King’s Speech

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I join others in warmly welcoming the noble Baronesses, Lady Smith and Lady Merron, to the Government Front Bench. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said in her excellent maiden speech, if the UK economy is to grow, productivity must significantly improve. As she noted, a major engine in this will be our higher education institutions. I declare an interest as a member of council at University College London.

Our universities make a huge contribution to life in the UK. The 2023 London Economics report estimated that their activities contributed well over £100 billion to the economy. They not only educate and train many thousands of young and not so young people but do so across many sectors and all regions. In many places, our universities are critical to the local economy. They play a huge role in supporting SMEs, which are vital to employment in all regions. Our universities are a great and successful national asset. We have 20 in the world top 50 and three in the world top 10.

Our universities now face very severe financial problems, however. The Labour Government are well aware of this; the FT reported in May that “universities going under” was fourth on Sue Gray’s alleged list of key problems. It is not hard to see why. PwC published earlier this year a report on the financial stability of UK higher education, which pointed out that fee income from domestic students had lost a third of its value since 2012 and that by the academic year of 2026-27 international student fees are forecast to become two-thirds of all course fee income. Many of these international students are currently and are predicted to be from China, with the obvious geopolitical uncertainties involved. Disturbingly, 40% of UUK members forecast a deficit in 2023-24, the academic year just ending. There may also be signs of a slowdown in overseas students generally.

In response to all this, more than 50 universities are already making job and budget cuts. Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute think tank, was quoted in last Saturday’s Guardian as saying:

“When this many universities are projected to be in deficit, you can’t say: ‘This is a market and some institutions will have to go,’ because there is a serious risk of a domino effect”.


The funding model for our universities is not fit for purpose, is getting worse and needs urgent revision. The Labour Party manifesto explicitly recognises this:

“The current higher education funding settlement does not work for the taxpayer, universities, staff, or students. Labour will act to create a secure future for higher education and the opportunities it creates across the UK. We will work with universities to deliver for students and our economy”.


We need to know rather urgently how that will be done. We welcome the Minister’s invitation to input to that.

While we wait for a plan to deal with the funding settlement, some immediate measures could significantly help the sector. The first is to be more supportive of international students, particularly through the graduate visa route. We should correct any impression created by the previous Government that the UK is not welcoming to overseas students and their families and we should, as Members of this House have frequently proposed, disaggregate student numbers from the total immigration figures and report them separately. We could also look at the full economic cost of government research grants, which has now declined to about 70%. We also need a plan in place for emergency support should institutions encounter even graver financial difficulties.

There is one other thing. The Minister may know that I have been campaigning for 10 years for the introduction of sharia-compliant student finance. Progress on this had been glacially slow until the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, the Minister’s predecessor, took charge; I am glad to see her in her place, as it gives me the opportunity to thank her for all her hard work in driving forward alternative student finance. Will the Minister agree to meet our campaign group to discuss progress? We would be grateful if we could resume our helpful conversations about this long-delayed and critical reform.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

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

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, the Government want to make this a country that works for everyone. That is why we have introduced Clauses 80 and 81 of the Bill. Amendments 438 and 439 simply clarify the role of Treasury consent in establishing a system for alternative payment contributions to be dealt with other than by payment into the consolidated fund. They are narrow and functional amendments.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Sharkeys has a considerable interest in the introduction of alternative student finance as provided for in Clauses 80 and 81. I beg to move.

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 442 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Willis. The Committee will know that sharia law forbids interest-bearing loans. That prohibition is a barrier to Muslim students attending our universities. This has been a problem for the Muslim community in this country since at least 2012. Prior to then, many Muslim students were able to attend university because they were financed by family and friends. This was possible when tuition fees were low, but it is much more difficult with fees at their current levels. Successive Governments have known about this problem. They have recognised that the current system effectively discriminates against devout Muslims for whom interest-bearing loans are not acceptable.

The system works to the direct disadvantage of our Muslim communities. Many Muslim students, although qualified, cannot progress to tertiary education. The system also works to the disadvantage of our society as a whole. An important part of the community is effectively deprived of access to higher and further education, of the opportunity to mix with others and to learn from and contribute to our culture. These are damaging and dangerous exclusions. They are also completely unnecessary.

In April 2014, BIS launched a consultation on possible sharia-compliant ways of financing students. This consultation generated an astonishing 20,000 responses. The consultation outlined the proposed solution, based on the widely used Islamic finance instrument, called a takaful. In their response to the consultation, the Government said:

“It is clear from the large number of responses … that the lack of an Alternative Finance product as an alternative to conventional student loans is a matter of major concern to many Muslims”.


