Children and Families Bill
Lord Lucas Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Addington (LD)
Sometimes higher education provides better support than further education. I must declare that I have commercial interests in a firm that enables it to be done through the DSA. The transition between the two bits of education is probably unnecessarily complex. Making sure there is a smoother connection and an exchange of education from higher to further and the other way around would enhance the system and would probably allow people to study better in both places. I am interested to hear what my noble friend has to say on this matter. This is a recognised problem of transition and has been around a long time. It will be interesting to hear the Government’s thinking on this matter.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, we have had a briefing from Universities UK on this subject, which I suspect was compiled largely by talking to registrars, who wish that the problem would go away and who feel that it is not really their responsibility. I think disability officers in universities would take a rather different attitude, which is that they are not receiving the support they need regarding health and social care from their local authorities or clinical commissioning groups, which tend to regard the itinerant student population as somebody else’s responsibility and to think that an 18-month waiting list for mental health treatment for a student is appropriate.
I think there is a wish within universities for a better connected, more responsive system, such as we are putting in place for students in FE. I understand from what various noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, have said that there are some aspects of the system that has been put in place for younger ages that would not fit universities. We ought to look carefully at what would suit university students. We ought to do so by talking to the people in universities who have to deal with these problems. They are conscious that the system they face at the moment is not by any means as good as it might be, and not as good as the sorts of things we are putting in place through this Bill.
I hope my noble friend will allow me to come and keep her company between now and Report with some of the people who deal with this as a daily issue in higher education to see whether there are some changes, whether in guidance or the Bill—I suspect probably in guidance—that would alleviate the problems they suffer in doing well by the disabled students they have to look after.
Lord Storey (LD)
We all want the same thing, and on Report I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say. I have current examples of young people who have gone to university, a young girl with cerebral palsy being one. My personal experience is that they have been very well supported by the universities, and all credit to them for giving that tremendous support. If we have established an education, health and care plan post-higher education, it just seems sensible to me, in my innocent way, if the requirements in that plan are carried through for the student when they go into higher education. I can appreciate that there might be slight delays because of the timescale of applying and getting to know and getting to grips with the university, but it seems common sense that if a young person has special needs, whatever they are, and they are contained in the plan, then the plan should be carried forward with them and continued into higher education. That seems simple and it would help the student a great deal.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, what my noble friend said about that is very encouraging but it is not always a pre-existing condition. In particular at university, mental conditions can become apparent that were not before because the environment is that much more challenging. I am sure there are many occasions when it works, but certainly on occasion universities find that getting provision for a student who clearly demonstrates the need for mental-health assistance can be extremely difficult where the local authority and clinical commissioning group feel they have other priorities for their permanent residents. This would not be a transfer. It is getting help within the context of a university for a student, rather than having to send them home—which misses the point of supporting them at university.
Baroness Northover
I am sorry I did not address the points from my noble friend Lord Lucas, who wished to “keep me company” in discussing this Bill. I am very happy to keep his company—and that of any other noble Lords or Baronesses, should they wish. He is absolutely right: supporting students with mental health challenges is a vital area. I hope that he will be reassured that in the National Health Service now there is parity of esteem between mental health and physical health. We know that good mental health underpins better physical health. The challenges that students face when they leave home and are at university under all sorts of pressures are something we are acutely aware of, as are the higher education institutions. If there are instances where students are not being looked after within those institutions and health services locally, that is obviously a cause for concern.
Lord Lingfield
I thank the Minister for her reassurance. As she and my noble friend Lady Brinton will be glad to know, these were simply probing amendments aimed at debating this terribly important subject. As my noble kinsman Lord Addington said, the move from school into higher education is terribly important. Other noble Lords underlined that. Higher education is terribly important for these young people, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, illustrated with the statistics that he brought to us.
