Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I wholly support what the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, while equally recognising that benefits are not directly a matter for the Department for Education.

There are anomalies in the way in which we treat young people. For those in approved education or approved training, child benefit continues until the child 20 years-old. Reading the list of what counts as that, it seems even more incongruous that apprenticeships are not included. For instance, it includes A-levels, Scottish Highers, NVQs up to level 3—which, of course, can be closely linked to apprenticeships—a place on the access to apprenticeships scheme, foundation apprenticeships for traineeships in Wales, the Employability Fund programmes and places on Training for Success. There is a whole raft of education and training courses on which young people continue to get their benefits, but they lose them for apprenticeships.

We know that only 10% of apprenticeships are taken up by young people on free school meals, which is surely an indicator that that is a disincentive, particularly for families, because they will lose out on additional benefits when a child goes into an apprenticeship. An apprenticeship salary on minimum wage may be barely over £3 an hour, so the loss of child benefit and tax credits may be a significant penalty for that family to bear.

The National Union of Students said:

“If apprenticeships are going to be the silver bullet to create a high-skilled economy for the future, the government has to go further than rhetoric and genuinely support apprentices financially to succeed”.


We urge the Minister, in the interests of joined-up government, to talk to his colleagues in the benefits department to see whether something can be done to ensure that disadvantaged young people do not feel that this is a major disincentive to taking up apprenticeships.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I spoke on this issue at Second Reading, so I just reiterate what my colleagues have said. It seems strange that benefits are available to young people until the age of 18, so we can have a university student who has a couple of lectures and a couple of tutorials a week, if they are lucky, who gets the benefit, and a young person doing an apprenticeship, where 20% of the time should be for training, who loses that money. As we heard from my noble friend Lady Garden, only 10%—let us underline that—of apprentices come from those entitled to free school meals. If we really believe in social mobility, we should be asking why it is only 10% and whether finance is a handicap.

The National Society of Apprentices said in its written evidence:

“It seems incongruous to us that structural barriers exist to disincentivise the most disadvantaged from taking up an apprenticeship”.


We need to take those comments on board. I realise this is slightly beyond the scope of the Bill, but it would be helpful if, in his reply, the Minister could suggest that we meet his colleagues outside the Committee and talk about this issue because if there is a resolution, it would really help those people in society whom we must support.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the points that have been made. I shall speak on one narrow issue. I was surprised to learn that an apprenticeship is not an approved form of learning. I assume that, when the Institute for Apprenticeships recognises these apprenticeships, they will automatically be an approved form of learning along with all the others. I hope that when the Minister replies, he will cover whether an apprenticeship is an approved form of learning and whether, when the Institute for Apprenticeships recognises the range of apprenticeships, they will come into that category.

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[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I will focus on just one area because, as I understand it, the various bodies set out in the amendment each have a different role. When we debated this on the first day in Committee, the Minister told us that the body that was going to look at the quality of apprenticeships was Ofsted and that it was going to work on a risk-based approach. I told him that I understood the approach but would welcome some clarification of how it is going to apply. He said that he would get back to us on that. As far as I am concerned, there are two things here. I support the thrust of the amendment, in that we need to be clear about the roles and responsibilities, but my overall concern is ensuring that we deliver quality apprenticeships so that the brand has a good reputation among teachers, potential apprentices and parents. If the Minister has replied to this point, I have not yet seen it. Is he in a position to tell us how this risk-based approach will apply to apprenticeships?

Given that we are looking to drive up the number of SMEs involved, the risk will not be with the larger organisations with well-established reputations, such as Rolls-Royce, BT, British Aerospace and a whole host of others that have been mentioned before. We know that people who go into those organisations will get a quality apprenticeship. That is not the problem. The problem will be in small and medium-sized concerns. Given that the success of this enterprise in driving up significantly the number of apprenticeships will depend on ensuring that we embrace more of those organisations in providing apprenticeships, a lot more than currently do, this is not an insignificant issue.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, this is a very important amendment. The Government have set an ambitious target of 3 million apprentices, and it is good to have a target to work towards. However, as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Young, those have to be quality apprenticeships. In a sense, I would rather have 2.5 million apprentices, knowing that there was real quality in the education and training.

I went to look at the apprenticeship scheme run by the BBC. I was struck by the diversity of the apprentices and the quality of the training and education component of the scheme. Young people deserve quality education and training. It is not enough to say, “Here are some books—go and sit in that corner. Here is a day off—go and learn that”. Somebody has to direct the training and education. If a scheme is to work, we need to make sure that somebody is responsible for that quality.

I hope the Minister will not mind me saying that, when we met before the Bill, I raised this question with him. He said then that Ofsted would be “sampling” some of the providers. To me, that is not good enough. We have to be absolutely sure that every apprentice gets only the best.

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

I support the amendment. I feel that, in all this, there is tension between what the Bill would like to see and what the Bill will be able to achieve. I keep looking for measures of enforcement, and not just because I am a native head girl or predisposed to police-type solutions. The history of apprenticeships in this country shows that they have mostly failed because of the employers. Indeed, why would it not be because of the employers? They are in charge; they are the ones with the power.

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[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of points on these amendments. First, as I said at Second Reading, I very much welcome the desire and requirement to have learners themselves represented in the governance of the institute. I welcome also the fact that the Government have announced an apprentice panel for the institute, but I think it would be good if that was a statutory requirement in the Bill.

Secondly, it is important we ensure that the bodies creating the standards are employer-led but, at the same time, represent a cross-section of organisations. However, there is a further point to make on that. Yes, we should have SME representation, but that is easier said than done. Most SMEs find it hard to devote the time, resource and energy to being involved in these quite complicated standard development processes. I am very interested to hear the Government’s thinking on how the views of SMEs—which, after all, deliver more than half of all apprenticeships—can be represented in a way that is comparable to the others that will be represented.

I very much agree that independent training providers need to be subject to accountability and scrutiny, and that learners need to know who they can complain to. However, at the same time, I believe that independent training providers deliver a very substantial proportion of the training needed for apprenticeships, and we should be rather careful that we are not killing that golden-egg-laying goose. It is very important to have the right balance. Again as I said at Second Reading, I have a feeling that the role of independent training providers, including commercial training providers, is not very well reflected in the Bill as it stands. It is a key role and we should make sure we understand how it is going to be delivered in a way that meets suitable standards and scrutiny.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. FE Week seems to be getting quite a few mentions. I came across a piece on training providers by Peter Cobrin, who runs the Apprenticeships England Community Interest Company, which is important to highlight. He says that training providers feel,

“vulnerable, unrepresented, unsupported, unprotected, exploited and undervalued”.

Let us not forget that there are some very good training providers, just as in higher education there are some very good private providers and colleges. However, quite frankly, some need examining carefully. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said, it is important to remember that many of the people who go to these private providers take out big loans, and if that private provider collapses or reforms, they are left. That is not good enough. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said it is important that accountability catches up with them. I hope that, following her wise words, we might look more carefully at this area between now and Report.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support these amendments and the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. Equally, I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and my noble friend Lord Storey say about getting the balance of this right. That is important.

I have one small thing to say on Amendment 18. I agree that it is almost impossible to get SMEs to participate meaningfully in these sorts of activities, however much you wish them to do so. The federation can sometimes be helpful in providing for somebody to speak, but individual SMEs very seldom have the time or interest to take part. In Amendment 18, proposed new paragraph (b) refers to, as well as employers,

“at least one person engaged in delivering relevant education linked to the standard being assessed”.

It is important that this group of people includes trainers and awarding bodies, who bring a dimension to these affairs. To have a broad range of people within this group would be particularly important.

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[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that I am a patron of an awarding body, ASDAN. Also, as a Minister, I spent three years building a clear, recognised qualification in the form of diplomas, which then got killed off after a huge amount of time, effort and money were spent trying to develop them, although some of them certainly seemed to be well received—engineering comes to mind.

I paid close attention to what the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said. I respect the work that she and the Sainsbury commission did. I certainly agree that we need these to be clearly recognised qualifications, but there are a number of ways to get to that point. I remember well the SATS marking crisis through which I had to navigate as a Minister. We had a problem with the company carrying out the marking. We ended up having to dismiss it from the contract and had to re-let the contract. We found that there was only one awarding body with the capacity to do that work. Edexcel effectively had us over a barrel. Happily, it was a responsible organisation and did not want to exploit the monopoly position in which it found itself, but it is really dangerous if you find yourself without the competitive capacity for different people to respond as and when circumstances change.

I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has done by raising this issue and giving us an opportunity to explore it. Clearly, there will be general capacity if different awarding bodies are awarded the contracts for different groups, but there would remain issues about their specialism in the subjects attached to each of those groups. My instinct is that the Sainsbury review might have got it wrong in this case. It may be that I just do not understand well enough what the department has in mind in terms of the model. I may not understand the extent to which it wants to specify the inputs into the qualification, how much it is concerned with the outcomes, how detailed it wants to be, how much it wants to specify the pedagogy, or whether it is thinking that these are wrappers in which you could put other qualifications, so that there is a single overarching contract-awarding body. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten me in his response or in some other way.

As the Committee has discussed, we must put quality first. As I keep saying, we must ensure that we have agility. The time it takes to develop qualifications reduces agility, and a seven-year contract makes me very anxious about how that agility can be preserved as skills needs change in the economy. I am particularly keen that we embed in the design the potential for innovation in assessment and awarding. I see innovative practice going on around the world, particularly by employers using digital badges that can have wrappers put around them to keep up-to-date with skills and the value of an employers’ own qualification, with a meta-qualification on top through the wrapper mechanism. It is crucial that we allow for that. The notion of a single contract for these qualifications, thereby reducing competition, makes me worry profoundly about innovation. I find myself, as a Labour Peer, arguing with a Conservative Government that we want competition. I hope that the Minister will revert to instinct, listen and agree competition is good to improve delivery and agility in the system.

