Educational Trips and Exchanges

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, this debate in the name of my noble friend Lady Coussins, who is a tireless worker in this field, about educational trips and exchanges could not be more timely. It comes one year after your Lordships’ European Affairs Committee, of which I was then a member, made some important recommendations to the Government on both these topics, and four years since Brexit dealt a hammer blow to both of them.

First, school visits: the biggest cause of the dramatic drop in visits, as assessed by the Tourism Alliance in 2023, is a requirement imposed by the Government for all students coming on such visits to have a passport and not, as in the past, for an identity card to suffice. Were schoolchildren so equipped a cause of illegal migration? Apparently not. Last March the Government rather belatedly agreed, at Prime Minister/President level, to waive the passport requirement with respect to France. At the time the agreement was reached, without any notable enthusiasm or initiative, the Government said that other EU member states could benefit from similar arrangements if they wanted to and asked for them.

Will the Minister update the Committee on the following points? What is the trend in UK-France school visits since last December, when the new arrangements rather belatedly came into force, nine months after the President and the Prime Minister agreed them? What proactive steps are the Government taking to encourage other member states to agree similar arrangements? How many and which ones have responded positively?

Then, university-level educational exchanges: the end of access to the Erasmus scheme for British students has never been properly explained, let alone justified, by the Government. They merely stated flatly that continued involvement

“did not represent value for money”.

That is not the view of a wide range of other European third countries which do participate in Erasmus. Will the Minister therefore kindly respond to the following points? Will she set out, rather than simply assert, the basis for not regarding the Erasmus scheme as value for money? Will she explain why the Welsh Government’s Taith scheme, which does contain reciprocal elements with Erasmus, is not worth considering?

Overall, this is a sorry story of self-inflicted damage and two clear disbenefits of Brexit, but it is not too late to remedy matters if action is not further delayed. In that context, the reported willingness by the EU to negotiate a youth mobility scheme—another idea put forward by your Lordships’ European Affairs Committee last year—is surely worthy of positive consideration. We really must not allow opportunities such as that to repair the damage done by Brexit to emerging generations of our citizens to slip away.

Children’s Care Homes: Reform

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend and have great respect for him sharing his own experience from Sheffield. The reality of our situation today is that just over 80% of children’s home places are provided by the private sector, so we need to make sure that the sector is resilient. We are working on this in a number of ways, including increasing funding and provision, and reform, before we chase people out in a way that could destabilise provision.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, would the Minister accept thanks for having mentioned kinship care, which is a very important part of dealing with this problem? Could she also tell us when the Government’s kinship care strategy, which has been trailed umpteen times, is actually going to see the light of day?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are going to publish the long-awaited kinship care strategy by the end of this year, which will set out our national direction. Over the next two years, we will establish a new kinship carer training offer, with an investment of over £45 million to begin implementing practical and financial support packages, so that children can stay safely within a kinship group.

Kinship Care

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government take this very seriously. My honourable friend in the other place, the Minister for Children, met recently with a group of kinship carers. She listened hard to what they said and was impressed by the case they made.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that kinship care is a cost-effective way of dealing with the problems of children in need and that this is therefore a moment when it should be expanded? There will obviously be constraints on public spending, and kinship care is a cost-effective way forward.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I agree that it is cost effective, but I know that the noble Lord agrees that it is also really important because of the stability it offers children. It substantially outperforms other forms of care in educational and employment outcomes.

Capita: Turing Scheme Contract

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. As I mentioned, 48% of applications have come from students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We have made it a great focus of the scheme and its promotion geographically has tried to reach communities that have not previously participated as strongly in these kinds of international exchanges. We are making sure that the nature of the placements and the financial model to support them particularly encourage disadvantaged students.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness not recognise that this issue of a lack of reciprocity and places for overseas—not just European —students in British universities is a serious failing of the Turing scheme? The figures she gives are not very convincing because we have always taken in more students to our excellent higher education sector than we have sent to others, so that is nothing new.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can only repeat for the noble Lord that funding has been made available this year for over 41,000 placements. I appreciate that they are not all comparable in scale to the previous ones but 41,000 young people will access this scheme, compared to 16,596 under Erasmus. I leave the House to judge.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 27th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I welcome this chance to discuss once more international students, an issue on which we have heard some of the most passionate debates in this House. I begin by saying, unequivocally, that the Government welcome genuine international students who come to study in the United Kingdom. They enhance our educational institutions both financially and culturally, they enrich the experience of domestic students and they become important ambassadors for the United Kingdom in later life. For these reasons, we have no plans to target or reduce the scale of student migration to the United Kingdom. As I have said before—and as the House will have heard—we have no plans to cap the number of genuine students who can come to the UK to study or to limit an institution’s ability to recruit genuine international students, based on its TEF rating or any other basis. That being so, I do not believe that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is desirable.

None the less, the discussion in this House on this issue has provided us with an important opportunity to reflect on the message we send out to the world about the welcome that international students receive when they apply to study in the UK. We want to promote this offer and ensure that it is understood and communicated. I should like to set out what the new duty is. First, the duty will extend the information publication duty on the designated data body or the Office for Students so that it explicitly covers consideration of what information would be helpful to current or prospective international students and the registered higher education providers that recruit them, or are thinking of doing so.