One point that my noble friend Lady Brinton made concerned the fact that while, of course, a young person can start early in their application to Student Finance England, most young people know only late in August, when they get their A-level results, which university they will go to. That leaves about a month and a bit to get all this straightened out. As the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the report that he commented on have shown, sometimes first-class accommodation that is entirely suitable for young people of this kind is provided. I am afraid that other universities do not have it. Neither I nor any of the young persons or their parents who have spoken to me are concerned as to which silo the funding for this should come from. All one is concerned about is that the provision should be as seamless as possible and that, unlike at the moment, the new plan should at the very least be taken into account when consideration is given to funding a young person who is going into university. Perhaps, along with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I should keep the noble Baroness company in order to discuss this further.
Lord Lucas
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I shall also speak to the other amendments in this group. I apologise to the Committee for the appalling drafting of Amendment 101A; it must be hard for anyone here to understand what I am about. All the amendments concern home education, and Amendment 101A seeks reassurance from the Minister that it is intended that the local offer should cover children in home education and not just children in conventional schooling.
Amendments 164A and 164B cover a part of the Bill where it seems that the wording reverses the current relationship between local authority and parent when it comes to education. Our education legislation is written so that the responsibility for educating children rests with the parent, and the local authority then has duties in support of that. The way in which the Bill is worded at the moment seems to place the duty on the local authority, with the parent in support. If that is the case, I hope to put the situation back to where it always has been and, to my mind, where it should be.
Amendments 152ZA and 157ZA are on a more optimistic note. In recent years, there has been a considerable improvement in relationships between local authorities and the home education community. We have escaped from the cloud cast by the Badman report and are entering a period where there is a spirit of co-operation and mutual understanding. It seems to me that we ought to look for a situation where a statement of special educational needs can encompass education otherwise, as it is known; that is, that the provision might be made otherwise than at school and as part of a home education package.
For that to happen, both the local authority and the home education parents would have to agree that this was a suitable package. There would have to be rapprochement between the two sides but, as I have said, this is becoming much more common. It therefore seems sensible that we should have an arrangement where it is possible for local authority and home-educating parents to co-operate in the interests of the child, rather than the current arrangement, with the rather strange Catch-22 situation where if a home-educating parent asks a local authority for help for a child with special educational needs, that is taken as proof that they are not able to provide properly for that child and that child must go straight to school. If the parent therefore does not ask for help, the local authority has no right, role or responsibility for making any provision whatsoever. That seems a dichotomy that does not act in the best interests of the children concerned.
Lord Nash
I think I can assure the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that local authorities will be able to include provision such as paired-reading schemes in their local offers. We want to see extensive and helpful local offers that include the full range of provisions to support children and young people with SEN, including support for parents and carers. We are happy to look at the guidance and the code in more detail to ensure that that is absolutely clarified.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for that reply. I will read it with care but I cannot, at first listening, think of anything else that I could possibly ask him for. As he is right to say, Clause 19 is a great advance in terms of responsiveness to parents. He is also right to say how immensely helpful his department has been. The all-party parliamentary group has been extraordinarily successful and most productive. It is the parliamentary group that I have attended that has made the most difference to the way that things work in the world. That has been largely due to the help that my noble friend’s department has given it and the interest it has taken in it. As he correctly said, we had a very productive meeting with officials. In particular, I thank Stephen Kingdom, who has been helpful before, but he is by no means alone in that. It has been a very rewarding experience to work with his department on this over the past few years. As I said, I am grateful for what my noble friend has said and I have pleasure in begging leave to withdraw my amendment.
Children and Families Bill
Lord Lucas Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, I agree with every word that the noble Countess, Lady Mar, has said. There are beginning to be some quality suppliers in online provision. It is probably too early to say, “Let us make this generally available and experiment with children who do not actually need it”, but, goodness, we should start to use these provisions for children who are not getting an education because they cannot access what we currently provide. It is good enough to be sure that we will be doing better by these children. We can perhaps move on to children who are out of school for other reasons, who are very poorly provided for at the moment, and see where we go from there, but let us do what good we know we can now, rather than hanging on until we feel able to do good for everyone.
Lord Nash
My Lords, noble Lords who have spoken on this issue have eloquently highlighted the significant barriers that stand between some children and young people and the good education they deserve. The aim of the Bill is to help to overcome these barriers. I hope that I can reassure noble Lords that these provisions, in conjunction with existing legislation and guidance, are sufficient to achieve this aim.