The response went on to say:

“There is demand for the proposed Alternative Finance product and responses to the consultation indicate that this would enable many of those who have been or will be prevented from undertaking both FE and HE, to attend by removing the conflict between faith and funding”.


The Government’s conclusion was equally clear; they said that,

“the Government supports the introduction of a Sharia-compliant Takaful Alternative Finance product available to everyone”.

But there was a cautionary addendum:

“Given the complexity of these issues and the time needed to resolve them, it is unlikely that any Alternative Finance product could be available before academic year 2016/17”.


That was written in September 2014—two and a half years ago—and only now is enabling legislation before us. If that sounds like criticism I should say immediately that I warmly congratulate the Government and Jo Johnson on finally producing the legal framework to solving the problem. It is a vital step forward, but it has one major defect. The Bill is silent as to when the takaful scheme will be in place. We are already in academic year 2016-17. We are too far into the year for any scheme to affect the 2017-18 intake and, worse, I have been told privately that it is likely that the scheme will not be ready until the academic year 2019-20. That is seven years after the problem was recognised, five years after the solution was agreed, and two academic years away from now. If that is correct, it means that Muslim students will continue to be discriminated against and disadvantaged for another two years; another two cohorts of young people who are unable to attend university.

My Amendment 442 addresses the problem directly. It simply requires the takaful scheme to be in place to benefit students going into further education or higher education in the autumn of 2018. I have tried to get to the bottom of why there might be this extended delay of five years between agreeing a solution and putting it into practice. I have consulted with Islamic finance experts and people familiar with the operational requirements involved in introducing a takaful scheme. I am told that, with the necessary political will, a working takaful system can be put in place within eight to 12 months, and that assumes that no significant work has already been done. That is why I have chosen the deadline of academic year 2018-19.

I am also told that the reason for the very likely prolonged delay that would otherwise occur is not lack of good intentions but the inability of the Student Loans Company and HMRC to organise themselves to deliver the product in a reasonable time. People I have talked to speak of a lack of resource in both agencies and an inability to process additional work in a reasonable time. A timetable that leads up to autumn 2019-20 is not reasonable and not necessary, especially when there is precedent for moving a lot faster. For example, the Sharia-compliant version of the Help to Buy guarantee scheme took five or six months, from the beginning, to develop and launch. These things can be done in good time, if there is the will and the allocation of the required resource. When the Minister responds he—or she—may say that the takaful scheme will in fact be in operation for the academic year 2018-19. If the Minister does say that, it will be heard, noted and welcomed as a commitment by the Muslim community and Muslim students, who will at last be able to go on to university. If he does that make that commitment to the Muslim community and to Muslim students I will not press my amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Sharkey]

442: After Clause 82, insert the following new Clause—
“Sharia-compliant student finance: deadline
The Secretary of State must introduce a Sharia-compliant student finance scheme to be available to students expecting to enter tertiary education in the autumn of 2018.”

[Lord Sharkey]

I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Cormack, Lord Willetts and Lord Watson, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, for speaking to this amendment. I would say in passing to the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, that his own consultation answers the point he made, as it points out that the unattractiveness of conventional student loans is a matter of major concern to many Muslims. That is the point I was trying to make—and it is still of major concern.

I was going to answer the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in a slightly more prolix way than did the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, but I think the noble and learned Lord made the point very eloquently about the commencement date.

I am extremely disappointed by the Minister’s response, which was so vague and non-committal that it seems to send a message to the Muslim community that it is entirely possible that the next two cohorts of your children will not be able to take a student loan. That is an unsatisfactory situation, as it was nearly five years ago. I am extremely disappointed that the Government have not proposed any method of speeding it up. I acknowledge the point about IT failures, but that is a universal truth. I am not convinced by the apparent complexity that the Government are relying on as a cause for this delay. I have talked to Islamic experts—some of whom were involved in designing the scheme—who have told me explicitly that the scheme itself is judged to be sharia-compliant, and the problem is only one of administration within the Student Loan Company and HMRC. A delay caused by an administrative failure in those agencies is not a good reason to deprive two cohorts of children of funding to go to university.

As I say, I am very disappointed by the Minister’s response. Will the Minister agree to meet me and other interested parties before Report to see whether we can find a way out of an extremely unsatisfactory situation? I do not see a response from the Minister, but perhaps he did not hear what I said. I was inviting him to agree to a meeting with me and other interested parties to discuss whether we can find a way out of this unsatisfactory situation. Since I still do not get a response, I assume that the answer is no—and I shall inquire on Report why that is the case. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)]

That is not possible. The noble Lord has spoken to it, so it must be moved, and I shall propose the amendment.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

Would the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, now like to beg leave to withdraw his amendment?

