Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Mandelson Excerpts

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

[Lord Mandelson (Lab)]

My Lords, this is my first opportunity to speak in your Lordships’ House since becoming chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University this summer. It is one of the city’s two very large and popular universities. One could not categorise them as either old or modern, as both trace their roots to the mechanics’ institute of 1824. One could not say that one is more professional and technical while the other is more arts and science. Manchester Metropolitan has just gained a significant research grant in fuel cell technology and is also home to the Manchester School of Art. It has probably the best creative writing school in the country; the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, is on the faculty staff and teaches every week. It also has a thriving law and business school, in which there are a growing number of excellent degree apprentices.

I make these points not just to reflect my pride in the university, but because there is still a tendency to look at the university sector in rather conventional pre- and post-1992 terms. The new legislative framework offered by the Bill needs to counter this and pave the way for the further evolution of universities that changes in society and aspiration are going to drive. We need high-quality universities in Britain that perform on a level playing field but whose offers of courses, in length and content, whose systems of learning, on campus and at a distance, and whose different paths to different sorts of employment create a mosaic of opportunity to suit the individual student as well as the needs of society and the economy. What we do not need from the Government is a two-tier visa system for international students based on “tougher rules” for those on “lower quality courses”, as the Home Secretary has said, or at “less prestigious universities” as Nick Timothy, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff has written. I hope the Minister will make it clear when he winds up this debate that that sort of old-fashioned, snobbish talk is not part of the Government’s thinking. I shall be listening very carefully.

In the final period of the last Labour Government—I assume it will not actually be the last Labour Government —I had responsibility for universities. I had a number of aims, which I stated clearly at the time: to continue the expansion of higher education; to widen its accessibility and social diversity; to commercialise better the science and technology developed in universities, hence my bringing to Britain the German Fraunhofer concept, which was built on ably by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts; to address the funding gap that was re-opening by setting up the Browne review; and to ensure that, if students had to pay more, they were entitled to receive greater transparency and value for their money. The sector was to be bigger, better, more applied, more equitable and more accountable to its users. It would therefore be churlish not to acknowledge that the Bill has similar stated aims.

However, I was also clear that more does not necessarily mean better in all cases. That is why the Government must guard against lower entry standards for new challenger institutions, reducing the overall quality of Britain’s university offer. A “stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap” approach will be hugely retrograde. I was clear too that the continued autonomy and independence of universities is absolutely essential. Accountability is not the same as doing what you are told, so we need to watch Ministers’ powers in the Bill and debate thoroughly how they might be used. In my view, we also need the taxpayer to carry a balanced share of the burden of university financing. If we want excellence, we have to pay for it.

There are points on collaboration which I would like to see promoted in the Bill, as well as competition in the university sector. I would like the Office for Students to factor into its oversight of universities the importance of place—that is, universities playing their role as major employers, owners of large chunks of real estate and important drivers of the local economy. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, spoke eloquently about the dangers and hazards of the teaching excellence framework, which I am sure we will need to come back to very thoroughly in due course.

Finally on research, I urge UKRI not to be overly prescriptive about partitioning funds between its component parts. We need a system that allows partners to come together across STEM subjects, the humanities and social sciences, and with industry partners, to drive a research ecosystem which goes from blue-skies research to commercial application and impact. Let us also take care to hardwire the arm’s-length, Haldane principle into the Bill. Politicians should not influence individual research funding decisions.