The Government’s view is that the majority of pupils are best served by attending a mainstream educational institution. For those with particularly acute needs, a special educational institution may be appropriate. These institutions provide face-to-face teaching and are subject to rigorous accountability arrangements. They also support social, emotional and physical development in a way that more isolated approaches to learning struggle to replicate. Wherever possible, the support provided to children and young people, including through education, health and care plans, should enable them to access the benefits of mainstream or special education. There will be individuals for whom, despite additional support, a mainstream or special institution would be inappropriate.
As has been discussed, local authorities have a duty to make arrangements for pupils of compulsory school age who may not, for any period, receive suitable education. In the context of this duty, suitable education is defined as,
“efficient education suitable to [a child’s] age, ability and aptitude and to any special educational needs he may have”.
New statutory guidance was issued in January on the use of alternative provision and on the education of children unable to attend school because of health needs. Local authorities must have regard to this statutory guidance and the clear expectations it sets out. If a local authority does not follow the guidance, the issue can be taken through the local authority complaints process and, if not resolved, referred to the department. I believe this addresses the concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, in Amendment 81 about ensuring the quality of alternative provision.
The guidance sets a clear expectation that alternative provision should deliver a high-quality education that leads to good academic attainment on a par with mainstream schooling. It also reinforces the importance of flexible provision that meets pupils’ wider needs.
In drafting this guidance we have listened carefully to organisations that represent children and young people, such as the cancer charity CLIC Sargent. In response to these views, we recently amended the guidance on children with health needs to give greater emphasis to supporting children’s social and emotional needs. The current arrangements provide an appropriate balance between legal duties and statutory guidance. This ensures that all children unable to attend school are covered by the duty while retaining the flexibility to clarify how the duty should be discharged.
The noble Countess, Lady Mar, in a number of amendments has raised a number of specific points about the use of alternative provision, including in relation to EHC plans and personal budgets. I am pleased to reassure her that the Bill does not prevent a local authority naming an alternative provider in an EHC plan. Where alternative provision is named in a plan as additional specialist provision, it can also be covered by a personal budget, including a direct payment. The Bill, therefore, gives local authorities the flexibility to use alternative provision where it is in the best interests of the child or young person.
However, alternative provision is intended as an exceptional arrangement, and decisions about its use need to be considered carefully. For the majority of children and young people, the aim of alternative provision should be to support their reintegration back into mainstream education. Local authorities would need to consider any requests from a parent or young person to include alternative provision within a plan. The current arrangements allow for local authorities to ensure that the arrangements constitute a “suitable education”, in line with their legal duty. In doing so, they mitigate the risk that alternative provision is used inappropriately or for longer than necessary.
Health and Social Care Bill
Lord Lucas Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Lucas
My Lords, I have Amendment 92 in this group. I have a long speech on this, but my noble friend has written to the Campaign for Freedom of Information, saying among other things:
“Where possible, we will push to ensure that where functions are transferring to other bodies, the coverage of FOIA is maintained”.
Perhaps I had better listen to him first and then make the speech afterwards.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, that is an invitation to which I am sure the noble Earl was looking forward. The amendments are clearly concerned with the regulations to be made in exercise of the functions by the board or the clinical commissioning groups, to be known as standing rules. The very words, standing rules, give a clue as to the importance of this part of the Bill.
My Amendment 92ZA concerns the consultation process. New Section 6E(6) of the National Health Service Act 2006, proposed by Clause 17(1), currently states that,
“regulations may require the Board to consult prescribed persons”.
My amendment would replace “may” with “shall”. Given the importance of these matters, there should certainly be a prescribed consultation process.
The noble Earl could perhaps clear up one point about the consultation provisions in this part of the Bill. My reading is that they appear to be confined to an exercise of its functions, by virtue of new Section 6E(4)(b) and new Section 6E(5), which are concerned with the draft terms and conditions and the draft model commissioning contracts. I am sure it is right to consult on these, but I wondered why the consultation appears to be confined just to those. What about the standing rules themselves? Perhaps I have misread Clause 17, or perhaps it is covered by wider consultation requirements elsewhere, but if he were able to reassure me on that I would be grateful.