[Lord Storey]

I remember that my nursery nurses were terribly upset when their NNEB qualifications went and they became NVQ level 3. They were devastated, so there is something in a name and perhaps in a bit of tradition. I am a bit torn. I understand the Sainsbury review and the Government saying: let us create and agree a standard for the different pathways and maintain it. That is the qualification we will have so, presumably, various organisations can bid for it and, if they win the contract, the Government will ensure that they maintain the quality and standard.

However, as has been said, there is something about having competition. You have to look only at GCSEs, where the Secretary of State at the time wanted to have a single provider. There was a sort of rebellion against that and it did not come to pass. Schools and young people themselves can choose which awarding body to go for. Different awarding bodies suit pupils for different reasons—the content may match their study. We must think carefully about this. It is important for parents, young people and employers. Getting the name right is important but sometimes people also like letters after the name—there is a later amendment from my noble friend Lady Garden about that. I am caught on this, but I hope that we can explore the best way forward.

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

I am responsible for 2,000 degree-level apprentices and about the same number of others. At the moment, we do what the employer wants. If the employer arrives and says: “I would like the formal training to have these outcomes”, we say, “Right”, then we discuss it and bid for it. I had been assuming that we could adjust to the new regime. If the Institute for Apprenticeships stated the outcomes that it wanted, we could teach to those outcomes because that is what we do. We would be able, in essence, to do a wraparound to suit a particular employer, which would include the vital bits that the Institute for Apprenticeships wanted. I am a little puzzled if we are to be told that we all have to teach the same thing on, say, the finance course by the bit of the Institute for Apprenticeships that is working out finance training. At the moment, let us say that KPMG tells us how it wants us to do finance training. We would do that but if someone else wanted it to be slightly different, our competitive advantage over the years has been built on adjusting to do a different sort of finance training.

I am not quite sure where I am going with this, but are we providers still to be allowed variation in any way if an employer asks us to do it slightly differently, provided we include a certain number of outcomes and standards, as set out by the institute? To take an example from my experience, with our graduate law course we made our name by introducing a City law course that the City wanted. “Wait”, we said, “we’ll do that”. Of course, it is all the same law but it was specialist. We did that and not some other bits of law. I can imagine that being the outcome still: some City firms want varieties of law taught that nobody else cares about, as in shipping law, and some accountants want things that nobody else much cares about taught, as in shipping finance. Are we to end up with an agreed set of standards to which we must adhere, but around which we can wrap something that employers might want, or not? I am arguing for a setting of outcomes and standards by the institute but with a little deviation allowed, provided those apprenticeships include the basic standards and outcomes. Will the Minister tell me about that?

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[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I support the amendments and shall speak specifically to Amendment 20. When I ask employers what they value most about young apprentices, the qualities are what I often hear referred to here as soft skills, but they are not, really they are essential skills. They are the skills of being able to turn up on time regularly, work as part of a team, show enthusiasm and so on. Often, ironically, the complaints that you get from employers are about those who are technically well-qualified but lack those essential skills. This amendment is about creating flexibility and recognising that there are young people who will, for a variety of reasons explained today, find it difficult, as my noble friend Lord Hunt said, to go through the demoralising impact of resits for qualifications that will not assess their innate capabilities, as my noble friend Lady Cohen described. I hope that we will get a constructive response.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I add my support to Amendment 20. Yes, it is absolutely right that we do all in our power to ensure that young people are numerate and literate. It seems reasonable to say that we want them to get to a certain level in mathematics, but that should not be a barrier to everything else. Special needs have not been mentioned. Are we to insist that children who have particular special needs or an aversion to numbers are to be included? We would not expect children who are dyslexic to get to certain standards in literacy because of the severity of their dyslexia.

We have heard about Travellers and immigrants, but there are young people for whom the system—perhaps poor teaching—has not helped them to get it. We then have this whole re-sit culture, and they get more and more fearful of failing and we do not want to label people as failures. I enjoyed the argument and think the word “flexibility” is so important. I know young people who have been taken on by employers, and the employer has said: “Well, they’ve got problems with numeracy and literacy, but they really sparked at this particular job”. Some of them have gone on to take some qualifications later. Let us not label people, let us have flexibility and do all we can to make sure that young people get to a certain level—“C”—in mathematics, but that should not be the be all and end all.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for the amendments and welcome the opportunity to debate them. I fully understand why the noble Lords, Lord Watson, and Lord Hunt, are supporting Amendment 20. Having a sound grasp of English, maths and digital skills is fundamental to getting ahead in work and life. Raising literacy and numeracy levels at all stages of education, including post-16, is essential and remains an absolute priority.

We recognise that current requirements are still low by international standards, and we believe that individuals should have higher aspirations. In the longer term, as the quality of pre and post-16 English and maths teaching and associated learner outcomes improve, the Government should raise maths and English requirements to reflect those of higher-performing international technical education systems.

Since we made it a condition of funding, all 16 to 19 year-olds beginning a study programme who have not achieved an A* to C GCSE in English and maths must continue to study these subjects until they do so, unless specific special educational needs or disabilities prevent them. I will repeat that to underline it: unless specific special educational needs or disabilities prevent them from doing so, so there are exceptions. This has resulted in thousands more students securing these GCSEs by the age of 19. The OECD has commended us on our reforms and, working with schools, colleges and employers, we will build on them.

We will do so by implementing the Sainsbury panel’s recommendations on English and maths. We have accepted the panel’s recommendation that there should be a single set of English and maths exit requirements governing college-based technical education and apprenticeships, and we will continue to require all 16 to18 year-olds to study English and maths if they have yet to achieve GCSE A* to C in these subjects.

The Government consider that English and maths requirements should be included as steps towards occupational competence. As well as good literacy and numeracy, everyone needs an essential set of digital skills to succeed in the modern workplace. Digital skills requirements should be tailored and groups of persons will be in the lead to specify digital skills that are required for entry into particular groups of skilled occupations.

We believe that there should be a minimum level of English or maths which all individuals must achieve ahead of securing technical education certification, as is already the case for apprentices. We will work with the institute to ensure that occupation-specific English and maths requirements are incorporated into each route.

Before I turn to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, I repeat the point about exceptions. We are talking about people with special needs and so on, where it may be just too difficult. The noble Lord spoke about the resit culture, and we absolutely understand that. However, in an environment where we are offering young people the opportunity through apprenticeships for genuine employment in the world of work, there is a hope and desire that those people should understand that basic core skills in English, maths and digital skills will be essential for their future. That is not least because we all know that, in the current world of work, people change jobs a lot and are not necessarily going to follow the same role for ever. Therefore, they need that basic requirement to support themselves into their future.

[Lord Storey]

I am grateful for the Minister’s reply, but how will these exceptions be decided? Will they have to have an education healthcare plan or will they be notified by the school? What will be the mechanism for exceptions?

[Baroness Buscombe]

The noble Lord raises a good question. I do not know the answer, so I will write to him on that.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I hope that I can help the noble Lord, Lord Young. That would not be a barrier to an apprenticeship. We are saying that they would have to continue to study through the apprenticeship and stay in that process in order to receive their certification.

[Lord Storey]

That is very helpful. So it is not a barrier to them doing an apprenticeship but they would be studying for their GCSE maths at the same time. Would the family then be entitled to tax credits because the young person is studying maths?

[Baroness Buscombe]

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, makes an interesting point, but I certainly would not want to commit on that. Let me clarify: they would study and do these resits, as we have been calling them, through the apprenticeship process—they would do them at the same time.

I want to attempt to reply to my noble friend Lord Lucas, who asked what would happen if awarding organisations have business overseas. The answer is that the institute can grant a licence back to the awarding organisation for use of the qualification documents—in other words, for use abroad. If there is an existing qualification for an awarding organisation that is out of the institute’s scope then the institute holds no copyright on that.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, for tabling Amendments 21 and 25. I appreciate why she has put forward these amendments, which would allow awarding organisations to retain ownership of the copyright of documents under the new reforms. However, with respect, I cannot agree to them for the following reasons.

First, the qualification is to be approved by the institute, so it is right that the institute is the ultimate owner of the copyright. This will ensure that it can carry out its functions, including awarding licences for the delivery of the qualifications. Also, as there are likely to be multiple contributors to each qualification, the amendments are likely to make it impractical for the institute to carry out its functions to approve the new qualification. All contributors are likely to want a say in matters that relate to their particular part of the qualification. The institute should have the final say if the qualification is to be approved by it.

Secondly, the amendments would be likely to stifle competition once the licence comes to an end. Those awarding organisations whose documents have been approved by the institute would be in a far stronger position than those who were unsuccessful to rebid for a licence. Of course, the authors of documents that make up a technical education qualification should decide whether to give their consent to the copyright being transferred to the institute before the qualification is approved. If they do not, the institute can remove that document from the qualification. That is provided for in the Bill: I draw the noble Baroness’s attention to the provisions in new Section A2DA which provide safeguards for both the institute and the awarding organisations.

Furthermore, awarding organisations do not have to submit a bid to the institute for the new approved qualifications if they do not like the arrangements offered. Under the reforms, it is expected that awarding organisations will go through a comprehensive procurement process before being granted a licence to deliver a qualification for an occupation or group.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Grand Committee

On the implementation of this clause, it is important that noble Lords should note that the Government will be publishing statutory guidance to which schools must have regard. This is a strong incentive and schools will have to follow what the Government have decreed. That guidance will be published when the Bill has gone through its final stages. The Government will work with Ofsted to monitor compliance with the duty. However, the measure also includes a regulation-making power so that in the event of a large number of schools failing to comply, the Secretary of State may make further provision. For example, she might specify in law who should be given access to pupils and when. This change will be fully supported by the department, and I think that it will be highly beneficial to our education system. It will improve the life chances of thousands more of our young people.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak generally to this group of amendments and specifically to Amendments 11 and 61. It is important that students’ eyes are wide open and they know exactly what their options are. I could not put it any better than a DfE spokeswoman who, when commenting on Ofsted’s report on careers education, said:

“Every child deserves an excellent education and schools have a statutory duty to provide high-quality careers advice as part of that”.