Secondly, the new duty will also specifically require consideration of publication of information on international student numbers. This goes further than ever before to ensure that international students get the information they need about our offer. Alongside this, we believe that we need a campaign to raise awareness. That is why, in tandem, we are refreshing our international engagement strategy. We will seek sector representatives’ views on a draft narrative, which we will be disseminating through the FCO’s Global Britain channels, our embassies overseas and through the British Council, as well as universities themselves. This will ensure that the right messages get to the right places. We have a good story to tell, and we are keen that it is told. Not only that but we are committed to ensuring that the UK remains one of the best places in the world for research and innovation. I assure noble Lords that UK Research and Innovation will continue to fund an extensive range of international collaborations, directly facilitating partnerships between UK research establishments and their international counterparts. We expect the UKRI board members, and UKRI itself, to take a clear role in promoting UK science and fostering collaboration internationally, and we have already included the need to take an international perspective in the job specification of the UKRI board, which is currently being recruited. To underline this, I confirm that we will ask UKRI to set out in its annual report what work it has undertaken to foster and support such collaborations. I beg to move.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, first, I respond to the Minister’s opening statement on this Motion. I thank him for some of the things he said that picked up one or two of the themes in the amendment which he proposes should be rejected. It is a great pity that they are not in the Bill but he made some helpful remarks.

The Government’s amendment that is being moved shows yet again that we are slightly at cross purposes over this issue. This is not a statistical matter. Of course, statistics enter into it but it is not basically a statistical matter. It is about the public policy purposes we take with regard to overseas students. Therefore, even the suggested improved ways of statistically analysing overseas students do not address what my amendment was meant to address. I hope the Minister will forgive me for not saying anything more about his amendment, to which I have no objection at all, but which I do not think answers the problems addressed by my amendment and the amendment tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Garden, and the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, the main thrust of which would have been to bring to an end what I regard as an aberrant practice of treating overseas higher education students for public policy purposes as long-term migrants. That, alas, will continue. That amendment was carried in this House last month by a majority of 94 drawn from all groups in this House. Therefore, I am afraid that I speak with deep regret, tinged with some bitterness, at the summary rejection of that amendment.

If the Bill before us had followed a normal course, I believe, although of course I cannot prove it, that a reasonable compromise would have been reached either in the other place, where there was substantial support for the amendment, or through a negotiation between the two Houses. The wash-up process, which we are busy completing, brought to a premature end any such possibilities. The fact that the Government felt it necessary to state that if this amendment was not dropped they would kill the whole Bill, sheds a pretty odd light on their priorities and their intransigence. Altogether, this is a rather shabby business.

Ceasing to treat overseas higher education students for public policy purposes as long-term migrants is not only a rational choice, and one which the chief competitors of this country in the market for overseas students—namely, the US, Australia and Canada—have already adopted, it also has a wide degree of cross-party support from a whole series of parliamentary Select Committees in both Houses, most recently just this week from the Education Committee in the other place. A recent survey by Universities UK shows that a large majority of those polled do not regard overseas students as economic migrants and do not consider that they contribute to the immigration problems which are the focus of so much public debate at this stage in this country. The fall in the number of overseas applications we are seeing at the moment amply demonstrates how we are already losing market share and undermining the future validity of a crucial part of our society and our economy—our universities. This morning I listened with great interest to the Foreign Secretary replying to a question on this on the “Today” programme. He made most of the points I have just made, so I have no quarrel with what he said, merely with what the Government are doing. A bad choice has been made, and no convincing rationale for making that choice has been forthcoming from the Government.

Brexit: Gibraltar

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest, albeit one lost in the mists of time and, indeed, outside the timeframe covered by the excellent report which we are debating this evening. A little over 45 years ago, I was part of the team which negotiated the terms of the UK’s—and thus Gibraltar’s—accession to the European Communities. In truth, we got a Goldilocks deal for Gibraltar: outside the customs union, exempted from the requirement to introduce a value added tax and inside what became, over the years, the biggest single market in the world. That deal has stood the test of time, which is attested to by the fact that 96% of Gibraltarians voted to remain last June. To complete my declaration of interests, some 35 years ago I was sent to Madrid by Lord Hurd of Westwell—then Minister for Europe at the FCO—to persuade the Spanish Government that they needed to open their border with Gibraltar if there was to be any chance of their EU accession treaty being ratified by this Parliament. The Spanish Government were so persuaded, and the border was reopened.

This declaration of interests is no vanity project. It reflects the reality, recognised by the Gibraltarians themselves, that Britain’s—and thus their—membership of the EU has been the basic cornerstone of their prosperity today. That cornerstone is, alas, about to be removed. I do not know whether those who campaigned for Britain to leave the EU really understood what their success might mean for Gibraltar. Given that many of them are among the most vociferous parliamentary supporters of Gibraltar, if they did understand then this was a shameful act of betrayal. But let us give them the benefit of the doubt: they acted in ignorance. They threw Gibraltar under the wheels of that infamous battle bus, without having a clue what they were doing. They broke it, and we own it.

What can be done? Well, there is no doubt what would be best for Gibraltar—that is, the status quo. But the status quo is not on offer, because Gibraltar’s status depends on the UK’s status. If noble Lords do not believe that, they should read the treaties of Utrecht and of Rome and our own accession treaty. We are set to become a third country in 2019—and Gibraltar’s border with Spain is set to become an external border of the EU, with all that implies. The Prime Minister has stated that she excludes the possibility of Britain remaining in the single market.

So what can be obtained for Gibraltar from an EU shorn of our membership? That remains to be seen in the negotiations about to begin but—in one of those superbly British understatements—the report we are debating, in paragraph 111, states:

“We note, however, that Spanish opposition may present an insuperable barrier to any perceived special treatment for Gibraltar”.


There you have it; the report did not need to say a word more than that. I wish the Government well in their endeavours to save something from this unintended shipwreck, but I do not envy them. Next time the Foreign Secretary makes one of his “sunlit uplands” speeches about Brexit, or says that it will be perfectly okay if there is no deal, he might first take a look towards the Rock of Gibraltar—at the dark clouds gathering there, caused by the very success of his own endeavour to remove us from the European Union.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

462: After Clause 83, insert the following new Clause—
“Students at higher education establishments: treatment for public policy purposes
The Secretary of State has a duty to encourage international students to attend higher education establishments covered by this Act, and to that end shall ensure that no student, either undergraduate or postgraduate, who has received an offer to study at such a higher education establishment shall be treated for public policy purposes as an economic migrant to the UK, for the duration of their studies at such an establishment.”