Amendment 93 is a probing amendment. Under new Section 6E(8), the board,
“may not impose a requirement on only one clinical commissioning group”.
Are there no circumstances in which it would be appropriate for the board to put a requirement on a single clinical commissioning group? I did not understand that, and, again, if the noble Earl could clarify that, it would be helpful. I can reassure him that, like the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I will not make a long speech on that matter.
I will return to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. My Amendment 94 would require regulations made under Clause 17 to be affirmative. This Bill is packed with regulating powers. You can hardly move for the regulating powers that have been given to the Secretary of State. The Department of Health is not very fond of affirmative regulations—it has very few affirmative regulations in its legislation compared with other departments—but I think it might have allowed us a few more affirmatives than is currently allowed for. It seems to me that standing rules shape the way the board and clinical commissioning groups go about their business. Given that the intent is to hand over much more authority from the Secretary of State to the board and clinical commissioning groups, I do not think it is unreasonable that matters to do with the standing rules should be subject to the affirmative procedure. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to give some comfort on that matter.
Earl Howe
My Lords, the standing rules will set the ongoing legal requirements for both the NHS Commissioning Board and the clinical commissioning groups. We intend to use the standing rules to replicate core elements of the current system, setting out the ongoing requirements, which will predominantly replace existing directions from the Secretary of State. As the standing rules will set out system-wide generic requirements, they will not apply to individual CCGs. While the rules will be kept under review, we do not expect to update them annually.
Clause 17 confers powers to make standing rules in a number of specified areas. The powers will be used to maintain the existing arrangements for NHS continuing healthcare—that is, care arranged and funded solely by the NHS for individuals outside hospital who have ongoing healthcare needs. They will also set out the mandatory terms to be included in commissioning contracts, set requirements around the provision of information and provide the legal basis for certain patient rights in the NHS constitution.
In addition to the particular areas specified in the clause, the Secretary of State will have a backstop power to make standing rules in other areas, under subsection (7)(c) of new Section 6E. He can require the board and clinical commissioning groups to do other things which he considers necessary for the purposes of the health service. The power simply provides a prudent degree of system flexibility to take account of changing circumstances in the NHS.
Noble Lords have tabled a number of amendments regarding the scrutiny that the regulations will receive, both through consultations and by Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, spoke with great force and persuasiveness on this theme. There are two elements to the scrutiny question—public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. I can assure the Committee that in line with good practice across government, we fully intend to consult publicly on any new proposals for standing rules. The Health Select Committee would have the opportunity to examine proposals, and Ministers and the department would of course engage constructively with the Committee on any inquiry. However, I do not think that it is usual practice for legislation to set expectations on how the Government should work with Select Committees or on which areas the committees should focus.
Questions have also been raised about whether the board should be required to consult interested parties, such as representatives of CCGs and providers, before it drafts standard contract terms. We believe that regulations should be flexible on that point and minor changes will not always require consultation. Therefore, the regulations should be able to provide for this flexibility where necessary.
As to questions of parliamentary scrutiny, the standing rules will be subject to the negative resolution procedure, with the affirmative procedure used if the Government exercised the backstop power to make standing rules to require the board and clinical commissioning groups to do other things that the Secretary of State considers necessary for the purposes of the health service. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of your Lordships’ House was satisfied with these arrangements, as set out in its recent report on the Bill, which I was pleased to note.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked why the standing rules are not subject to the affirmative procedure. The rules will replicate current provisions in existing legislation, so we believe that the negative procedure provides for adequate scrutiny of these provisions. However, we agree that the affirmative procedure is important in other cases, which is why the broader power to allow the Secretary of State to make regulations which require the board or CCGs to do such other things as the Secretary of State considers necessary for the purposes of the health service—under subsection (7)(c) of new Section 6E, to be inserted into the NHS Act under Clause 17, which is a very generalised provision—will be subject to the affirmative procedure, which we think is the right balance.