That is perhaps the most important thing that parents and society want for children and young people. When they go to school, we want excellent teaching and opportunities, but we also want excellent careers education. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to Connexions. Connexions was good but some of it was pretty ropey. I do not think there has ever been a time when we have had really outstanding, first-rate, quality careers education. I think I have said this before but, interestingly, if you talk to professionals they say that the best careers regime was at the time of John Major’s premiership.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, also asked how we can ensure that careers education is of a high quality. It is no good just providing a scheme, a strategy, books and prospectuses, or visitors to schools. How do we ensure that quality careers education is embedded in schools and colleges? The answer is in Amendment 61. The only way we can ensure quality is through Ofsted. It is strange that we do not get Ofsted to say, “Yes, this school or college has quality careers education”. Amendment 61 says that for a school to be good or outstanding it has to have good careers education. I was asked why I tabled this amendment in relation to colleges. We are not talking about careers education in schools, but I hope that if we get significant changes to the quality of careers education in colleges, it will permeate through to schools.

In a sense, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, should not have had to table his amendment. It is bizarre that schools do not invite different providers in, but he gave the answer. First, society has a view that we should go down an academic route. In my children’s school, they said, “Yes, they will do very well in their GCSEs. They will do very well in the sixth form. Yes, they’ll get a university place”. My cousin lives in Switzerland, with two children, where there is a wholly different approach: what is better for the child? The school of one of her children said, “Actually, it is a vocational route”. He went into an apprenticeship and has gone back to university.

We have this tramline approach in this country that there is only one route to go down. We need to break free of that, which is why the amendment is so important. It is also about changing parents’ perceptions. For some reason, parents think that unless their child has gone to a good secondary school, sixth form and university, somehow they have failed education. Is that not sad? We need to make real changes.

We should not have to table an amendment saying that, but of course for head teachers, each child, pupil or young person is a sum of money. Again, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, that if a maintained school or an academy loses pupils to other providers, whether FE colleges, UTCs or studio schools, it will lose that money. That then blinkers schools’ approach to what is best for the child. Sometimes they will look at the viability of sixth-form groups and say, for example, “Susan would be better going to a UTC or an FE college, but she is quite good at history and the group is struggling a bit at A-level and if we don’t get the right numbers, we’ll lose that group”. So the school pushes pupils down that route. That is the wrong way. Slightly pushing the door open and getting other providers in to make parents aware of what is available and making pupils and young people themselves aware is hugely important.

I mentioned the Ofsted report of last year into careers education, which was pretty concerning. It referred to, for example, chaotic careers education hampering the economy and the lack of an overarching government strategy. I will not go through it all. The DfE responded, and we know that the Careers & Enterprise Company has been established. I hear good reports about that. The Minister will no doubt tell us how the huge £20 million investment is turning things around. However, it is not turning things around for every school or indeed college. I hope that we will not fail our children but will realise that we need good-quality careers education, which is inspected. We also need other opportunities, providers and routes—whether they be academic, vocational or technical—to be part of a young person’s choice in their future education and career.

[Lord Aberdare]

My Lords, as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Apprenticeships, I meet a lot of apprentices and am constantly surprised and shocked at how few have either heard about or been directed towards the apprenticeships that they are on through their schools or any formal careers education. As we have heard, schools have an in-built bias towards promoting the academic route and I do not need to say any more about that.

However, with the best will in the world, teachers and parents may have only a limited understanding of the sorts of jobs and careers available in today’s job market, the opportunities they offer and the routes available to access them. Again, as we have heard, the careers education system, if one can call it that, has been at best patchy and at worst shockingly poor. Some good initiatives are beginning to emerge. The National Careers Service offers a valuable central online resource; the Gatsby benchmarks have defined what good careers education looks like, which is important; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has said, the Careers & Enterprise Company in particular is creating a vital network of enterprise advisers and co-ordinators to support schools.

However, all those initiatives need to be properly linked, and the gaps that even they allow in provision need to be identified, measurement systems need to be put in place and we need a strategy driven by government. Indeed, I am delighted that the Government are committed to producing a strategy later this year. However, there is real value in including a provision for that in the Bill. Part of that strategy, as we have heard, should be a much better, UCAS-like system for identifying and applying for technical education and apprenticeship opportunities. I am delighted that that is promised in the industrial strategy but support the idea of it being incorporated in the Bill through Amendment 9.

I also support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker. The careers system provides a bit of supply push but unless there is some demand pull, and unless schools want or are required to allow those systems to work, and young people and their parents are aware of them, the system is not going to work.

Finally, I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, reminded me of my visit to the Skills Show some years ago because that was one of the most inspiring ways in which to promote apprenticeships and technical education that I have come across. There was a real buzz about it; there should be skills shows all over the place. There needs to be an incentive to ensure that schools do what we need them to do. I therefore support Amendment 61 to ensure that only colleges with good careers education can get good or outstanding Ofsted ratings.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support these amendments. We had extensive discussions on these issues during the passage of the Higher Education and Research Bill, and they are no less relevant to further education colleges. Institutional autonomy is as important for colleges, where the people who work in them really know what works for their pupils and students, and academic staff having the freedom to question and test received wisdom is just as important for colleges as it is for universities. So is freedom of speech and preventing unlawful speech, which seems an increasing aspect of student life these days. In a way, it is almost more relevant for colleges as they have such a wide variety of students under their roofs. Both these amendments are entirely relevant to this Bill.

[Lord Storey]

I feel quite strongly about this at both levels. Looking back 10 or 20 years, we would never have thought that we would be debating the need for academic freedom and freedom of speech in 2017. If something is against the law of the land, that person should not be allowed to propagate it in any way, but the notion that students no-platform particular speakers is totally wrong. We should say loudly and clearly that it must not happen. I just want to add my voice to these two very important amendments.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, turning first to Amendment 3, I think we can all agree that academic freedom and institutional autonomy are important considerations. I am sympathetic to the spirit behind the noble Lord’s amendment. The principle of institutional autonomy and academic freedom is already well entrenched in the Bill and in the existing legislation covering further education corporations. In practical terms, the principle is also very much reflected in how the Government support and work with the sector on a wide range of issues and activities.

Further education college corporations are charitable, statutory bodies under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Under the Act, colleges are conducted by statutory corporations, which enjoy many freedoms and powers. For example, Ministers have no powers to issue directions in respect of the administration or management of the college, whether regarding employment matters or the content of courses, except in the very restricted circumstances in which the college is failing. As charities, colleges and their governing boards must also be independent from government. The changes introduced through the Education Act 2011 strengthened this independence, for example by removing the power of Ministers to make changes to the instrument of government and articles of a corporation, which was contained in the original 1992 legislation.

The Secretary of State’s powers are therefore extremely limited. As the principal regulator of college corporations, the Secretary of State has a duty to promote compliance with charity law. In clear cases of failure, the intervention powers under the 1992 Act allow the Secretary of State to remove or appoint members of, or issue directions to, the governing body of the institution. But those are powers of last resort, where it is not possible to address failure through other means and there remains a very strong public interest in doing so. In practice, they have never been used. Indeed, outside legislation, the way in which the Government work with the further education sector more generally demonstrates full respect for the principle of autonomy.

For example, the programme of local area reviews which will draw to a close soon is based on the principle that the governing bodies of colleges are the decision-makers when considering the future organisation of provision in their local areas. The Government have established the reviews to facilitate that decision-making, working in partnership with the sector, but have not sought to impose decisions. Similarly, although professional development activities for teaching staff are supported through government funding they are delivered through a sector-owned body, the Education and Training Foundation, reflecting the independent status of colleges and other providers. The legislative framework and the day-to-day relationship with the sector already reflect these principles and there is no need to legislate further. I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

I move on to the second amendment in this group, Amendment 7. I thank noble Lords for raising the important issues of freedom of speech and unlawful speech in our further education system. I agree entirely that free speech within the law is a key principle of further education in the UK. We want students to be exposed in the course of their studies to a wide range of ideas and opinions, and to learn the skills to debate and challenge them effectively. There is an existing duty placed on further education providers to take reasonably practicable steps to secure freedom of speech within the law. That duty was introduced in the Education (No.2) Act 1986; it is taken seriously by FE providers and they have raised no issues or concerns with us in relation to its practice.

The requirement in this amendment would place an additional freedom of speech duty on providers so that they must “ensure” that staff, students and invited speakers are able to practise free speech on the premises of the providers, or in forums and events. I am sympathetic to the intention behind this amendment—championing free speech must be central to our further education sector—but it is not clear what such an additional requirement would mean in practice, nor how we would expect providers to change their policies and practices to meet the new standard. I fear the new threshold in this amendment unreasonably and unnecessarily imposes an additional and disproportionate burden on providers, in particular the duty to “ensure” freedom of speech without any caveats. To move away from a standard of taking reasonably practicable measures may well require FE providers to address matters that are simply outside their control. We should be wary of creating cases where a duty to ensure free speech could come into conflict with other, important considerations, such as the security of attendees at a particular event.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome this thin Bill. I have always been concerned about how we regard technical and vocational education in this country; we are obsessed with young people having to fulfil an academic route. It is almost akin to failure if you do not succeed academically. I am not keen on the word “vocational”, and I do not think parents understand what it means. It is like saying, “I am doing it for love, not money”. Teaching was a vocation. I am pleased that the word is not being used.