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 462 is in my name and the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon. The subject of this amendment is the practice of treating higher education undergraduate and postgraduate students as long-term economic migrants. It is a subject that is, frankly, extremely familiar to the House. We have debated it on a number of occasions in the last six years to my knowledge, and speakers from all corners of the House have deplored this method of treating students as economic migrants. I remember an occasion, I think when the noble Lord, Lord Bates, was standing up for the Home Office, when 20 people in succession denounced this system, and not one spoke in its favour. Noble Lords are familiar with this matter, so I will not go on at great length, but we have an opportunity to do something about it, not just to wring our hands and talk about it.

I will not weary the Committee with a shower of statistics, but no one contests that the excellence of our higher education establishments is a massive national asset, making the sector one of our largest invisible exports and putting us second only to the United States in the league tables of that sector. In addition, no one contests that overseas students who pay in ready cash for their fees and maintenance costs put huge resources into our economy and create, rather than substitute, employment. They are an important part of our universities’ ability to function effectively and, as they have done in recent years, to expand.

To give just a few figures, 13% of undergraduates are overseas students, while 38% of postgraduates are. No one contests that when these students return to their home countries, they represent a substantial, if unquantifiable, source of soft power for this country for decades to come. Yet we categorise these students as economic migrants, and in recent years have piled up a mass of obstacles, both bureaucratic and material, to their coming to study here, and post-Brexit, there could be more. The consequences are pretty clear: overseas student figures are down substantially. Overall, the number of non-EU students is down by between 2% and 8%. The number of students from India is down by a half in the last two or three years.

The Government protest that we are doing extraordinarily well because of the numbers from China, but I really would ask whether it is wise to depend to an increasing extent on students from an authoritarian country which could quite easily turn the tap off, just like that, if there was a political spat between us. Look at our main competitors: the US, in that same period that we were down by between 2% and 8%, was up by 7.1%; and Australia was up by 8%. We are losing market share—it is as simple as that.

This amendment has two objectives, one positive and the other negative. The objective of the positive part of the amendment is to place a duty on the Secretary of State to encourage overseas students to come to this country—not just to not discourage that but to positively encourage it. I know the Government make efforts to do that, but most of the efforts they make are countered by this pile of obstacles that they put up at the same time. The objective of the negative part of the amendment is to cease treating these students, whether postgraduates or undergraduates, for public policy purposes, as economic migrants. This is much more than just a statistical issue—although the statistics are part of it—but I sometimes ask myself how there could be any rational explanation for a Government who are under criticism for the level of immigration insisting on artificially boosting the figures by including students. It makes no sense when it is not done by the United States, Australia or others where the issue of immigration is also very sensitive. They do not make this mistake.

The wording of the amendment, therefore, goes wider than statistics and addresses the whole range of policies that might discourage higher education students from studying here. I hope very much that this can be pursued and adopted as part of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Patten of Barnes (Con)]

My Lords, my default position is always to try to be helpful. That is one reason why I was so pleased to support this very important amendment to this legislation. How can I be helpful? First, we know that having now shaken off the chains of membership of the European Union, and having turned our back on a millennium of introverted, insular history, we have become “global Britain”. It would be extraordinary if, having become “global Britain”, we were to prevent the huge numbers more of international students coming to study here. It has been said again and again in this debate that our higher education system is one of the jewels in our crown. It is not surprising, therefore, that so many other people want to enjoy its benefits.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out some of the absurdities of the present situation, such as the fact that we choose to define students as immigrants. They are not immigrants. There is arguably a problem about immigration in the medium term or the long term. What we do is simply take the figure that represents those who have come to the country in one year and those who leave it in four or five years’ time. We count them as immigrants. Why do we do it? Why do we deny ourselves and our universities the benefits of educating more young people from around the world? Why do we deny ourselves that benefit? It is not, frankly, because people in this country think we would be crazy to define students as what they are.

Every bit of research that I have seen, including research undertaken by the Conservative Party, has made it absolutely clear that people understand the difference between a student and an immigrant. People understand the contribution that students make to local economies. People understand the benefits, in the long term, of having out there—I noted what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said about this—people who understand what it is to have a great education in a liberal, plural society. It is an enormous benefit to us, so it is not just about money or price, but about values.

Why do we behave so foolishly? It is because of our fixation with the immigration target. Let us be clear: we put higher education in a more difficult position and we cut ourselves off from a great deal of economic benefits because of that obsession with an immigration target, which we fail to reach, very often because we are growing so rapidly year after year. We cannot say that we are doing this because people in this country think we would be crazy to make a change: they do not; they think it would be sensible. We cannot say that we do this because other countries around the world do not behave like that. They do, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said. We take advice from the Australians on immigration policy, apparently, and look what they do. Look at what the Americans and Canadians do. They all know that at the moment, with the growth of the middle class in Asia, more and more people want to spend their money on educating their children in great western universities. We—global Britain—have made the choice to cut ourselves off from that. It is completely crazy

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My understanding is that during that speech she undertook to go ahead with the consultation, as I have made clear.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, I am most grateful to all who have taken part in this extremely lively and, I think, rather useful debate—useful, at any rate, if the Government Front Bench has understood the depth of feeling around the Committee. I took a slight risk in saying that my amendment was likely to draw support from all corners of the Committee. It is always a bit unwise to say that before it has actually happened. I thank everyone for preventing me suffering the ignominy of having wrongly predicted that. In fact, it has turned out to be the case.