Incidentally, the noble Lord remarked that, in his view, one cannot move in this Bill for delegated powers. I disagree with that. I think that this Bill represents a very significant transfer of power from the Executive to Parliament through placing far more detail in primary legislation as to the structures and workings of the health service than we have ever had before. For example, this Bill enshrines a process for the tariff, which is currently nowhere to be found in legislation.
The noble Lord asked about consultation on the standing rules themselves. The consultation to which the noble Lord referred is consultation by the board on standard contract terms with interested parties. Consultation on the standing rules themselves will be consultation by the Secretary of State. We intend to consult on these in line with good practice, as I have indicated.
Noble Lords also raised concerns about integration. We have discussed this topic at some length already, so I will be fairly brief. I can reassure noble Lords that the board and CCGs will be subject to the public sector equality duty set out in Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010—I am looking here particularly at the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, whose points I fully took. This is in addition to the duties set out by this Bill that require the board and CCGs to have regard to the need to reduce inequalities in outcomes and access to services when exercising their functions. I agree with the noble Baroness that awareness, training and understanding of the particular needs of people with disabilities are absolutely vital for all health bodies if they are to ensure that the improvement in outcomes that is needed in this area can be realised. We keep coming back to the outcomes framework. We should not forget it. It is not necessary to put it in the Bill but it does overarch the Bill, and we believe that the Bill creates the framework for the NHS to improve through the combination of clinically led commissioning and strengthened joint working.
Turning to the concerns raised by my noble friend Lord Lucas in his amendment, I draw the Committee’s attention to the provision that enables the standing rules to set out the mandatory terms to be included in the commissioning contracts. We expect that contracts will include, as now, provision to ensure that private providers are required to assist and co-operate with commissioners to enable them to comply with their disclosure obligations under the Freedom of Information Act. The underpinning of this is that, where a provider is not a public authority—that is, not an NHS trust or an NHS foundation trust—there is a provision in the current contracts for private providers to do exactly as I have indicated. I can tell my noble friend that we intend to use the standing rules to continue this provision, and I hope he will feel that that is entirely in keeping with, and goes with the grain of, his Amendment 92.
I also want to touch on the provisions that relate to EU obligations. These should be read alongside Clause 16, which allows the Secretary of State to delegate EU functions to the board and clinical commissioning groups. It sets out two types of direction-making power: one to direct about the exercise of delegated EU functions and the other to direct about any functions to ensure that we can respond quickly to potential breaches of EU law. Where there are ongoing, predictable requirements that derive from EU obligations but that do not relate to functions delegated under Clause 16, the power in the standing rules will be appropriate. We think that it is preferable to put such requirements in regulations rather than directions as this allows for parliamentary scrutiny and certainty for the NHS.
In the light of the details that I have set out, I hope that noble Lords who have spoken will feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Lord Lucas
Does my noble friend want my 15-minute speech now or will he promise me a meeting before Report stage? Given judgments that have already been made in parallel cases in other parts of freedom of information law, I do not believe that the solution he offers will work and achieve what he has promised. I shall be very happy to swap him a meeting before Report stage for a 15-minute speech now.
Universities: Impact of Government Policy
Lord Lucas Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lord Giddens for securing this debate, which has given us a long overdue opportunity to discuss the future of our universities. It has been an excellent debate, with expertise, history and passion, including, in the evocative words of my noble friend Lord Bragg, several thoughtful contributions from the men who “cut the hay”, who we are of course adjured to listen to very carefully.
In that context, it is very sad that we have not had the benefit of contributions from the Conservative Back Bench today. That is obviously a huge vote of confidence in the policies that they are pursuing.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, it is a reflection of what a hard time the Opposition have given us over the past three days and the general state of exhaustion on our Benches.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My heart bleeds.
In his contribution the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, quoted extensively from John Masefield. In fact he must have been reading my speech over my shoulder, because I was also going to quote John Masefield, although I was going to use a quotation that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, gave about a year ago. There were additional lines from where the noble Lord ended up:
“There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university: a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, went on to say:
“I cannot emphasise enough that our universities are and must remain centres of free thought and discovery, and seats of learning in both the sciences and the arts”.