If we are to develop a country which provides first-class skills, we need to enhance the status of technical education. Like the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I reflected—a word that was apparently much in use during the Higher Education and Research Bill—that we had 69 speakers at Second Reading for that Bill, while for the Technical and Further Education Bill we have 20. Does that not say something about our regard for this subject?

The Secretary of State said at Second Reading—this is important—that,

“half—last year, most—of our young people, often those from disadvantaged backgrounds will choose not to go to university, but to follow a less purely less academic route, or perhaps one that plays to individual strengths, talents and interests”.—[Official Report, 14/11/16; col. 41.]

The key to all this is not only providing a first-class academic, technical or further education but ensuring that young people know what the routes are, what they can do and what careers they might choose. Mike Tomlinson said at a recent Edge Foundation meeting on the EBacc that careers education is at best “pretty b….. awful”, and he is absolutely right. We pretend that we do careers education, but we do not: “There is a cupboard with some books in”, “Here is the latest government initiative”, and “here is what work we might do”. These are young people whose futures are in our hands so we have a responsibility to make sure that first-class technical education is available to them. If we want technical and further education to work, we must have effective careers guidance.

I understand that the Government are shortly going to announce their strategy. That is good, but any strategy, policy or provision is effective only if there is some regulatory support behind it, whether that is through Ofsted inspections, accreditation or a kitemark; nothing less will do. My own view is that a school, whether it is an academy, a maintained or a free school, should be described as “outstanding” or “good” only if its careers education is up to scratch.

The other problem we face with careers education is financial. The head teachers of maintained schools, academies and free schools are anxious to hold on to their students. They want them to move on into the sixth form because they are each worth a sum of money. They do not want them to go off to one of the UTCs of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, or an FE college because they will then be lost. Even if students are struggling academically the cry is, “Keep them in the sixth form. Let them repeat a subject and try again”. That is no way to deal with young people. We need to think outside the box about this. Why, for example, cannot UTCs and FE colleges have the right to go into schools and show students what is on offer? If schools are not prepared to do this in terms of careers advice, the colleges and UTCs should do it themselves.

Some people have referred to this legislation rather sarcastically as the “insolvency Bill”. I do not particularly go along with that, but there are issues with insolvency, some of which we will no doubt come to in various amendments. Again as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has just said, if, God forbid, an establishment becomes insolvent, we need to make sure that protections are in place in terms of the real estate and the property, as well as for students and for courses. If a student in Northumberland is travelling 20 or 30 miles to their further education college—there is in this an issue about transport costs, and so on—and the course suddenly stops because of insolvency, what is the student to do, for goodness’ sake? We need to make sure that students and courses are supported and protected. Some colleges are already having difficulties regarding the banks’ willingness to lend to them and pension funds tightening their regulations because they are worried, so we need to make sure that those issues are addressed.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said in her excellent report, Review of Vocational Education, that at least 350,000 young people have been let down by courses which have,

“little or no labour market value”.

Young people are taking courses that are of little or no value in the labour market. I can remember when we got objective 1 funding in my own city of Liverpool. We filled the FE colleges with courses that were not relevant to our skills needs, such as hairdressing and beautician work. Both were fantastic, but actually they did not help the economy of the city one iota. However, the college was able to attract students because for some reason there was a certain cachet about taking a hairdressing or beautician’s course. As the Wolf report says, we need to make sure that the courses on offer are relevant.

We welcome the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and we are delighted that the Government have listened and included FE in the institute’s role. I had not realised, and was quite surprised to learn, that we have already announced the membership of the institute. I thought we would have had to wait for the Bill to pass. I am not sure how this happens. I am delighted that we have included two people from further education.

That is good news. The Minister looks puzzled, but I was told this by someone this morning. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, indicates that I am right. Although I might be puzzled as to why this has been set up ahead of the Bill, I do not mind because we have included two people from the further education sector. That is good. I hope that that same principle will apply to the implementation routes and that we will include the FE sector in those as well. We need to understand how bridging between routes will be achieved. No doubt we will also want to understand in Committee how the transition year will work in practice, and where work experience might fit into this.

We constantly talk about social mobility—rightly so. We have talked about our world-class education system. Our Prime Minister has talked about a country that works for everyone. If a student goes into higher education between the ages of 18 and 21, their family gets tax credits. They get free prescriptions, free dental care, free eye tests, et cetera. When a young person— often from a disadvantaged background—takes an apprenticeship, which will of course include an element of training so in a sense they are still learning, the family loses out on tax credits. That is often a major disincentive for young people, particularly those from deprived backgrounds, to take up the apprenticeship. I hope the Minister will look at how we can support those families. We are talking about people we really want to attract. We want to get them on the road to employment.

The needs of the Cornish economy are different from those of Liverpool’s, so I welcome the fact that we are devolving some of the authority to a local level. Part 3 includes a measure to amend existing legislation to ensure that we devolve further education functions and adult education budgets to the combined authorities, if and when they are established. But as the National Audit Office reported, there is a growing financial crisis in further education. Indeed, it was its report that recommended the creation of an insolvency regime. We need another “I”—investment.

Another issue that we will explore in Committee is that if a young person is training on the job—doing their apprenticeships and getting their training at the same time, at their place of work—we need to ensure the quality of the training provided. From speaking to the Government about that, we have been told that Ofsted will probably do sample inspections. We need to be careful that this is absolutely right.

To conclude, I quote again the Secretary of State for Education, who said at Commons Second Reading:

“The Government want to build on what exists in the further and technical education sector and steadily create a gold standard of technical education … that students can be confident that … they will be building towards a successful career”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/11/16; col. 43.]


I think we all say “Hear, hear” to that, but it requires the Government to listen and to commitment the resources.

Schools: Access to Defibrillators

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Storey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that all schools and public buildings are equipped with defibrillators.

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

My Lords, the Government know how important swift access to defibrillators can be in cases of cardiac arrest. That is why we are encouraging schools to purchase a defibrillator as part of their first-aid equipment, and we have negotiated a deal to offer defibrillators to schools at a reduced cost. Since the scheme was launched, more than 1,800 defibrillators have been purchased through this route. The Government also continue to provide funding to make defibrillators more widely available in communities across the country.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his reply and for his work during the coalition Government and this Government. The Minister will be aware that today, 82 people will experience a sudden cardiac arrest and only eight of them will survive. He will also be aware of the work of the Oliver King Foundation, which was set up after the tragic death of a 12 year-old boy in a swimming pool in Liverpool, and which has campaigned ceaselessly for this provision. Is the Minister prepared to meet the foundation to discuss further ways in which it can be taken forward?

[Lord Nash]

I am very much aware of the work of this marvellous foundation, which I know works tirelessly to place defibrillators and raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest. When I met Mark King nearly three years ago, we had a good conversation about our deal to purchase defibrillators and I would be delighted to meet him again.

School Milk

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend raises a very interesting point. I shall ensure that officials are aware of it and of all the implications to which he referred. The Government recommend that children should be given whole milk and dairy products until they are two years old because they may not get the calories or essential vitamins they need from lower-fat milks. After the age of two, children should gradually move to semi-skimmed milk, as long as they have a varied, balanced diet and are growing well. In England, whole milk can be provided up to the end of the school year in which children reach five, but after that, as I have said, school milk must be low-fat or lactose reduced.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the problems of tooth decay, which in the north-west—my area—have reached worrying levels. Up to 35% of young people there have tooth decay. The Minister will be aware that in many schools, pupils are offered dental milk. Parents have a choice: they can choose ordinary milk or dental milk. This option to choose dental milk has been very helpful in dealing with tooth decay. Do the Government have any plans to further promote the drinking of dental milk?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord raises a very good point and I know he is very experienced in the area of primary schools. I am aware of a depressing number of children having their teeth removed because they have rotted at a very young age, and of many schools having things such as tooth-brushing schemes, et cetera. I shall certainly look more at what we are doing in the area he mentioned.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

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

Moved by

[Lord Storey]

467: After Clause 84, insert the following new Clause—
“Offence to provide or advertise cheating services
(1) A person commits an offence if the person provides any service specified in subsection (4) with the intention of giving a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider of an unfair advantage over other such students. (2) A person commits an offence if the person advertises any services specified in subsection (4) knowing that the service has or would have the effect of giving such a student an unfair advantage over other such students.(3) A person commits an offence who, without reasonable excuse, publishes an advertisement for any service specified in subsection (4).(4) The services referred to in subsections (1) to (3) are—(a) completing an assignment or any other work that a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider is required to complete as part of a higher education course in their stead without authorisation from those making the requirement;(b) providing or arranging the provision of an assignment that a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider is required to complete as part of a higher education course in their stead without authorisation from those making the requirement;(c) providing or arranging the provision of answers for an examination that a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider is required to complete as part of a higher education course before they complete it and without authorisation from those setting the examination;(d) sitting an examination that a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider is required to sit as part of a higher education course in their stead or providing another person to sit the exam in place of the student, without authorisation from those setting the examination.(5) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.”

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, plagiarism is a form of cheating and an academic offence. “Contract cheating” is a particular type of plagiarism where a student commissions a third party to complete an assignment. They might even employ a ghost-writing tutor. The QAA says it poses a risk to the security of academic standards and the equitability of assessments, as well as reliability and validity. “Essay mills” produce assignments that are not completed under exam conditions, and other pieces of work such as coding assignments in computer science can be completed by a third party as well.