[Lord Sharkey]

I apologise for the procedural confusion, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 442 withdrawn

Educational Attainment: International Rankings

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Sharkey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the United Kingdom’s performance in the latest Programme for International Student Assessment rankings published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK’s 15 year-olds performed above the OECD average in science and reading, and at the average in maths. This is a credit to the hard work of teachers and pupils. Obviously, however, we will struggle to maintain our position as the fifth-largest economy in the world if we do not raise our game; hence our extensive reforms. The pupils assessed in this PISA study did not experience most of the changes that we have made to secondary education and experienced virtually none of our reforms to primary education.

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[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

It is, though, particularly disappointing to see us ranked 27th for mathematics, down one place again, and to see that 22% of our 15 year-olds cannot solve problems routinely faced by adults in their daily lives. The PISA study shows a strong correlation between the high usage of textbooks in teaching and high scores; textbook usage in England stands at 10%. What plans does the Minister have to significantly increase that measure, as I believe the Schools Minister would like to?

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord’s point on the importance of textbooks and rigorous teaching materials. Increasingly, we are seeing multi-academy trusts developing these for their teachers to ease their workload and to support them. We have introduced a rigorous maths curriculum at GCSE. We have launched 35 maths hubs as centres of excellence based on best practice internationally. They will work with schools to introduce high-quality textbooks as part of the department’s £41 million primary programme, Mathematics Mastery, announced in July.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

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

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I will raise a few rather narrow concerns about the Bill, which introduces a profound change to the current system of student finance—I congratulate the Government on that. As things stand, orthodox Muslim students cannot accept student loans because they bear interest. This means that Muslim students are very significantly disadvantaged in our education system. It means that many Muslim students, though qualified, cannot progress to university.

This is not only a form of discrimination but works to the disadvantage of society as a whole. An important part of our population is denied the chance to go to university, to mix with others, and to learn from and contribute to our culture. Louise Casey’s report of yesterday emphasised the critical importance of the mixing of cultures and the need to avoid ghettoisation.

In April 2014, BIS launched a consultation on possible sharia-compliant ways of financing students. There were 20,000 responses. The consultation had outlined the proposed sharia-compliant student finance system, based on an Islamic finance instrument called a takaful. The Government committed to bringing in such a system once the administration and tax details had been worked through with the SLC and HMRC. The final sentence of the Government’s response to the consultation read:

“Given the complexity of these issues and the time needed to resolve them, it is unlikely that any Alternative Finance product could be available before academic year 2016/17”.

That was two years ago.

The question is: when will Muslim students be able to benefit from the new provisions? I asked the long-standing Minister Jo Johnson exactly that when we met to discuss the issue. He said it would not be for the academic year 2017-18 and possibly not for 2018-19. This seemed to me then, and seems to me now, wholly unacceptable and to continue discriminating against Muslim students. The situation has gone on far too long. We have a solution in the takaful system agreed more than two years ago. It is surely unreasonable that it should take three or four years to put this solution in place. I point out to the Minister that sharia-compliant mortgages were introduced within six months, from a standing start. Surely we can do the same for takaful.

My second point concerns Schedule 9, which deals with the composition of UKRI. Here I declare an interest as chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities. The schedule states that in appointing members of UKRI, the Secretary of State must have regard to,

“the desirability of the members (between them) having experience of”,

almost everything, except that there is no mention in the list of experience of funding research from within the charitable sector. I believe that is a significant and unfortunate omission.

Charities are key actors in UK research. For example, medical research charities invest £1.4 billion each year in UK research, more than either the Medical Research Council or NIHR. Medical research charities, along with others, have great experience of research, development and exploitation, as well as very large funding streams. The charity research sector should have a place on UKRI, if UKRI is to maximise its understanding, coverage and influence in the UK’s research landscape. I have no doubt that we will return to this in Committee.

My third point is also connected to charity-funded medical research. Partnerships between charities, business and research councils are important drivers of innovative research. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, mentioned that. For example, 25% of Medical Research Council expenditure is committed in partnership with other funders. However, in the new UKRI landscape it may be more complicated, more difficult and take longer to establish partnership with UKRI than it currently is with the direct partnerships with research councils. The concern is that the functions of the individual research councils can be in direct partnership with other funding bodies, without UKRI having to delegate the power to do so. It would be good to have some clarity.