She confirmed that the Government would,
“never lose sight of the wider purposes of higher education”.—[Official Report, 27/10/10; col. 1222.]
Given what has been said today in this debate, perhaps the Minister could confirm when she responds that this remains the position of Her Majesty’s Government.
What are our universities for? We know, first of all, that the recent report of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Madingley, confirms that we currently have one of the best, and certainly one of the most cost-effective systems of higher education in the world. We can contest exactly where we are in the rankings but we are certainly near the top. As the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, said, like the cultural industries, this is one of the things that Britain does best and it is something that we should cherish. So the first question is whether the changes now being proposed will assist us to retain and improve our higher education system. It is hard to believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Morgan, reminded us, that the decision to cut the block grant, to cut science funding by 10 per cent in real terms over this CSR period, to curtail overseas student visas and to make university fees three times more expensive is indeed the right way to build on the presently successful system. Indeed, it may get worse.
As my noble friend Lady Howells of St Davids said, the Government’s proposals will undoubtedly create three categories of degree-awarding institutions: an elite group, with almost all their students in the high-achieving category, defined as AAB or better, which will charge headline fees of £9,000 and will be allowed to grow; a large number of perceived second-rank institutions, which will charge £7,500 in order to be eligible to bid for those students that they lose to a pool through the “core and margin” reduction mechanism; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, predicted, a third group of private degree-awarding institutions, FE colleges and others, which will bid at very low fee levels to the pool, but which will have to provide a lot more for less if they are going to survive as universities. The experiences that the third group offer, including shorter programmes and minimal contact time, will not begin to match the experience offered at the other two groups.
If that turns out to be the long-term position, I have grave doubts about whether it will build on where we are today. The Russell Group universities—though not all of them—will prosper, but these changes clearly threaten the coverage, resilience, capacity and effectiveness of the sector. Like the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, I do not see a growth in the overall contribution that science and technology needs to make to our economy; and it will surely reduce the capacity to civilise our society that several noble Lords mentioned. We cannot rule out some closures of good and long-established institutions, with all that that implies. This strategy could destabilise the higher education sector and damage quality.
Related to this point, several noble Lords have mentioned postgraduate courses, a matter unaccountably omitted from the Browne review and the White Paper. It is of course inevitable that the postgraduate landscape will shift significantly as a result of the withdrawal of most central funding without any compensatory student loan support, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said, because of the heavy indebtedness of future undergraduates. The changes in the visa system referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, are also affecting the flow of potential overseas postgraduate students, with a knock-on adverse effect on teaching on undergraduate courses. Urgent work is now needed to develop a response to these pressures, and perhaps the Minister could respond on this point.
My second point is whether the new voucher scheme, which underpins the assertion that students will be at the heart of the system, will deliver a better and more cost-effective system going forward. It may well be that putting the student at the heart of the system—with good information, allowing them to make a rational decisions on what course they want to follow—could create a market in undergraduate course provision, and hence improve standards of teaching. The noble Lords, Lord Giddens, Lord Bilimoria, Lord Morgan and Lord Judd, have rather demolished that canard. Even so, it seems to be based on a wrong premise. According to the supporting analysis provided by BIS, high entry qualifications is one of the two key indicators that many universities try to maximise. High entry qualifications enhance an institution’s reputation, which further attracts entrants with high entry qualifications. The result is a large degree of rigidity in the ranking of universities by reputation and prestige. This in turn creates a large number of small markets, with products defined by entry qualifications and subjects, so that each institution or department is effectively in competition with a very small number of others. It is this product differentiation that restricts competition. Most students, after all, will make only one purchase and will not be able to compare different providers directly, and even an improved information system will not entirely compensate for this. In any case, how are prospective students going to get better informed so that, in the words of the White Paper, they will drive teaching excellence,
“by taking their custom to the places offering good value for money”?
This is cod market orthodoxy. But nevertheless, the more students know about what to expect, the better prepared they ought to be.