I knew nothing about this 18 months ago. It was not something I understood. Then a group of students from one of our redbrick universities made contact with me. They came to the House of Lords to talk about it. We sat out on the Terrace. They were genuinely upset that they saw this practice happening regularly among their fellow students. They said, “Why are we diligently doing our work when you can pay and you can cheat?”. As a result of them coming to see me, I wrote to the chief executive of the QAA, who kindly wrote back and said, “We don’t regard this as a particularly serious problem. The number of people we are talking about is minuscule”. I contacted him again and furnished him with quite an important file of evidence. He very kindly arranged to come and see me, and we talked it over—in quite robust terms. He then organised a private round-table discussion with a number of other academics. From that, a number of issues arose. I am very grateful to them for taking that initiative.

So how many students are we talking about? According to the QAA, about 17,000 students—about 0.7%—get caught cheating each year. Remember, those are the ones who are caught. The data do not show how many students plagiarised. Another report commissioned in 2014 showed that 22% of students reported having paid someone to complete their assignment. As I said, this type of cheating is referred to as contract cheating, a specific type of plagiarism where a student commissions a work produced by a third party for a fee.

How does this happen? Different approaches are taken and different sites can be used. The more established sites will have a bank of people who have previously written for them and essay commissions will go to those people, with the essay mill acting merely as an intermediary. Other sites go instead to an online freelance writer: the work will be reverse-auctioned and any writer registered on those sites will be able to bid for the work.

In a recent publication, Professor Phil Newton and Christopher Lang looked at the operational aspects in some depth. They found that turnaround times for commissioned essays are very small: between a day— 25% of those analysed—and 24 days. The average was five days. Most—80%—were fulfilled in the specified time. For every fulfilled request on a freelancer-type site, another 10 people bid for the work, suggesting significant spare capacity in the market. The prices range from £15 for law—a master’s, a 3,000-word dissertation —to £6,750 for a PhD or a 100,000-word dissertation, with a seven-day deadline.

I was talking to some students only yesterday who told me that people even approach them on their campus and say, “We can get you a 2:1. We can write your essay for you. We can write your dissertation for you”. These people actually approached them on the university campus.

What about the students themselves? Well, it must be noted that some students do not plagiarise intentionally. A disproportionate number of students who are caught cheating, I am sorry to say, are foreign students. We had the debate earlier on foreign students. Language competence is one of the main reasons for them cheating. There are also sometimes cultural difficulties. Interestingly, according to the Times investigation, foreign students are four times more likely to cheat. Universities have been criticised for enrolling foreign students with poor command of the English language because they pay higher fees. There is then real pressure on those students to complete their assignments.

What should we do about it? My amendment is based on what has happened in New Zealand, where it was quite a serious problem. As a result of them making the practice illegal, the problem has significantly improved.

I am minded to quote the QAA, which said that the way forward can be described in three words: “Education. Detection. Deterrence”. The QAA goes on to say that at present it has no legal or regulatory powers to take action against students quickly for plagiarism, using essay mills, websites or ghost writers. We see this as academic fraud. We need to take action now.

We are in our sixth day of Committee, and we have heard so many eloquent speeches about the importance of higher education, the incredible work our universities and students do and how important it is to maintain that quality. Well, maintaining that quality means making sure that academic fraud does not happen, and that all students are on a level playing field. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I will say a few words in support of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I commend him on the amount of preparation he has done for this amendment. I am very surprised at the extent of what he has revealed. I think we all know that, to a greater or lesser extent, cheating goes on—it is important to use that word—and in some cases fraud, but the extent of it is such that action needs to be taken. I am disturbed by the QAA more or less dismissing it, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said. And yet, as he pointed out, 17,000 students had been caught, and if that number were caught how many were getting away with it?

It is an issue that has to be addressed. Although there are means of catching cheats these days—software can be, and is, employed by universities that can spot and pick up patterns of writing—there are other ways that cannot be tracked easily. It would be helpful to have a recognition that this is a problem and for something at least to be said, if not done, by the Minister to indicate that the matter will be taken forward in a way that it has not been, effectively, up until now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Baroness for her helpful intervention. I cannot answer on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, but no doubt he will make some concluding remarks.

[Lord Storey]

The Minister is absolutely right: this should not be rushed and we should get it spot on. We have a responsibility to universities, students and academics. I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned software. There is a software programme called Turnitin, which will identify parts that have been plagiarised.

Professor Deech—I am sorry, I mean the noble Baroness, Lady Deech; I am not sure whether I am promoting or demoting her—raised the issue of students who are caught. Interestingly, there are solicitors who advertise their services on campus to represent and help those students who are caught. When students are caught, as noble Lords can imagine, there are varied practices right across the sector about how they are treated. Some students who are caught are given a slap on the wrist; others are actually sent down. Some have to repeat a year and some lose marks, so there is no consistent policy in higher education as a whole.

I am delighted that the Minister told us of the new initiative that will be announced. The NUS, as well as supporting students—your heart goes out to students who are caught in such a situation, perhaps for all sorts of reasons—will be there on campus to make sure students realise how serious this is. If they are caught, the NUS, wearing another hat, is there to represent them, I suppose. I am delighted that this initiative is taking place and we will see where it leads.

Finally, I mentioned Professor Newton, who emailed me. It was interesting, and this is why I hope to come back to this. He wrote that he just wanted to highlight the word “intent”:

“The amendment as currently proposed would make it quite easy … for essay-writing companies to hide behind a defence that they provide ‘custom study aids’ and that it is the students’ responsibility to use them appropriately. If the amendment could be tweaked to take ‘intent’ out of the equation, then the law would become much more powerful”.


I hope that between now and Report, we could perhaps meet to talk this over and see where the initiative goes. We really do need to take action on this matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 467 withdrawn.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 23rd January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I find myself in agreement with the noble Lord. There is a slight danger that this will become a club of former higher education Ministers. However, as a vice-chancellor and former Minister, I found that the National Student Survey was a rather useful device—in a rather broad-brush way, admittedly—for telling us something about what students perceive about their own experience as undergraduates. It is not done for graduate students. I am somewhat at loggerheads with my noble friend Lord Lipsey, and I am sorry about this because normally we agree on many things. I would say that a 70% response rate that—if I understand correctly—my noble friend was quoting to be unacceptable, is a rather high response rate in most surveys of this kind. It is sometimes possible to do deep dives and find out a bit more about the group that had not responded to see whether they are in any way different in their views or backgrounds. I had not read the critique that he quotes by the ONS and the RSS. It is important that the Minister comes back and tells us whether the Government have looked at those criticisms. If not, why not, and will they in future?

I have a lot of concerns about the TEF and how it should be done. The Government are taking on a very difficult and complex task. I am not sure whether they realise how difficult it is to get reliability and validity in the responses provided. I look forward to hearing what Professor Chris Husbands, who has a lot of expertise on this, will say. I would also like to hear his response to the criticisms and comments of the ONS and RSS.

We cannot entirely take out and ignore what the NSS tells us about students’ experience. There is only a small number of questions about teaching, but there are some. There are many other questions about things that are relevant to the successful completion of their courses, including how they are assessed and examined. I hope we can look at this in a bit more depth and not completely rule out the contribution that a rethought NSS can make to any assessments of how our universities, and departments within them, are teaching, and whether it meets the kind of quality that we expect it to meet.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I shall speak to Amendment 197, which would ensure that the TEF has to be reassessed before it is introduced. We welcome a focus on teaching. It is vital that any student in a higher education establishment gets the highest level of teaching. Given the fees they pay, it is not acceptable for students to be in a lecture of more than 100 students where the lecturer is unable to inspire or inform those students. It is not acceptable to have the practices that go with poor teaching, whether it be poor marking of dissertations and essays, or late return of those pieces of work. Teaching quality has to be at the heart of the university experience for young people.

Our concern is that employment outcomes do not give an insight into teaching excellence, nor does retention. We have had this discussion on previous amendments. I am not totally averse to a student survey—it is about the questions that it asks. If it asked questions that challenged the student to think properly about their teaching experience, about how they were challenged and how the subject was put across to them, rather than easy tick-box answers, that would be a proper student survey. The student survey would have to be a very small part of the metrics.

As I said, Amendment 197 would ensure that the TEF has to be reassessed before it is introduced. It follows an amendment tabled by Paul Blomfield in the Commons on Report. He stated:

“Amendment 50 reflects concern over the reliability of the metrics used to measure teaching excellence”.


He emphasised many times in Committee, that,

“we all welcome the Government’s focus on teaching excellence, and we can all work effectively together on the principle of the teaching excellence framework. However, the metrics on employment outcomes, on retention and on the national student satisfaction survey have been identified by the Government themselves as a proxy for teaching excellence.

The amendment simply seeks to add to the Bill a requirement that the metrics used by the Government to determine teaching quality should have a demonstrable link to teaching excellence. This was the unanimous recommendation of the then Business, Innovation and Skills Committee … We all agree that employment outcomes do not necessarily demonstrate teaching excellence. There are also enormous regional variations in employment outcomes and salary levels. The Minister will know that someone who comes from the right family and goes to the right school and university could have an awful teaching experience but still get a decent job. The converse is also true. People who do not come from the right family and who do not go to what many see as the right university could have an excellent teaching experience but not command such high salary levels. So employment outcomes are a crude and almost perverse proxy measure of teaching excellence. I would therefore welcome the Minister’s observations on why this simple amendment to introduce a demonstrable link between the metrics and teaching excellence would not strengthen the Bill and will not be accepted by the Government”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/11/16; cols. 626-27.]

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 23rd January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, in moving these government amendments, I look forward to potentially hearing contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Stevenson, about the amendments that they have proposed in this group. However, I believe the amendments we have tabled will have a similar effect to that which their amendments seek to achieve. The Bill is not as clear as it could be on exactly what types of providers can apply for what type of degree-awarding powers, and what awards this then entitles them to make. I believe this is why noble Lords tabled Amendments 242 and 243.