I do not wish to get into a long argument with the Minister except to say that he has put before the Committee arguments which we have heard for about six years. I accept absolutely that the action taken by the Prime Minister when she was Home Secretary to close down “dodgy” language schools was valuable and necessary. I just wish that the Government would not now snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, because that is what they doing. They have cleaned up the biggest problem in the area, yet still go on introducing measures and using language which discourages overseas students. Therefore, I hope that the noble Viscount will use the gap between now and Report to reflect on the views of the House, which were so strongly expressed tonight. I hope I am not disobliging when I say to him that I propose to withdraw this amendment but not because of the reasons that he advanced.

Amendment 462 withdrawn.

Moved by

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

463: After Clause 83, insert the following new Clause—
“Students at higher education establishments: immigration
Persons, who are not British citizens, who receive an offer to study as an undergraduate or postgraduate student at a higher education establishment shall not, in respect of that course of study, be subject to more restrictive immigration controls or conditions than were in force for a person in their position on the day on which this Act was passed.”

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, the two amendments in this group, Amendments 463 and 464, are separate from, but to some extent linked with, Amendment 462, which we have just finished discussing, on the public policy treatment of students and whether they should be treated as economic migrants. These two amendments are quite specifically related to the way that students are treated in the context of Immigration Rules, either existing ones or new ones which may be introduced. When the Minister replied to the previous amendment he frequently used the words “the Government have no plans” to do this, that and the other. Unfortunately we have been told that quite frequently and then suddenly another one comes along, or, perhaps like buses, several come along.

These amendments are particularly relevant in the context of the Brexit debate because the Prime Minister made clear in her Lancaster House speech that there are going to be new controls on migration. That is what she said. That is why she junked the single market. That is why we are in a lot of trouble. It is not imaginary. The amendments do not attempt to roll back the, in my view, rather excessive requirements already placed on overseas students from outside the EU and perhaps about to be placed on EU students. My hope would have been that we could have rolled them back. We do ourselves no good at all by making it difficult for students to move into our labour market after they have qualified at the end of their studies. Most experience in countries where it is made easier to do that is that they benefit the economy. But I am not trying to change that. These amendments merely seek to ensure that immigration law does not place new obstacles in the way of students and academics.

It is very important that there are two provisions here. Amendment 463 applies to undergraduate and postgraduate students; and Amendment 464, which obviously had to be worded slightly differently, applies to academics. The hope is that we could freeze the situation as it is now and not move in a more damaging direction for either of those categories. The way the amendments are drafted does not, for example, refer to an EU citizen who comes here to look for a place at university or to look for a job as a member of academic staff. They fit perfectly well within the sort of work-permit approach that may well emerge as the Government’s policy in this matter. I think there cannot be many people who try to come to university here or try to get a job at university here who have not had an offer before they come. That is how the system works. The proposals in these two amendments are Brexit related, but they will require offers to be made of either employment or a place at university.

To give noble Lords some idea of how significant these categories of students and academics are to the prosperity and functioning of our universities: EU-origin academics currently number 31,635. That is 16% of the total—quite a substantial amount. Non-EU academics number 23,360 and make up 12% of the total. In total the academics from overseas are 28% of our university staff. Undergraduates from the EU make up 5% of the total and overall international undergraduates, 13%. Postgraduates from the EU make up 9% with the overall international total being 38%.

As was noted in the previous debate, students make a positive contribution to our universities and to the country as whole. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, for moving the amendment. I set out in some detail the Government’s approach to international students in response to the previous amendment, so I do not intend to repeat those points. However, I want to say something about the position of international academic staff, since they are specifically referred to in Amendment 464. Again, the Government have a very good record in supporting the sector.

The UK’s immigration system recognises the critical role academic staff can play in the economy and wider society, and that human mobility is linked to the UK’s ability to remain at the forefront of science and research. Immigration reforms since 2010 have explicitly taken account of the needs of academics, including scientists and researchers. The Government have consistently protected and enhanced the treatment of academics in the immigration system.

In tier 2, we have given PhD-level occupations higher priority. None of these occupations has ever been refused places due to the limit being oversubscribed. We have also exempted PhD-level occupations from the £35,000 earnings threshold for tier 2 settlement applications. In recognition of the fact that universities compete in a global talent pool, we have relaxed the resident labour market test to allow the best candidate to be appointed to PhD-level occupations, regardless of nationality and whether there are suitable resident workers available.

The amendments would provide that the immigration controls applying to non-British students or academic staff could never be more restrictive than those applying on the day the Bill receives Royal Assent. I wonder what “more restrictive” means in practice. The terms that apply to international students and workers contain a number of elements. Focusing on students, there are rules on how many hours they can work, how long they can stay in the UK after graduation, how they can move into work immigration routes, and on dependants.

Every student will have a different view on how important those various elements are. Suppose—I stress that I am offering this merely as an illustration, rather than making a statement of the Government’s intentions—we were to reduce the weekly hours that a university student can work during term time from 20 hours to 15 hours but, as compensation, lengthened the period for which undergraduate students can stay in the UK after their studies from four months to six months. Is that more or less restrictive than what currently exists? Some students would certainly see it as such; others would regard it as more liberal. It would all depend on particular circumstances and requirements. If we were to go down the route envisaged by these amendments we would be inviting the prospect of endless litigation as we sought to understand what constitutes greater restriction.

As for academic staff, as I have said, PhD-level university staff are currently prioritised within the limit for tier 2 visas. But what if we wanted, for very sound economic reasons, to give priority to another sector of the economy? Again I make no statement of the Government’s intent, but it is surely a possibility. Even if all the evidence pointed in one direction, the amendments would prevent such a change being made.