However, despite appearing to recognise the importance of accurate and meaningful information, the Government proposals do not provide this. The BIS impact assessment says:
“The Government does not have the resources to develop commercial standard information tools (such as consumer price comparison websites) .... so our long-term strategy is to ensure that relevant student data is made available to third party providers, so that they can turn the raw data into meaningful information, innovatively presented”.
Don’t you just love that “innovatively presented”?
Perhaps we can persuade the Government to think again on this point. I cannot see that British analogues of what is already on the market will take the trick here. Take, for example, the US-produced ratemyprofessors, a website which boasts that it has 10 million student comments, and no doubt a huge hit list. Promoted,
“as a fun way to choose the best courses and professors”,
it includes ratings of a professor’s appearance as “hot” or “not”, and ratings of “easiness”—said to be useful for finding a module which will not involve hard work. David Mease, of San Jose State University, currently tops the list with a 4.8 score out of 5 and, you might not be surprised to know, a chilli pepper for “hotness”. There is no photo so I cannot enlighten the House further, but you get the message. For completeness, Brigham Young University, with an average professor score of 3.62 out of 5, tops the college lists. Surely this is not the way to go.
My third point, which has been widely raised already in the debate, is about social mobility. The new methods of allocating resources and controlling student numbers look likely to reinforce relative disadvantage rather than remove it. The removal of the need to pay fees up front for both full and part-time courses, the provision of maintenance loans, and the bursaries and scholarships that may be available to students from low-income backgrounds, should make participation in higher education a more attractive proposition—I accept that. On the other hand, and crucially, we simply do not know whether, and to what extent, the likely assumption of increased debt will reduce participation in general, and by those from low-income backgrounds, women and ethnic minorities in particular. As my noble friend Lady Howells said, the effect of the “core and margin” system will be very likely to create a race to the bottom, bringing in third-tier institutions that are much less attractive to students, which is where many students from disadvantaged backgrounds will end up, because, as we have heard, they are less likely to have good qualifications and will be obliged to accept a place at a third-tier institution; or if they are unwilling to do that, will miss out on higher education completely.
The impact of Government policies is making the future of our universities very uncertain. As we have heard in this high-quality debate today, the restructuring of university funding, which passes the state’s contribution largely on to the student, undermines the compact between student, state and employers that has long been the basis for our university system.
Universities are not an extension of school or, as my noble friend Lord Giddens said, utilitarian providers for people to receive training in the limited range of disciplines for the workplace. They have other noble missions which, to our mind, requires that the state ought to be a major stakeholder in higher education, not merely a provider of off balance-sheet loans at penal rates of interest.
Whereas the Government’s early rhetoric, and clear ideological preference, was to rely on market forces and students exercising choice to create competition that would hold down fees, these aspirations have had to be emasculated in favour of a much more direct control over the level of fees that are charged. The result is not a proper market but even heavier-handed state control, effectively controlling how much the majority of universities can charge and how many students they can take.
I predict that there will be chaos and confusion as universities have to make up their minds about how to play the game without knowing the rules. Will the Government keep cutting their core? What further changes will they make to the AAB regime? The arrangements they have introduced, removing a large group and a growing number of students each year from the majority of institutions, is hugely destabilising. They clearly have no regard for the health of a vital component of our public realm.
From what has been said in this debate today it is hard not to feel that we are at the brink of a major experiment in social policy. As my noble friend Lord Judd said, so much of what is being proposed is untested and the impacts unknowable and the costs of what is being proposed are still in dispute. Like the health service, a major reform is being pushed through with very little understanding of the impact it will have on individuals, institutions, intergenerational relationships and society as a whole.
In closing, I make a rather unusual suggestion to my noble friend Lord Giddens. This debate has succeeded in covering the ground in this policy area, and it has also revealed a large number of flaws in the arguments that have been made. I know that part of the process in these debates is to withdraw the Motion, but the second part of the Motion also says that it is moving for papers. It would be jolly interesting to see the papers supporting these policy initiatives. I therefore suggest that he might leave the Motion in place.