The simplest way of dealing with the issues at play here is for me to explain the purpose of the government amendments. We listened carefully to the discussions in the other place and, as the Minister for Universities and Science promised, we have reflected on and re-examined how Clause 40 may have been read as impacting on the further education sector. Although there are over 30 government amendments in this group, most of them are consequential and there are really just two main areas that we seek to address. First, we want to remove any doubt that institutions within the further education sector can continue to apply for powers to award foundation, taught and research degrees. We believe that the amendment to Clause 40(1)—whereby what was subsection (1)(b) has been removed—will achieve this. Under that amendment, the definition in Clause 40(3) of a “taught award” clarifies that this may include a foundation degree. Removing what was Clause 40(1)(b) should help to remove any impression that providers in the further education sector that obtained powers under this route could not go on to obtain powers also to award higher-level degrees. As before, a further education provider must also be a registered higher education provider before it can apply for authorisation to grant awards under Clause 40.

Secondly, these amendments should remove any doubt over which providers can award foundation degrees. While we wish to retain the current position where only higher education providers that are also further education providers may apply for powers to solely award foundation degrees, it should nevertheless continue to be the case that institutions that can award taught degrees should also be able to award foundation degrees. It remains the Government’s policy that a provider that wishes to be authorised to award foundation degrees only should be required to provide a satisfactory progression statement. We believe it is important that the provider in question can demonstrate that it has in place clear progression routes for learners wishing to proceed to a course of higher-level study on completion of the foundation degree. The amendment to Clause 43 is therefore to ensure that, were a variation of a provider’s powers to result in it being left with the powers to award only a foundation degree, that provider would need to be able to satisfy the Bill’s requirements in respect of a progression statement. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his comments. I am speaking to Amendment 243 in this group. We welcome the government amendments. I agree very much that there needs to be clarity. There is a need to ensure that certain procedures within the Bill are applied fairly and proportionately and accommodate smaller providers of higher education such as further education colleges. It is also the case that the recently published BEIS post-16 skills plan includes proposals for colleges to make their own technical education awards, and it is important that there is joined-up thinking in this area. Unlike universities, colleges that offer foundation degrees are currently unable to provide both a foundation degree and a certificate of higher education to provide a flexible level 4 qualification option for students. The amendment would remedy this.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing his raft of amendments. He is right that on the area we are talking about we meet in the middle. I am glad that his amendments, which outnumber ours by about 100 to one, were tabled, because what we had tabled would certainly not have been sufficient to achieve what he has outlined.

It is good that this is being done in pursuit of a vision of higher education provision that is inclusive rather than exclusive and which is open to many institutions to offer the various types of degrees and qualifications that they think is appropriate, with the aim, as picked up today in earlier amendments, that other modes of study, such as full-time and block release, are not excluded in any tally. With that will come the responsibility to ensure an effective credit accumulation system that allows those who have credits banked in the various styles and approaches that different institutions have to cash them in, as it were, against other higher education provision, to ensure that they arrive at a satisfactory conclusion with the degree that they have been studying for through this flexible route.

I have three worries that I wonder if the Minister could respond to in the short time available before we must break for the dinner business. Maybe this will mean that yet another letter will emerge from this process, and I have no objection to that. The first is that we have heard announcements today about various different types of institution that will focus on technology and technological achievement. These are to be welcomed, but it is not clear that provision has been made for that in the Bill. The Minister may not have been able to adapt the thinking announced today into the mode that would apply to the Bill, but I would be grateful if he could confirm whether or not it is the Government’s intention to try to bring forward anything that might be a consequence of the proposals made today. I agree that we are in a three-month consultation period but the Bill will last a lot longer, and there may not be another higher education or even further education Bill along in the next year or two. It would be a pity to miss the bus, as it were, on this occasion, so some clarification at least about the thinking would be helpful. We would certainly wish to work with the Minister if there were some suggestions about changing the framework here, although maybe he will be able to confirm that that is not the case.

Secondly, the question about who has what powers to do what is confusing. I want to assert what I think is the intention behind this term, and if the Minister is able to confirm it then so much the better. I also have a question embedded in this, which is where I will end. The intention of these amendments, as it was in our proposals as discussed in Amendments 242 and 256A, is twofold. First, it is to remove any doubt that institutions in the FE sector can apply the powers to grant taught and research degrees in addition to foundation degrees, as in the current system. Secondly, it is also to remove any doubt that institutions that are not in the FE sector, and which have been granted degree-awarding powers, can also award foundation degrees—in other words, institutions can provide the whole suite of qualifications.

However, it also seems to be the case that the Government are trying to say that only an institution in the FE sector can apply for the powers to award just foundation degrees, which seems perverse. If the Government accept my opening premise that we are trying to open up the system to make it more flexible, why is it only in the FE sector that you can find these foundation degrees? Is there something special about them that restricts Oxford University, Edinburgh or anyone else with the ambition and the wish to try to make as seamless a proposal for students wishing to enter university as possible to be prohibited from offering a foundation degree because they are not in the FE sector? That seems odd and slightly against what the Minister was saying as he introduced the amendment.

There seems to be a proposition buried in the amendments: that we are opening up everyone to offer the sort of courses that allow any student—full-time, part-time or mature, of any persuasion, type or arrangement—who wishes to come forward for degrees to be able to do so in the way that has the fewest institutional barriers. This particular restriction, that only FE providers can offer foundation degrees if that is all they want to offer, seems to go against that. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Lucy Crehan, a former teacher and an academic, recently published a book, Cleverlands, which looks at the best-performing schools in the world. She visited Finland, and what she found there was a complete contrast. When teachers were struggling, they would receive support. When they continued to struggle, they would receive more support. In contrast, in this country and the United States, when a teacher or a school is struggling, we attack them and punish them. That is going a bit overboard—there is good work in getting schools to support other schools. Predominantly, however, there is a far more punitive approach here. I would hate to see that coming into the higher education system. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, of course we need as much information as possible about universities so that parents and young people can make the right decisions about which university they choose. I am delighted that we are now focusing on the quality of teaching. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, was right to say that it must be about high quality. That means high quality throughout the university sector, in teaching, provision, and simple things, such as the ability to make sure that essays and dissertations are properly marked, and to make sure that there is high quality with regard to the size of tutorial and lecture groups. A whole host of issues will ensure high quality.

We sometimes forget that choosing a university is a huge decision for a young person and their parents. They do not pick one at random but do the research, looking very carefully. Again, not only do they choose carefully but they visit those universities. I know from my own experience that students and their parents will have put two or three universities down and will have one in mind as where they want to go to, because of the course they want to do. However, noble Lords will be surprised at how often they get there and do not like it. They do not get a sense of there being the right ethos about the place or they do not like the staff they meet. One of my friends, who is doing creative writing, had two universities at the top of her list. She went to visit them and they gave her sample lectures. Guess what—she went to the third one, because she found that the response and the quality of the lectures were not good enough for her. Let us not kid ourselves: when parents and students come to choose the university they will go to, they are already in the driving seat.

I have grave reservations about the notion of getting this matrix together, putting in things such as employability, and then, suddenly, there is a mark. Currently it is proposed that it be gold, silver or bronze. As I said at Second Reading, I cannot see many universities boasting that they have a bronze award—they will not do that. But you can bet your bottom dollar that those rated as gold will display that for everybody to see. That will be damaging to the university sector as a whole and, as we have heard many noble Lords say, it will be damaging for students coming to our universities from overseas. We therefore have to tread very carefully. The Minister told us on Monday that he was very much in listening mode. Speaker after speaker, right across the House, has raised considerable concerns about this issue. If the Minister is in listening mode, I am sure that he will want to ensure that when we come to Report he will take our points on board.

I do not have any interests to declare regarding universities but I have interests in mainstream education. We have been down this road of labelling schools. In my wildest imagination I never thought that we would see a maintained school system in which schools advertise their success on the backs of buses and on banners hung outside their schools. Parents are caught in this trap, wondering, “Do I send my child to an outstanding school or a good school?”. Of course, if a school needs improvement, while it is improving it has the problem of parents saying, “I’m not sending them to that school”. We have been there before in higher education. We can remember the days of universities and polytechnics. Polytechnics—higher education providers—were regarded as the poor relation. People would say, “I’m not sure I want my son or daughter to go to a polytechnic”, although in many cases the provision was as good and, in some areas, better than at universities. Thank goodness we decided to ensure that higher education institutions as a whole were labelled universities.

I hope that the Minister gets the message and that we provide as much information as possible and look at the quality of teaching. A noble Lord said that of course in the mainstream sector, your teaching is observed, and if you are not up to the mark, you will not teach. If we want to improve the quality of teaching in universities, maybe there has to be some sort of requirement to teach students. Teaching is not just about knowledge but also about how you relate to young people. The most knowledgeable and gifted professor may be unable to relate to a young person, and therefore cannot teach the subject. I therefore welcome the notion of improving teaching.

I know that it will be a small part of the matrix, but I have reservations about the concept of a student survey, or students marking teaching. Students should give their views; that is good and right. But students will rate highly teachers, lecturers and professors who give it to them on a plate: “Here is what you need to know—take it away”. Lecturers who are challenging, who want to push the students and make them think for themselves, are quite often marked down. I therefore have reservations about how we develop this idea of student feedback. That is not to say that student voices should not be heard, but that they should be a very small part of the whole. I hope the Minister will take that on board as well.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I have today sent a letter setting out some further detail following Monday’s debates, and attached a briefing note on the teaching excellence framework which I hope noble Lords have found helpful.

I am grateful for the thoughtful comments made in this prolonged debate on the teaching excellence framework, which is in the manifesto commitment. These comments go to the heart of what we are trying to achieve in incentivising high-quality teaching. I am pleased that there is no disagreement on the importance of high-quality teaching, and the importance of incentivising this. Many Peers have acknowledged this, and Governments from all sides have wanted it for many years. This is an important element of these reforms and this has been a key debate, so I hope that noble Lords will forgive me and that the House will bear with me if I speak at a reasonable length on the points raised.

