Education Bill

Debate between Lord Sutherland of Houndwood and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 4th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I am not rising to the bait of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, other than to add a fact that he may find interesting and so may the Committee. The Scottish Government’s budget presented roughly two weeks ago requires the universities to raise roughly £60 million in fees from students from the rest of the United Kingdom. On my own estimate, two years ago the cost of students from the European Union was £85 million a year. These are frightening figures and they raise a quite separate issue, but this is not the place to do it. I want to speak to the two amendments.

I appreciate the spirit of Amendment 147A: the spirit is openness and reassuring students that the money they pay for their education is actually being used for their education. That is absolutely right; as well as funding universities, that was the whole point of fees introduction. I support the principle, but I think the mechanism and the detail in subsection (2) would frighten the wits out of anyone running a university to provide that degree of information for every student.

I feel more strongly in support of Amendment 146. I simply want to add the fact that this is already in practice in a very select group of cases. The select group is of students who are taking a second degree, having already had the benefit of the first degree. The obvious case is veterinary studies, which was well represented in the university of which we have been speaking. The university found it possible to admit additional full-paying students on non state-funded places. Therefore, it seems the principle has been operating and has been conceded. In which case, there is a way of pushing it forward as in Clause 146.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, these are two slightly different amendments, raising different points, which are slightly oddly grouped together. However, they raise good points and I look forward to hearing what the Minister will say about them. On the first point, following the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, and stepping sideways around the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes—a difficult task I know—architecture is another subject where you would have the benefit of having done a first qualification and then come back in and done further study, for which again these would not count.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

On a point of information, it is not because veterinary studies required an earlier qualification, it is because many students want to take it, whose parents can afford to pay the extra fee. They take it, if they are admitted, whatever their background.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

Which is the point I was about to make. The sheer serendipity of being able to do this does not make it right. Earlier points on other amendments, which were about the need of the whole country to work out how we pay for higher education, and to make sure that those who benefit from it also contribute back, do not get caught by this amendment. However, it may be worth further discussion, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister says.

On Amendment 147A, as has already been said, this is presumably the first of a number of points to be discussed as we get more to the market that the students will be dominating in future places, because in order to do that they will need this sort of information. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that this is a tad more difficult and complex than any standard university secretary would be able to respond to. However, it gets the right message across, which is that there is not very much information available for students to judge what sort of university they are going to. The courses are beyond their experience by their very definition, but as for the way in which they are taught and the amount of student contact, there is already enough circulating to make this an interesting area, which we will track with interest.

There has been a report in the papers today that comments from students that have been surveyed about what they thought about university courses in relation to fee levels of £9,000 were distinctly unflattering. If that is the way this is going, then this sort of amendment may well be something we need to discuss later.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the recently published Higher Education White Paper places students at the very heart of the higher education system. Our goal is a system that offers students better information and opportunity, is more responsive to student choice and helps to improve social mobility. We will ensure funding follows the student, is progressive and fair, and better responds to their situation and choices.

The amendment of my noble friend, Amendment 146, seeks to allow home and EU students to opt out of their eligibility for student support. First, let me make it clear that there is no requirement for students who have already been offered a place in higher education to draw down their entitlement to student support. At the moment, we have to control student numbers overall because we must control the costs to the public purse.

This amendment would mean that students who could afford to pay up front the full cost of their courses would then be at an advantage because they could pay. In effect, it has bypassed our student number controls. On the face of it this may appear attractive, but there would be a strong perception that wealthier students or their families would be able to buy a university place.

The Prime Minister has made the Government’s position absolutely clear on this. University access is about the ability to learn and not the ability to pay. There is no question of people being able to buy their way into university, however attractive that proposal looks. The Government are interested in expanding employer or charity sponsored places outside the quota system and are committed to freeing up the controls on student numbers in general.

In the Higher Education White Paper, we have committed to increasing such opportunities, provided that they do not create a cost liability for Government and that they meet three key principles: there should be fair access for all students applying, regardless of their ability to pay; the places must be genuinely additional; and there must be no reduction in academic standards in recruitment. The Higher Education Funding Council for England is looking at options to incentivise more sponsorship and will include this in its consultation this winter. This is a sensitive issue and we will consider carefully the outcomes of both these consultations before introducing further changes to the system.

On Amendment 147, I absolutely agree with my noble friend Lord Lucas that students need accessible, accurate and reliable information that clearly shows what they expect from their courses, helping them to make informed choices. We are doing a great deal of work in this area. It is our intention that by September 2012 all higher education institutions will publish key information sets for each course on their website. These sets will provide the information that students request the most, together with information about course charges.

The White Paper encourages good practice in institutions to allow students to become more discerning in understanding how their tuition charge is spent. It recommends that institutions provide the sort of material that local councils offer their residents to demonstrate where council tax is being spent. We have therefore asked the Higher Education Public Information Steering Group to consider whether this sort of data should form part of the future wider set of information we ask institutions to provide for prospective students.

I hope that I have reassured noble Lords, but before I conclude I would like to respond to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. He mentioned that students taking their second first degrees would be outside the student number controls and would be able to pay for their courses. He is correct, but the Government, like the previous one, is regulating students’ first degrees. I hope that answers the noble Lord.