However, my principal concern about the amendments is that they seek to set the immigration system that applies on the date of Royal Assent in stone. Imagine that, as sometimes happens, a particular loophole in the immigration rules emerges, which everyone agrees needs to be dealt with. If the remedy was arguably restrictive, nothing could be done to close the loophole—even if government and universities agreed it was a problem—without amending primary legislation.

I am sure the House will acknowledge that we sometimes encounter instances of unintended consequences in immigration rules. We remedy these through minor changes. For example, we have very recently tidied up the rules on academic progression to deal with concerns raised directly by the education sector to the Home Office. These changes have been welcomed as improving the rules on academic progression but, under these amendments, had anybody been able to argue that what we were doing was in any way more restrictive, we would have been unable to respond to the sector’s concerns.

I understand the motivation behind the amendments, but I cannot advise your Lordships to accept them. Setting in stone the immigration system as it happens to be on a particular day, exposing ourselves to the possibility of extensive litigation and denying ourselves the opportunity to make even desirable changes is surely not the way forward. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw Amendment 463.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to what the Minister said—although I was fairly appalled by some of the script that he had been given to present to the House. The answer to his question about what would happen if the Government wanted to make the provisions for the amount of work students could do during their study here less generous, but also wanted to increase the amount of time for which they could stay on in the labour market afterwards, is perfectly simple. You can do the second any day you like; as for the first—no, you cannot do it. It is not very difficult to answer that question.

As for setting things in concrete, of course that would not be happening. The amendments would allow the Government to make the rules more liberal any day they liked. It is just that they could not make them more restrictive. That is all. It is not a huge thing because of course the Government, as the Minister himself recognised, can any day they like come down with a piece of primary legislation saying, “An appalling loophole has appeared. Here are all the statistics and evidence for it and, despite this provision in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, this will override it”. They can do that, if they have the evidence. At the moment, they have no evidence whatever. Such evidence as there is is that some 1% of students overstay. I will not place the whole weight on that because I know that the figures are based on fairly small samples, but the Government do not have any figures at all.

Of course I will withdraw the amendment now, but I am afraid to say that I do not do so because of the arguments that have been advanced in favour of withdrawing it. I say very clearly that we will return on Report and I hope that the Government, instead of polishing yet another series of unconvincing reasons to not accept them, will find some way of accepting them. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 463 withdrawn.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, when the noble Viscount winds up will he address a question I will put to him in supporting my noble friend Lord Kerslake’s Amendment 65 and Amendment 71 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, which are about autonomy? The Government say very firmly, which I do not dispute, that they support the idea of institutional autonomy, but will the noble Viscount address how that squares with the consultation the Home Secretary is currently undertaking, which seems to me, on the face of it, to be designed possibly to interfere with the right of universities to decide what courses they will offer and what subjects they will teach? It would be a very serious intervention if the Government were, in granting visas to overseas students, to take account of restrictive views of their own about which courses universities ought to be teaching. Will he address that? It is germane to Amendments 65 and 71.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, so far as the concepts which are in issue in these amendments are concerned, I am entirely in favour of the autonomy of our higher education institutions, but autonomy does not mean they can do what they like. There is a severe restriction on that autonomy in the provisions for academic freedom, because they prevent universities trenching on the freedom of their academic staff in the way described.

This question of academic freedom is grounded on my heart. As a new Lord Chancellor I had been given the rather unpleasant responsibility of taking the universities section of the 1988 Bill through this House. There were about as many chancellors of universities then in the House as there are now. It was rather a difficult task. One of the things I was determined to have was protection for academic freedom in view of the provisions relating to university tenure. I therefore promoted in government an amendment to deal with academic freedom. When the Bill came to Committee, at a very early stage Lord Jenkins decided he had a good definition of academic freedom, which he put to the vote. From my point of view, it had the great effect of not requiring further consultation in the Government.

Academic freedom became a statutory provision then and remains, but it is an innovation on the complete idea of autonomy. One of the other things we have to remember relating to autonomy is a matter raised in the debate this afternoon on the governance of universities and higher education establishments. The form of the governance can be extremely important.

I was involved long ago in litigation about the governance of Scottish universities where they have a rector. For the first time in the history of Scottish universities, a certain student was nominated to be a rector of Edinburgh University—it does not take a lot of guessing to know who that was. He graduated to be the rector of Edinburgh University notwithstanding the judicial proceedings and later became the Prime Minister, so he had excellent preparation for that office. It has therefore to be borne in mind that autonomy does not necessarily mean that you can do exactly what you like, but it means that there is considerable freedom in how you do what you are there to do.

One issue raised by the first amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was that of profit. As he said, every institution that wants to be ongoing has to ensure that its income is at least somewhat greater than its expenditure—as Mr Micawber pointed out to us long ago. Every institution that is a university or a higher education establishment has to have that. Why should it make all the difference that the people who set that establishment up want a return on the capital that they put into it? I agree with the noble Baroness who said that exploitation is quite wrong—nobody, I think, could dispute that—but it does not necessarily follow that because you run an establishment for profit you will exploit those who come to it. In a free-market situation, which is what we had until fees were controlled by the Government, universities were free to charge what they thought appropriate. I imagine that if a university is fee-paying, as is one of the institutions of which the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen, is chancellor, it must have some effect on the fees that are charged to the students.

I think that the law is that the purpose of education is a charitable one, but it does not follow that every institution set up as educational is itself a charity, because to be a charity you have to be established for charitable purposes only. One purpose that is not charitable is distributing profits to those who set the establishment up, so that university and any others that might follow in the same pattern would not be charities. I do not think that that matters too much; what matters is whether you can guarantee the quality of the teaching and research—if it does research—that such an establishment can bring forward. I do not feel that the provision that was made by a previous Government is necessarily incorrect. We have had a good example of what such an establishment can achieve. I think I am right in saying—I am depending very much on my recollection—that at least some of the examining boards are now set up by organisations that are for profit.