A number of Peers raised a point on whether the TEF should be tested more and, in effect, go more slowly. This was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and other noble Lords. In effect, the question related to a pilot scheme. I reassure noble Lords that the TEF has been, and will continue to be, developed iteratively. We have consulted more than once, and year 2, which we are currently in, is a trial year. Working groups, including those in the sector, are under way on the subject-level TEF. That was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and I will say a little more about that later. Therefore, the sector has recognised this trialling aspect, and Maddalaine Ansell, the chief executive of University Alliance, has said:

“We remain confident that we can work with government to shape the TEF so it works well as it develops”.


The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, commented on the detailed metrics. She also spoke about iterating and reviewing the metrics, and made some constructive comments. The TEF metrics will continue to evolve. I stress again that, where there is a good case to do so, we will add new metrics to future rounds. I have no doubt that I will also be saying a bit more about this later.

I want to respond quickly to the amendments on the TEF and immigration. This picks up a theme raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, my noble friend Lord Jopling and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. Following our useful debate last week, and as I set out in my subsequent letter, I confirm again that we have no plans to cap the number of genuine students who can come to the UK to study, nor to limit an institution’s ability to recruit genuine international students based on its TEF rating or any other basis. This applies to all institutions, not just to members of the Russell group.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the issue of international students, and I move on to the proposal to publish the number of international students. The TEF will be a world-leading assessment of the quality of teaching and student outcomes achieved by higher education providers. Students should have a better idea of what to expect from their studies here—better than anywhere else in the world. However, a dataset that simply links the TEF to international student numbers fails to recognise the much broader international student recruitment market place. I should add that all the relevant information requested by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, is in the public domain.

Moving on, I remind the Committee that the ability to raise fees according to inflation is not new. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, it has been provided for since 2004. Indeed, as I think he said, the process was established under the then Labour Government and was routinely applied from 2007 to 2012. I reassure noble Lords that, as the Government set out in the White Paper, our expectation is that the value of fee limits accessible to those participating in the TEF will, at most, be in line with inflation.

As the Liberal Democrats will recall, the coalition Government used the legislation that had been put in place in 2004 by the Labour Government to increase tuition fees above inflation in 2012. We have no such plans to increase the value of fee limits above inflation. Increasing the upper or lower limits by more than inflation would, under the Bill as currently drafted, require regulations subject to the affirmative procedure, which requires the approval of Parliament. In the case of the higher amount, it would also require a special resolution. That is in line with the current legislative approach to raising fee caps.

I now turn to the link between the TEF and fees. Schedule 2 builds on well-established procedures in setting fee caps. Under the schedule, different fee limits will apply depending on whether a provider has an access and participation plan, and what TEF rating they have been awarded. Crucially therefore, this schedule will, for the very first time, link fees to the quality of teaching and thus increase value for students. This will recognise and reward excellence, and will drive up quality in the system. It will mean that only providers who demonstrate high-quality teaching will be able to access tuition fees up to an inflation-linked maximum fee.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, said that since the increase in fees in 2012 there has been no increase in teaching quality. Therefore, this Government are, for the first time, putting in place real incentives, both reputational and financial, to drive up teaching quality. My noble friend Lord Willetts picked up on this theme. We believe that this is the right way forward. I have already mentioned the iterative aspect of this process.

The principle of linking funding to quality is familiar from the research excellence framework, which was introduced in the mid-1980s, and it has been an effective incentive. The REF has driven up the quality of our research, ensuring that we continue to be world leaders in global science. Tuition fees have been frozen since 2012 at £9,000 per year. This means that the fee has already fallen in value to £8,500 in real terms and, without the changes we propose, it will be worth only £8,000 by the end of this Parliament. Therefore, these changes are important if we want providers to continue to deliver high-quality teaching year after year.

As far back as 2009 the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said:

“We … need to look in my view for ways of incentivising excellence in academic teaching”.


He went on:

“We have to face up to the challenge of paying for excellence”.


I believe that the measures in Schedule 2 finally deliver that. The schedule allows a direct link between fees and the quality of teaching, with differentiated fees for different TEF ratings—a principle supported by the then BIS Select Committee and the wider sector—along with a clear framework of control for Parliament. This will ensure that well-performing providers are rewarded so that they can continue to invest in excellent teaching.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 16th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Storey]

60: Clause 2, page 2, line 8, at end insert—
“( ) In giving guidance under this section, the Secretary of State must have due regard to any advice given to the Secretary of State by the OfS.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who is not well, I shall move this amendment and speak to this group. We wish her a speedy recovery. The Bill proposes to reverse the current legal position that prevents Ministers giving guidance and directions about particular courses of study. We have been told that the power is needed to resolve an existing legal lack of clarity about the Secretary of State’s power to communicate his—in this case—priorities. While the Government’s amendment means that the Secretary of State cannot now guide or direct the Office for Students to prevent the closure of existing courses or the creation of new ones, it will, nevertheless, still allow the Secretary of State to decide, in part, what subjects should be funded.

Although most funding for teaching will come from fees backed by student loans, direct funding from the Office for Students is essential to meet the additional costs of subjects that are expensive to teach; for example, chemistry and engineering, et cetera. The Bill would give the Secretary of State a new power to tell the Office for Students not to fund a particular subject if that subject cost more to teach than the maximum fee that the university was allowed to charge. This goes significantly beyond the current power to give general directions about ministerial priorities, which the Funding Council translates into allocations to universities.

With these proposed amendments, Ministers would still be able to give the Office for Students guidance and direction about their priorities for the funding available but the final decisions on funding for high-cost subjects would be taken by the Office for Students, as they are now by the Funding Council. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group to which I have added my name and those that have come from the Cross Benches—Amendments 69 and 510—on which I think we will be hearing shortly. These amendments come out of the report from the Delegated Powers Committee, which claims that the wide range of functions that are now being conferred on the Office for Students will give it the ability to bring change to the whole of the higher education sector. We consider that the guidance issued by the Secretary of State under Clause 2 will act as a significant control over how the Office for Students exercises its functions. However, we cannot guarantee that Secretaries of State will always be wise and non-interventionist, and I think that these amendments will provide much-needed safeguards in the Bill.

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[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, we have had another good but much shorter debate on this important Bill. Once again it goes to the principle of autonomy, which is the cornerstone of our higher education system. I would like to say at the outset that I am sorry to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, is indisposed. I am sure that all noble Lords will wish her a speedy recovery.

Before I speak about this group of amendments, let me be very clear. I heard the strength of feeling expressed in Committee last week about the need to protect institutional autonomy. I would like to inform noble Lords that, along with the Minister in the other place, I am actively considering what further safeguards may be needed to protect institutional autonomy and academic freedom as the Secretary of State and the OfS carry out their duties under the Bill. No doubt we will return to this issue on Report, so I will keep the rest of my remarks relatively brief.

We certainly want an open dialogue between the Government and the OfS, and the systematic involvement of the OfS in the policy-making process, just as there has been with HEFCE over the past 25 years—something to which my noble friend Lord Willetts alluded. As currently drafted, the Bill does not constrain the OfS from giving open and honest advice and analysis to the Government on matters within its regulatory remit. Let me also reassure noble Lords that the Bill prohibits the Secretary of State from framing guidance, setting terms and conditions of grant or giving directions to the OfS in terms of course content and how courses are supervised or assessed. The powers we have discussed today relate directly to the spending of public money and the accountability of the OfS. The Government have a legitimate role in setting priorities in these areas. That is why we are taking the time to think carefully about how we are going to ensure an appropriate level of oversight while at the same time properly protecting the vital concepts of institutional autonomy and academic freedom.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised the issue of guidance and stated that there was a reversal of the 1992 Act. No reference is made to guidance in that Act, and we are strengthening the protections on ministerial guidance by making reference to institutional autonomy and academic freedom. An express power to issue guidance means that the Government do not automatically need to have recourse to setting the terms and conditions of grant or directions, which are less light-touch, so this is surely a sensible intermediate step.

I will now address the issue of parliamentary oversight, about which we have heard some speeches this afternoon. We have thought carefully about the use of these powers. The general focus of the contributions of my noble friend Lord Norton and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, was that the guidance must be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. But the duty in Clause 2 is to “have regard to” guidance. As my noble friend Lord Norton said, where the OfS has cogent reasons, it can act outside that guidance—so the provision does not impose any obligation other than that the OfS should consider it. Directions under Clause 72 are different: they must be followed. That is why there is parliamentary scrutiny when those are made.

It is absolutely right that the Secretary of State should be ultimately responsible for the guidance that he or she gives the OfS, especially when it relates to directing public money towards government policy priorities. We envisage that the Government will issue regular guidance to the OfS in much the same way as they do to HEFCE. Imposing parliamentary oversight and approval on the giving of the Secretary of State’s guidance to the OfS would create a far less flexible process and would risk inhibiting the ability of the Secretary of State rapidly to issue ad hoc guidance in response to changing events. However, I reassure my noble friend Lord Norton that our approach to guidance will be transparent in a similar way to the guidance given to HEFCE—for example, with a published annual grant letter.

I hope that I have given a flavour of the careful balance that we continue actively to work to achieve here. I have noted the points raised and will actively take them into account ahead of Report. In the meantime, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I think that it was a former Prime Minister who used the phrase, when losing the vote on bombing in Syria, “I get it”. I think that the Minister now gets it. I was pleased to hear him say that autonomy goes to the heart of our higher education, that he heard last week the strength of feeling on this issue and that the Government will actively consider that. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Storey]

70: Clause 2, page 2, line 31, at end insert—
“( ) The OfS may provide the Secretary of State with such information or advice relating to its functions and the provision of higher education in England as it thinks fit.”

