Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Lord Desai and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. He has set out the arguments on this important issue convincingly and comprehensively, both in Committee and again today, so I shall not repeat them. It is simply wrong that either the amount a student should pay in fees, or indeed if a person can come to study in the UK, should be determined by whether a university achieves a gold, silver or bronze standard rating, or whatever grading system is put in place. Our Amendment 73 in a later group is linked to this and also seeks to disconnect the ability of international students to attend a course from the quality rating of the provider.

On the matter of international students, the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, referred to an already challenged system, but we can read today in an analysis by Universities UK that they generate some £26 billion for the economy each year and support 206,000 jobs across the UK. It is folly to take actions that deter international students on financial grounds and, possibly even more important, it is folly to do so given their contribution to international relations, academic standards and generally to our quality of life. I add my strong support from these Benches to this amendment.

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be somewhat maverick. I have spent a lot of time in British higher education. I started when the whole idea of charging students fees was thought to be outrageous. At the LSE we initiated research into income-contingent loans, which students would take for higher education. While it was said at the time that it would be terribly harmful, not much harm has been done.

However, there is a great liking for uniformity in this country, because uniformity is mistaken for equality. I was involved in the first research assessment exercise back in 1988. In research rankings, we have information on universities by different departments. They have been ranked from five star to one so that students know which universities are good and which are not. They consult this information before they apply. It is no good pretending that somehow students will not look at the quality of universities and so on.

However, I agree that universities should be allowed to charge different fees for different courses. The noble Lord, Lord Quirk, who was vice-chancellor of the University of London many years ago, proposed during debates in your Lordships’ House some years ago that there should be not a single fee for all courses in a university but different fees for different courses. But that is a separate issue.

I am reluctant to force the system into uniformity so that people have to pick up signals of quality differences somewhere else. If a university wants to charge £15,000, let it. If it is no good, people will not go there. I do not see what the problem is. This is how the American system has survived for many years and thrived. It has very good outcomes in higher education. We have somehow tied ourselves into knots that things must be uniform, that things must be like this and that there must be overregulation. We are then surprised that universities create silos for themselves—they do not co-operate with each other and so on. I am sceptical that this is a desirable amendment.