Finally, I briefly comment on the element of QR known as the charity research support fund. This fund provides valuable aid to research universities. It contributes to those research project costs that are not covered by charity funding. It currently stands at around £200 million every year, as it has since 2010, but it is administered by HEFCE, which is to be abolished by the Bill. The Bill is silent about what happens to the fund. The charity funders and universities are in need of some clarity here.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Sharkey Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities and I will speak about medical research and the NHS.

The United Kingdom is a world leader in medical research. More than 75% of clinical research in the United Kingdom is rated as world-leading and internationally excellent. Every morning on my way here, I drive past the magnificent new Crick Institute, which is a tribute to our commitment to leading the field in biosciences, a tribute to the Government’s support and, of course, a tribute to the drive and vision of Sir Paul Nurse.

The Crick Institute is a reminder of what we have achieved in medical research and a token of what we hope and intend to achieve in the future. But all this requires funding and that raises some questions. The ring-fencing of the science budget by the previous Government certainly provided welcome stability and certainty for planning purposes, but it did not allow for inflation, resulting in an erosion in real terms of more than £1 billion during the past five years. Given the leveraged investment that the science budget brings, do the Government have plans to increase and to ring-fence the science budget for this Parliament?

As the Minister will know, a vital part of our spending on medical research comes from charitable donations. Last year, the members of the Association of Medical Research Charities invested £1.3 billion in research in the United Kingdom, which is more than was invested by either the Medical Research Council or the National Institute for Health Research. Ninety per cent of this £1.3 billion research funding is spent in our universities.

The Government help significantly with this via the Charity Research Support Fund. This fund was introduced in 2005 to cover the universities’ broader infrastructure and general operating costs associated with charity-funded research. That means that the Charity Research Support Fund ensures that the money so very generously donated for research is spent directly on research. Unfortunately, the fund has failed to keep pace with the very welcome increase in charity spend. The fund was frozen in 2010 at £198 million. Since then, eligible charity funding has grown by 17%. So my second question for the Minister is: are the Government planning to increase the Charity Research Support Fund so that it keeps pace with charity spend?

There is also a question about funding for the National Institute for Health Research. It is generally recognised that research in the NHS has undergone a renaissance since the establishment of the NIHR, but its budget is less than 1% of the overall NHS budget. Most knowledge-based organisations spend between 5% and 30% of turnover on R&D. There is also a clear business case for increasing research spending via the NIHR. Every £1 of government and charity investment in health research returns between 37p and 40p through health and economic benefits every year in perpetuity. The Government have committed an additional £8 billion of funding for the NHS. Will this result in an increase in the budget for the National Institute for Health Research?

I turn now, in a little more detail, to the NHS itself. The report entitled Every Patient a Research Patient?, commissioned by Cancer Research UK and published two weeks ago, paints rather a mixed picture of the research landscape within the NHS. Professor Dame Sally Davies said in response to the report that,

“there is considerably more to do to improve the commitment, culture, capacity and capability of the NHS to promote, support and conduct research”.

However, I regret to say that evidence seems to suggest that support for research from NHS England remains lukewarm at best. In fact, apart from reference to the 100,000 Genomes Project, research is barely mentioned in its business plan for 2015-16.

The Prime Minister’s own aspiration, espoused at the launch of the strategy for UK life sciences, was that every patient would be a research patient. Could the Minister say how the Government plan to achieve this? How will they deliver on the NHS constitution’s pledge that service users will be informed about research studies in which they may be eligible to participate? The door is open here, surely. We have clear evidence of wide public support.

Finally, there is the question of patient data. The UK has a proud and pioneering record of using epidemiological data to support public health. Successive Governments have outlined ambitious plans to realise the enormous potential in patients’ data. But the current situation is far from satisfactory. Failure to record, link and share data for care and for research has damaging consequences. This failure compromises the safety of patients, reduces opportunities for efficiency gains in the NHS and reduces opportunities for the research which could transform our ability to predict, diagnose and treat disease. Furthermore, the confusion and uncertainty following the care.data debacle have resulted in a significant deterioration of the environment for health records-based research. This is not a satisfactory situation, as I am sure the Government are only too well aware.

There are things that we need to do urgently. We obviously need a simple way to enable patients to opt out of sharing their personal records, if that is what they want, without impacting on their care. We need clarity on which organisations will have access to data and for what purposes. We need clarity on secure storage and on the handling and dissemination of patient data, and we need sanctions—real sanctions, with teeth—for those who mishandle or misuse patient data. And we need, most of all, to get on with all this. I very much hope that the Government feel the same way. I look forward to discussing all these issues in the near future with the noble Lord, Lord Prior, whom I am very glad to welcome to the Front Bench.