[Lord Storey]

The Bill creates separate regulatory and funding bodies for teaching and research and in so doing risks undermining the positive interaction of teaching, research and innovation activity in our universities. The Government have gone some way to address this problem by giving the OfS a new duty to monitor the financial sustainability of the sector and by publishing a note on joint working between the Office for Students and UKRI. However, the Bill could do more to deliver what the higher education White Paper promised: that the OfS would take a holistic view of the sector and institutions. The Office for Students should have the same power to provide advice to Ministers without the specific instruction to do so that is being proposed for UKRI. I beg to move.

[Lord Willetts]

My Lords, briefly, the thought behind the amendment makes a lot of sense. Currently we have had for decades close exchange between Ministers and HEFCE; it goes both ways, and the point I tried to make earlier is that we should not regard all that as equivalent of passing a statutory instrument through Parliament. It is important that Ministers can communicate their concerns to HEFCE and its successor bodies, but it is equally important that the communication goes the other way. I hope that we may hear from Ministers that they believe it will still be possible for these communications to happen, and anything that assures us that that flow of ideas and information in both directions will continue in the new dispensation will, I think, be welcomed by noble Lords on all sides of the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising an interesting point. I am sure it is one on which I and my colleagues will want to reflect.

[Lord Storey]

I am very grateful to the Minister for her full and frank reply. I will reflect carefully on what she has said. If there is nothing in the Bill prohibiting the OfS from giving advice and being involved then we need to explore that a bit further. I will withdraw the amendment currently.

Amendment 70 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the University of Cambridge. Before I entered your Lordships’ House, I had responsibility on Cambridge City Council for democratic services when the individual electoral registration pilots were going through. Before individual electoral registration, the university, or at least the colleges, had an extremely efficient relationship with the city council to register all undergraduate and graduate students. The shift to individual electoral registration has many benefits, but we lost that link. Colleges could no longer simply offer the data to the city council. The amendment would bring back something that worked effectively in the past but do so in line with current legislation. It would enable the Government to ensure that we really could register young people. At the time of the EU Referendum Bill, the Government repeatedly said that everything that linked back to the franchise needed to be dealt with in a representation of the people Act. I ask the Minister to consider whether on this occasion an amendment could be made that ensured that as many young people as possible could be on the electoral register.

[Lord Storey]

I was drawn to an Answer from the Minister to a Question on the effectiveness of the Sheffield pilot project on electoral registration. I think all of us in this Chamber—certainly those Members who have put their names to this important amendment, whom I thank—believe that it is important in our democracy that as many people as possible take part in elections. The best place to start that lifelong commitment to voting is at a young age. Sadly, we see many young people, perhaps as a result of all sorts of factors, not registering to vote and not getting into the habit of voting. Some of us had hoped that the immensely successful Belfast model, where electoral registration officers go into schools, give citizenship lessons and ask people to register to vote there and then, might be adopted in the rest of the UK, but that has not been the case. Government should surely seize every opportunity to ensure that more young people take part in elections and are registered to vote.

As has been said, we saw with the introduction of individual electoral registration a huge slump in the number of people who are registered. The Minister said in his Answer:

“The Government part-funded the University of Sheffield pilot, integrating electoral registration with the process of student enrolment, and has encouraged other providers of Higher and Further Education to implement a similar system”.


The Bill is a wonderful way, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Young, to encourage other higher and further education providers to implement a similar system. He went on:

“An indicative assessment shows this project had successful outcomes. For example, in the 2015/2016 academic year, the university had 76% of eligible students registered to vote compared with figures as low as 13% for similar sized universities. The Government will further evaluate the University of Sheffield pilot to understand—in detail—the impact of the pilot and its critical success factors. We understand a number of institutions have already introduced a similar approach, or are actively considering doing so”.


To be fair to the Minister, he said that there were differences between different higher education providers and the scheme might not be appropriate for all. I do not want to censor what he said. But his Answer contains a way forward. I would have thought that young people going away from home, being in a different environment, saying on day one, “Now is the time to register to vote”, is the way forward. I hope we might include it in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Storey]

76: Clause 5, page 4, line 9, at end insert—
“(1A) Subject to subsection (1B), initial registration conditions of all providers under subsection (1)(a) must include a requirement that every provider—(a) provides all eligible students and staff with a mental health support service, and(b) notifies all students and staff of this service.(1B) Subsection (1A) does not apply to the Open University and other distance learning institutions.”

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, your Lordships’ House has an excellent record on the issue of mental health. In fact it was this House that persuaded the Government, by insisting on it, on parity of NHS treatment of physical and mental illness.

On many issues we are persuaded by our own personal experiences. I remember taking my daughter the couple of hours’ drive to university, five years ago now. A couple of years later she said to me, “You don’t realise the abject horror that was. You put me in the car with all my possessions and dropped me off at this strange place where I knew no one and had to sink or swim”. In her halls she befriended and became close to a girl who was in her first year and whose sister, a year older, was at another university. Very tragically, those girls’ father then died at a relatively young age. Both sisters were completely traumatised. You would be; you are a young girl away from home for the first time, and your father dies. One university was absolutely stunning in the support that it gave that girl. Her sister at the other university did not even get to see her personal tutor; no support was given at all. That is the difference. That is why this amendment says, importantly, that the university “must”—not “may”—provide services for mental health.

It is often said that when it comes to mental health, ignoring the problem—if it is even recognised in the first place—is not the solution. However, neither is dealing with it alone. Nationally, only 13% of the NHS budget is currently committed to mental health services, despite the fact that mental health illness accounts for 28% of the total burden to the NHS. The problem in many universities across the UK is the same: the underfunding of support services does not accurately reflect today’s reality. Many thousands of children and young people when at university are isolated, unhappy and—because of the pressures of the new regime, if you like—perhaps have eating disorders and self-harm. Tragically, of course, some can take their own lives.

There is still huge stigma around mental health, which means that young people are not getting the support they need. The amendment is important not only for those who might develop mental health problems during their time at university but for those who have experienced mental health problems in the past. Young people who need help and support from mental health services can find themselves with no help or support when they most need it. To get any service from adult mental health services, the threshold in terms of severity of illness is higher than for children and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, so many young people are locked out from receiving the service. For some, their illness has to reach a crisis point before they receive the service that they need, with the effect that their entry to the service is more traumatic and costly to the young person, their family and the service than if their needs had been met earlier. Differences between service locations and the style of the two services alienate many young people, who end up slipping off the radar of services. Ensuring that mental health support services are available to students when they need them is really important.

I have one final observation. There is a clear link between poor mental health and student retention. The emphasis on student retention is higher in those institutions that provide proper mental health support than in those that do not. I hope we will realise that, just as we have done in the education service as a whole and in the NHS, providing a service in universities is hugely important. Sometimes we say, “Oh, there’s no money available”, but of course there is money available. I sometimes have a little wry smile on my face when I get to Euston station and see all the billboards advertising different universities. The cost of that runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds. Surely we can find the money for every university to provide mental health support for its young students—not “may”, but “must”.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. In coalition, our Health Minister, Norman Lamb, campaigned staunchly for parity of esteem and funding for mental health in order to bring it up to the same standards as physical health. We are still a long way from achieving that parity.

My noble friend has spoken particularly about students. In the amendment we included care for university staff, many of whom work under intense pressure. The introduction of new assessment measures in the Bill may well increase those pressures on staff, many of whom may be on insecure contracts, with high ambitions, high expectations and long hours. We know that many universities already have a great duty of care to their staff as well as their students, but this measure would see all universities, as places of study and work, fulfil their duty of care to both their staff and their students.

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[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for raising the important issue of mental health support for students. I know that there has been some discussion in the Corridors not far away on this very subject. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord will know how seriously I take this subject.

We have heard today from noble Lords how deeply mental health issues can affect students, staff and families. I particularly listened to the very sobering anecdotal evidence from the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and I am sure that many of us could relate our own experiences that illustrate similar issues.

Mental health is a priority for this Government. Noble Lords will be aware that just last week the Prime Minister announced a package of measures to transform mental health support in our schools, workplaces and communities. The reforms will have a focus on improving mental health support at every stage of a person’s life. This will include a major thematic review of children and adolescent mental health services across the country, led by the Care Quality Commission, which will identify what is working and what is not. A new Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health will set out plans to transform services in schools, and importantly universities, and indeed for families.

As we have discussed at length, higher education institutions are autonomous bodies, independent from the government. Each institution is best placed to identify the needs of their particular student and staff body and to develop appropriate support services. There are many examples of universities providing excellent support for their students and, of course, their staff, which the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, raised, both for mental health and in the context of wider pastoral care. But as we know, there are also too many examples of universities that could certainly do more. The higher education sector itself is working to improve mental health support. Universities UK recently launched a programme called Wellbeing in Higher Education. It will focus on the need for a whole university or institution approach to mental health and well-being.

UUK is working closely with Public Health England, expert voices from student services and charities such as Student Minds. Let me be clear: the Government expect higher education providers to provide appropriate support services for all their students and staff, including those with mental health issues. This is a deeply important issue. The upcoming Green Paper provides the excellent opportunity to look at this issue in greater detail. We believe that we should not pre-empt the issues or any recommendations that may come out of this particular Green Paper.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised the link between mental health and retention. We agree that retention is extremely important for universities and that is why we will take retention metrics into account as part of the TEF. The Director for Fair Access and Participation will be looking beyond just the point of access to the whole student life cycle, which is something that I have spoken about in previous debates in Committee.

Once again, I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions, but ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his thoughtful reply. I am delighted that mental health is a priority for the Government. The Minister said that the Government expect universities to make provision, so as well as “shall” or “must” or “maybe” we now have “expect” on the list. I just want an amendment that makes it happen. At this stage—we will no doubt come back to it—I will withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 76 withdrawn.