given clear information on the details of the LLE as soon as possible. Throughout the passage of this Bill, we have raised concerns, often after input from those in the higher education sector, that so little about the LLE in terms of course provision, maintenance, credits, transfers, and further rollout of modular study at other levels is confirmed in any meaningful detail.

I am none the less grateful that, following Committee, the Minister outlined further details of the LLE that relate to this Bill in a letter. However, as we know, this huge shift in higher education policy goes further than fee limits. We all want this change to work, but for that to happen the sector will need much more clarity than has been provided through this very narrow Bill.

The accounting officer assessment for the LLE states:

“The main feasibility risk of LLE is meeting the 2025 delivery timescale”.


Is the Minister still confident that the department will be able to deliver on time, particularly in the light of current pressures arising from the major emergency that the department is currently dealing with in school buildings across the UK?

My next question follows on naturally: what is in place if this timescale turns out to be unworkable? There are a great many sector stakeholders—as well as the students themselves, of course—who will need clearly communicated timelines. Amendment 1 from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, puts in the Bill the number of hours that constitute a credit. We understand why she tabled that amendment: it is important that the sector is given clarity and control over the definition of working hours and that it is consistent with the QAA’s higher education credit framework. As she noted, her concern is about the lack of detail. This is one of many areas in which the higher and further education sectors still have questions about how a credit will be defined.

The concept of a credit in education terms will also be completely alien to the general public, and there is a risk that employers simply do not understand its value. The Government need to think about how this can be communicated. We do not believe that putting a number in the Bill at this point would be beneficial. However, we would like a commitment from the Government that they will not seek to amend the value of a credit and will be led by the sector’s understanding of it.

On Amendment 2, I am glad that the Minister has outlined the Government’s plans to ensure sharia-compliant loans in writing; we look forward to receiving further engagement on this issue as the LLE progresses. But, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, pointed out, there is a distinct problem with skills gaps—a lack of applicants with the right skills. The economy cannot move forward appropriately with skills shortages.

Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Wilcox of Newport and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, given the way in which she champions the Roma community.

I support all the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Shipley and those from the Labour Front Bench. They indicate the important role of further education colleges in our education system. They link to the demand for young people in schools to be aware of all the possible programmes of learning available in colleges at an early enough stage to be able to make informed choices about future work and study opportunities. It is really important that colleges be funded at the same level as schools and that college teachers and tutors should be paid at the same level. It is quite wrong that college pay should be lower than school pay.

Amendments 171A and 171B would ensure better continuity of education. Too often, FE has been the forgotten element in our education system, but it is a vital part of the options available to young people, as it spans school, vocational options and university provision. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us of the value the Government place on the FE sector, and perhaps indicate the parts of the Augar review—whatever has happened to that?—which concern FE that the Government intend to implement.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, we support the principle of Amendment 171B. There are currently many barriers to further education institutions working effectively with academies and MATs, and it is apposite that this is being raised. Funding further education appropriately continues to be a prime issue, as noted by several noble Lords. Schools are more often part of the solution, not the problem, so we need a concerted, cross-government commitment to improving the life chances of young people in our most marginalised and deprived communities and addressing the root causes of underperformance, as noted by my noble friend Lady Whitaker.

Our Amendment 171R obliges the Secretary of State to consult on and establish access to further education for all schoolchildren aged 14 to 16 within one year of the Bill’s enactment. We understand that the Minister has discussed the matter of academies working effectively with FE organisations, and I wondered whether she could update the House on any progress made on identifying and unblocking the barriers to working together.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Wilcox of Newport and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage
Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 27 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Patel and Lord Aberdare, and Amendment 30 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. These amendments stress the need for local and national co-ordination and place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that local and national skills needs are both involved in national policy planning, which is surely only common sense if the country is to address skills shortages, of which we know there are many, and provide a functioning feedback loop, as the noble Lord said. It is also important that this information should be readily available to all the educational bodies involved in skills training. Like the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I find it surprising that this is not already in place.

I wholly support the information being available to schools from the age of 11. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, touched on this in an earlier amendment. But, as we know, 11 is really too late to start careers advice, which needs to begin at primary level, where young people, particularly those whose skills are more practical than academic, can begin to see pathways for progression and to have some confidence in their future. I can understand why the provision in this amendment may not extend to primary schools, but we must never overlook the very young in these discussions.

The local skills improvement plans should be given to all those who work with the education and training of the future workforce. They should certainly be on websites, but steps should also be taken to ensure that these providers actually access them and that everyone within their organisation is aware of them. There is little point in assembling all the information if learners are blissfully aware that it exists. So, for the moment, the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, is definitely a step forward.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

Amendment 30 requires that the Secretary of State must publish LSIPs and distribute them to schools and all post-16 education providers. However, there is little point in having a plan if no one is aware of its contents. Yet, despite the requirements for providers to have regard to LSIPs, the Bill is silent on how LSIPs will be published or disseminated. I know that the Minister responded that a model LSIP can be provided, but this amendment seeks a much wider and co-ordinated task. Does the Minister intend, as the amendment suggests, for the DfE to take responsibility for this? Does she agree that publishing all local skills improvement plans will allow for areas to draw on each other’s strategies? That would be particularly helpful for a complementary regional approach and would promote best practice. Or does she envisage that such responsibility will fall to ERBs? If so, can she advise whether they will have the resources and a dedicated budget for such a responsibility?

Perhaps the Government believe that the onus should be on providers themselves to track down where LSIPs have been published. If so, where should they look—to the chamber of commerce, or local authority websites? How does that fit with the lack of role of local authorities and mayoral combined authorities in the process? I hope that she can assure the House that there is indeed a plan for publication and distribution, and I further reiterate my noble friend Lord Liddle’s probing question around the role of the Secretary of State in relation to local plans.

I also speak in support of Amendment 27 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, which requires the Secretary of State to publish a response to each LSIP, including an action plan for how they will support areas to address their skills need. I agree with the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, about where the strategies approach will be developed, using LSIPs to feed into national strategies and creating the feedback loop that is so essential. It is very important, given that LSIPs will need to be responsive to national level strategies, and given the Secretary of State’s powers to intervene if they believe that providers are failing to adhere to LSIPs or not meeting local needs, as seen through the lens of local employers.

I further understand that the notion and definition of “local” has been much discussed during the passage of this Bill already—but I respectfully point out that it continues to be raised by noble Lords because of the still undefined nature of the link between local and national priorities. When I entered local government almost 20 years ago, I was reminded that all politics is local, and I came to recognise that most assuredly throughout my tenure. I would further add that local knowledge and experience is invaluable in feeding into the national strategic overview.