Protection from government of the autonomy of an institution strikes me as fundamental. I do not think that the Bill infringes on that directly, but I can see the advantage of making sure by way of negative provisions that it does not happen in the future, because we never know who may come along after the present Government. Proper protection for autonomy strikes me as highly appropriate, although there may be some dispute with my noble friend the Minister about the extent to which it is necessary. Such principles seem fundamental and I hope that they will be followed in consideration of these amendments and many later amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to this important group of amendments. Our universities are a key part of national life and contribute significantly to the public good and economic prosperity. I fully understand that protecting the sector’s reputation is at the heart of many of the amendments. I assure the House that the Government’s reforms are designed to ensure exactly that and that, like now, only high-quality providers will be able to enter the market, award their own degrees and obtain university title. Once again, I assure noble Lords that the Government are determined to protect institutional autonomy in the Bill every bit as much as the current legislative framework has protected it for the past quarter of a century or so, and I will say a little more about that later.

First, I will address the new clause in Amendment 2. The Government agree that our universities should be expected to have high standards and to do more than simply teach courses. They benefit the communities they are based in, and there is a strong correlation between opening universities and significantly increased economic growth. However, we believe that what matters is this contribution, not the form of the institution. Universities are private, autonomous bodies, not public bodies as such, although of course they contribute greatly to the public good. They therefore come in a variety of forms, as has been discussed, and we value this diversity immensely, as I mentioned in the first debate. We would not wish to exclude excellent institutions such as the University of Law from having full university status simply because it is for-profit. My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay asked why profit is so vilified; he makes a fair point.

Our reforms do not seek to overhaul the current framework for obtaining degree-awarding powers or university title in any major way. Currently any provider, regardless of its corporate form or background, can obtain degree-awarding powers if it passes rigorous scrutiny. Only providers with degree-awarding powers can apply for university title. Again, they need to meet specific criteria but these are not tied to corporate form. The proposed new clause would in effect introduce a two-tier system of universities or degree-awarding providers, when what we are trying to achieve is a more level playing field. It would be a step back in time, rather than further developing a well-functioning system.

To ensure that only high-quality providers can obtain degree-awarding powers, we are planning to keep a track record requirement of three years for all those that seek full degree-awarding powers. However, in parallel, we are also planning to introduce, as has been mentioned, a new route of obtaining degree-awarding powers on a probationary basis. This would mean that high-quality providers that have the potential to achieve full degree-awarding powers can be permitted to award degrees in their own name from the start—crucially, subject to close supervision. As the noble Baronesses, Lady Cohen and Lady Brinton, mentioned, under the current regime new and innovative providers have to wait until they have developed a track record lasting several years before operating as degree-awarding bodies in their own right, no matter how good their offer is or how much academic expertise they have. This stifles innovation, and the new clause would further entrench this system of new providers usually having to rely on incumbents.

However, I assure noble Lords that quality is still paramount. As we set out in one of the published factsheets to accompany the Bill on market entry and quality assurance, in order to be able to access time-limited probationary degree-awarding powers, providers will also need to pass a new and specific test for probationary degree-awarding powers. I realise from the tone of their remarks that this may not necessarily please the noble Baronesses, Lady Cohen and Lady Brinton, but we believe that this is important as a quality check. We absolutely do not intend a complete overhaul of the system of degree-awarding powers. We fully intend that the current criteria will continue to exist in a broadly similar form.

Returning to institutional autonomy, noble Lords will know that, while this concept has been central to our higher education system for many years, the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, which establishes the current legislative framework, does not explicitly mention institutional autonomy. The Bill goes considerably further by placing in legislation explicit new protections for the freedom of English higher education providers. Those protections apply to all the ways in which the Secretary of State may influence the Office for Students: guidance, conditions of grant, and directions. In each case, the Bill places a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to,

“have regard to the need to protect academic freedom … of English higher education providers”.

We strengthened this further on Report in the other place.

I assure noble Lords that there is no disagreement, as I see it, over the importance that we place on institutional autonomy and academic freedom. We have sought to protect these fundamental principles in the Bill. I agree that they are the cornerstone, as many noble Lords have said this afternoon, of our higher education system’s success. We have heard considered and well-informed debate—more so on this group of amendments—and I am grateful for the views that have been put forward, but we believe that the Bill enshrines and protects academic freedom. Having said that, I recognise the strength of feeling that has been expressed about institutional autonomy. I continue to listen and reflect on views from noble Lords and will reflect further on this issue. I hope that gives some reassurance regarding the concerns raised on this issue. These provisions represent the most comprehensive suite of explicit statutory protections for institutional autonomy ever contained in a single Bill.

Amendment 55, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, places a duty on the OfS to have regard to,

“the need to act in a manner compatible with the principle of institutional autonomy”,

when it discharges its statutory functions. I understand and sympathise with the motivation of the amendment, but in the light of the new and additional protections I have just described, the Government do not feel that a statutory duty on the OfS is appropriate. I reassure noble Lords that the existing provisions in the Bill already require that academic freedom and institutional autonomy be taken into account by both the OfS and the Secretary of State. As such, the amendments are unnecessary.

The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, asked whether it is right that the Office for Students can intervene “if it appears” that registration conditions have been breached. Intervention based on “if it appears” is standard legislative drafting and is underpinned by the usual public law considerations so that the OfS cannot act irrationally. As a public body, the OfS must at all times act reasonably and proportionately in accordance with public law when exercising its powers.

Similarly, I find myself in agreement with the main intention of the amendments relating to the Secretary of State’s powers to set conditions of grant and give directions to the OfS. But I assure noble Lords that the Bill as drafted does not leave any room for a future Secretary of State to be lackadaisical about this duty. The amendments, while well intentioned, do not add much by way of strength to the duty as it stands. As I have outlined, the Bill includes new and additional protections for institutional autonomy. I sympathise with the motivation for these amendments but I am not sure that adding a duty to have regard to institutional autonomy adds much in practice to the protections already in the Bill. I fear that the amendments may require future Secretaries of State to become rather more interventionist than they are now, guiding or directing the OfS to act in particular ways in particular cases to protect institutional autonomy.

Amendments 425 and 431 relate to the Secretary of State’s powers to set conditions of grant and give directions to the OfS. These amendments, while well intentioned, do not add much by way of strength to the duty as it stands and may risk inadvertently weakening other duties of the Secretary of State in the Bill which do not have this amended formulation.

I am entirely sympathetic to the intention behind Amendment 66, which seeks to build on existing protections within the Bill to ensure that when the Secretary of State gives guidance to the OfS, it is prevented from naming individual higher education providers. However, the restrictions on the Secretary of State already in the Bill will have the effect of preventing individual institutions being named in the Secretary of State’s guidance to OfS. Clause 2(6) requires that guidance,

“which relates to English higher education providers must apply to such providers generally or to a description of such providers”.

It is hard to conceive of a scenario where the Secretary of State could comply with these restrictions and yet name individual institutions. On that basis, I assure noble Lords that this amendment is not necessary to ensure the protections it seeks, and that we may rely on these being implicit in current drafting.

I am grateful for the thorough and thoughtful nature of Amendments 65, 71 and 165. The desire and determination of noble Lords to ensure that the Bill protects institutional autonomy is both evident and impressive—again, as we have discussed extensively today. However, I do not believe that these definitions of institutional autonomy and academic freedoms add anything substantive to the protections already enshrined within the Bill. Furthermore, as detailed in my letter to noble Lords following Second Reading, the Bill holds the Haldane principle at its core. The Government are fully committed to the fundamental tenet that funding decisions should be taken by experts in their relevant areas. The amendment risks compelling the Secretary of State to issue guidance to the OfS on issues beyond its remit, which I believe is unintended.

Amendment 165, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, seeks to include in the definition of institutional autonomy the right of providers,

“to constitute and govern themselves”,

as they consider appropriate. It is of course quite correct that providers have this right. However the powers of the OfS, or indeed any other body empowered by the Bill, to influence how providers constitute and govern themselves are already very limited. The public interest governance condition in Clause 14, for example, merely seeks to ensure that the governing documents of providers subject to this condition have best governance practice embedded within them. As now, the public interest principles are not intended to prescribe in any detail how providers are to be governed. We expect that they will continue to operate in tandem with sector-owned codes, such as that of the Committee of University Chairs.

Finally, Amendment 65, as put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, would add specific protection for academic staff to speak and challenge freely. Again, there is no disagreement from the Government about the importance of this protection. However, institutions are autonomous and the Government cannot interfere in any decisions regarding academic staff, therefore only the institution itself can protect the freedom of its academics. The Bill already takes steps to ensure that this will continue to be the case by allowing the OfS to place a public interest governance condition on all registered providers, which will ensure that their internal governance must include the principle of freedom for academic staff. We therefore believe that the amendment is not needed.

The amendments that I have just spoken about—and there are quite a few—have understandable and laudable motivations, which the Government share. But on the whole they do not substantively add to the protections for institutional autonomy already contained in the Bill. In some cases, they may interfere with the OfS and UKRI’s distinct areas of responsibility, or create a risk of requiring more intervention from the Secretary of State rather than less. None the less, I will consider carefully the points that have been raised, as the Government agree that it is fundamentally important to ensure that the Bill protects institutional autonomy. The suggestions from noble Lords have been very helpful in understanding some of the concerns about this aspect of the Bill.

Amendment 73 would require providers to operate—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My Lords, I think that the Minister is drawing to a close. He has not yet addressed the question I put to him about the compatibility with institutional autonomy of the consultation that is taking place about student visas for certain subjects. Will he please address that matter, because there is a genuine potential contradiction here? I am not suggesting a contradiction in his intention but it does not look to me as if the findings of that consultation, if they were turned into an attempt by the Government to tell universities which courses they could offer to overseas students, would be compatible with institutional autonomy. Can he please now respond to that?

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

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

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, the Bill we are giving a Second Reading to today is truly a case of “Hamlet” without the Prince of Denmark. Here we are discussing the first piece of legislation on the structure of some of the most significant parts of our economy and our society to have come before Parliament for 25 years, and not one word in it addresses the challenge that the universities and scientific research establishments in this country face from the consequences of, and follow-up to, the referendum decision to leave the EU. There is not one word about how to secure the necessary resources for research when EU funding is discontinued. More importantly, there is not one word about how to retain the networks of co-operation with other European universities and research centres, which are such an invaluable feature of our EU membership. Nor is there a word on how universities are to be protected from the negative consequences of tighter immigration controls, which the Government seem hell-bent on making an integral part of any post-Brexit regime. This vacuum, which can of course be explained by the fact that the Bill was drafted before 23 June, surely now needs to be filled, and I hope that the Government will reflect on that. Governments are meant to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

If I concentrate on those post-Brexit challenges that need to be faced, it is not because I think they are the only issues that we need to consider as we scrutinise the Bill. The question of universities’ autonomy, which many noble Lords have referred to, in particular needs to be addressed much more convincingly in the Bill than it currently is. That autonomy is one reason why our universities are widely regarded and recognised as world class, well ahead of the generality of universities elsewhere in Europe, where the degree of state interference and control is much greater. So this Bill needs to protect and entrench that autonomy quite explicitly. Autonomy needs to be not only practised but protected by law.

We have debated in this House any number of times the aberrant nature of the Government’s approach to treating students for public policy purposes as economic migrants. This approach may have had some rationale a few years ago when there were a large number of dodgy language schools and when university students had access to the labour market once they had completed their studies, but neither of those conditions now prevail—the latter, access to the labour market, in my view to our detriment, but it is a fact. The Minister can perhaps confirm when he replies that, now we have some idea of who is leaving the country—although not, I understand, a very clear idea—only 1% of those with student visas are overstaying their welcome. Surely the time has come to drop this approach, which has already done a good deal of damage to our invisible exports of higher education: Indian students are down by more than half in recent years, and international students as a whole are down by 30,000 in 2015-16 compared with the previous year. It is losing us market share in a world where we are second only to the United States. I repeat: it is surely time to drop this approach and to make it clear that we have done so.

Then there are the risks from Brexit itself—of tighter controls on the movement of EU undergraduates, postgraduate students and academic staff both into the UK and, should our EU partners reciprocate any controls that we install, outwards. Should we not make it clear that anyone in these categories who has the offer of a place or a post at any higher education establishment will be free to come here without any additional formalities or controls? Whether or not they choose to come will be influenced by other factors, including access to the student loan facility and the level of fees that universities decide to charge them—but that is not a matter for this Bill and should not be so. However, it would be a good start to demonstrate, if we could, in this Bill that they would be as welcome after Brexit as they are now. These students and academics are a valuable—perhaps even invaluable—part of our higher education’s well-being and prosperity and of this country’s soft power. We need to keep it that way.

As to research and scientific co-operation with the rest of Europe, the evidence of the benefits we got from EU programmes such as Horizon 2020 is there for all to see. Simply plugging the gap from any loss of EU finance, even if it could be relied on in the longer term—which it cannot—is not the whole story, although the £2 billion being provided in the Autumn Statement is obviously welcome. There is already plenty of anecdotal evidence of the negative impact of the referendum on the international networks of co-operation which are of such enormous value to this country and which earn far more than the quantum put in by us. It is, sadly, surely essential to find some way of ensuring that a post-Brexit Britain can continue to participate in that kind of co-operation. That may well require a budget contribution and we should not see that as an insurmountable obstacle.

When the Minister replies to the points I have made, as I am sure he will, I am equally sure that he will give us a re-run of wait-and-see bromides on Brexit and talk about avoiding running commentaries. However, this is not just a topical debate—it is new legislation. I hope the Government will reflect carefully on the need to fill the lacunae in the Bill to which I have referred with respect to the Brexit challenge, and will have something more to say and, more important, something more to propose by the time we come to Committee and Report stages.

Brexit: Impact on Universities and Scientific Research

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, our debate today covers two sectors of our national life that are critical for our future success, competitivity and prosperity as a nation. Our universities, second only in the world to those in the US in their international outreach, are one of the country’s top invisible exporters. At the same time, they are an important source of our soft power. Our scientific research, despite the fact that it is less well funded from the public purse than is the case for most of our competitors around the world, has, by the disproportionately high wins of EU research funding, shown that it is in rude health. One might think that the potential negative impact of Brexit on these sectors would be of deep concern to the Government. There is not much sign of that, however. The CEO of Nissan can get in to see the Prime Minister and emerge with so-far unmentionable assurances, but the presidents of the Royal Society, the British Academy and Universities UK are not being so treated in spite of their very serious concerns, so all the more credit to the noble Lord, Lord Soley, for having initiated this debate.

What are those negative implications? First and foremost are ones that come from the talk of imposing new immigration controls. These could adversely affect the recruitment by universities of both undergraduates and postgraduates and of the 15% or so of their academic staff who come from other EU countries. If the controls were reciprocal, that could affect British students and academics moving in the opposite direction. This House has frequently debated the aberrant nature of the Government’s policy of treating students as economic migrants for public policy purposes. That has zero support in this House from any side. It will emerge yet again now in the context of this new threat from Brexit, and it is surely time to rid ourselves of this incubus, which is already resulting in a loss of market share for British universities when compared with their main competitors. We need the Government to say here and now that any new immigration controls they may contemplate will not prevent those with offers of an undergraduate or postgraduate place, or of an academic post, taking up those offers. If they cannot say that now, the haemorrhage of students and academics who have to think in terms of longer time horizons—and it has clearly started—will only accelerate, depriving our universities of material and human resources of the greatest importance to their future well-being.

Then there is the question of the impact of Brexit on the resources available for scientific research both at our universities and more widely. Our position as a substantial net beneficiary of EU spending means that this risk is acute. It is not just a question of the quantum of resources, which may or may not be replaced by a pretty cash-strapped Treasury, it is also about the value of the networks of co-operation across Europe that are provided by EU funding and which bring with them quantifiably greater benefits than the simple amount of the subsidy. All this will be at risk if we pull out of the single market or we regard any payment into EU funding as a red line we will not cross. Surely we need to remain in the Horizon 2020 programme and the programmes that will follow it if we are not to damage our own capacity for scientific research and innovation.

The House is fairly inured to getting no meaningful response from the Government in reply to debates and questions about Brexit, and I fear that today’s experience may not differ very much. It is a little like posting messages to Father Christmas up the chimney. Fortunately, on this occasion and in respect of these two cases, we shall have the opportunity to return to the issues being raised in today’s debate when the Government’s Higher Education and Research Bill reaches this House shortly. That will provide both the opportunity and the need for the Government to respond in substance to them, and it will also provide the opportunity for those of us who are deeply concerned by this situation to consider moving amendments.