Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage
Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, as last week, I have added my name to Amendments 15 and 33 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and I support his Amendment 85. He set out very clearly why those amendments are needed and, on the principle that I do not repeat things just because I have not yet said them, I will not go into detail on that. We have already explained why potential students should be taken into account.

Amendment 33 would add a clause to ensure that the employer representative body is required to be aware of skills in demand nationally which may not be in demand in the local area. If young people or adults are enthusiastic to learn skills which may not be available locally but are in demand elsewhere, it is really important that national demand should be recognised and skills training made available, even if the skills are not, or not yet, required locally. If a young person or adult is desperate to become a farrier or an aeronautical engineer but there is nothing in their locality, they should be enabled to follow their talents and interests. We must have a national picture of skills training and, if need be, there should be help with travel for those who want to pursue their skills out of area.

The amendments make it clear that skills needs and shortages must be seen in a national context, even if that means that those training need to move to find work. Again, let us never forget distance learning, which can be valuable in such times and has no barriers.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, made the valid point that we must do some blue skies thinking about what will be needed in future, and Amendment 85 mentions medium and long-term national skills. Who would have thought two years ago that we would all have needed to become proficient in Teams and Zoom? It is quite a wonderful advance really, but I do not think anyone predicted it, and we must always respond to unpredictable events in future.

My noble friend Lady Sheehan has given our support to Amendment 85 in this group, because a national strategic skills audit would be an invaluable tool to assess how our skills shortages are being addressed, alongside the invaluable task of working towards net-zero future jobs. This need not be an excessively cumbersome or costly exercise, but having a body with an overview of skills is surely effective for jobs and training. I know that the Government are always reluctant to set up new bodies, but this one would have a co-ordinating role which could prove invaluable in generating skills in the right places. I hope that the Minister will see that this group of amendments is well worthy of government support.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we welcome the amendments and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, on reminding us of the bigger picture in skills development. Effectively, these amendments relate to the national skills strategy and seek to ensure that employers, colleges and universities adopt a far-sighted approach by planning to develop the skills and apprenticeships for the jobs of the future and, in doing so, help to shape a more secure and sustainable economy for the country. An employer representative body that did not follow that path should not last for long.

It is crucial that we maximise the power of the economy by delivering on genuine lifelong learning so that people can grasp the opportunity to reskill or upskill when they need it and as often as they need it. Equipping the workforce with new skills for the jobs of the future will help build job security, which in turn will bring sustainability and resilience back to the economy and public services, at the same time helping our high streets to reinvent themselves and, hopefully, begin to thrive again.

From green jobs in manufacturing electric vehicles and offshore wind turbines to fintech, digital media and film, there is a pressing need to grow modern industries to build a long-term economy that provides good-quality and well-paid jobs and is thus fit for the future I am sure that the Minister will be keen to tell noble Lords how the industrial decarbonisation strategy, launched earlier this year, would fit in to this future-proofing approach, which will be enhanced if the Government are willing to accept these modest but, I would say, important amendments. They are complemented by Amendment 85, which would require the Secretary of State to establish a panel to undertake a national strategic skills audit to be updated every three years. The Government's industrial decarbonisation strategy cannot exist in a vacuum. It must interact with the industrial strategy which, noble Lords may remember, was published in 2017, but seems to have been hidden in plain sight ever since, the green jobs task force, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, referred and the broader skills agenda into which the Bill will play.

In fairness to the Government—not something I am characterised by—the industrial strategy was indeed dusted down and updated as recently as January, setting out what are termed “grand challenges”, designed to put the UK at the forefront of the industries of the future and improving the country’s productivity.

That is all good, stirring stuff, and absolutely necessary because, as my noble friend Lord Knight highlighted last week, on our first day in Committee, we currently have a reactive skills system that is too often tortuously slow in responding to new demands, never mind anticipating them. A strategy formulated with an understanding of the need to embrace net-zero future jobs and skills would address that issue and, over time, could open up many more employment markets. I genuinely hope that that is a role that the industrial strategy will adopt, with a national skills strategy a key part of it.

My noble friend Lord Liddle rightly pointed to the lack of evidence that the Department for Education has a long-term vision. If there were one and it were cross-cutting in nature, a national skills strategy could benefit from a comprehensive assessment of our medium and long-term skills needs, with the goal of creating not simply secure employment but, in doing so, achieving the country’s climate change and biodiversity targets. I say to the Minister on these amendments: what is not to like?

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, my role in this group is really to add support to my noble friend Lord Addington, who knows more than I ever will about special educational needs. He and the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, are a formidable team for these amendments. Obviously, these two noble kinsmen disagree on the use of “from time to time”, but that is not as important as the fact that they call for reviews to take place on these matters.

What matters is that colleges should be fully aware of the skills, talents and opportunities, but also the limitations, of those with special educational needs. As I said previously in this debate, FE does lend itself to those with SEN because of the breadth of practical subjects that can be studied. I hope the Minister will appreciate how important it is to have those with SEN on the face of the Bill.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure I am not alone in finding that there are times when I come across something that makes me look at it and look at it again and think, “Well, that’s stating the blindingly obvious.” That was my thought when I read Clause 5(1), which says:

“The governing body of an institution in England within the further education sector must—


(a) from time to time review how well the education or training provided by the institution meets local needs, and


(b) in light of that review, consider what action the institution might take (alone or in conjunction with action taken by one or more other educational institutions) in order to meet those needs better.”


Certainly, any principal or governor of an FE college reading that would have reacted with genuine astonishment, along the lines of: “Wow, that’s a great idea—why didn’t I think of that?” Actually, any principal or governor of an FE college would have reacted with astonishment, probably with language that might politely be described as “unparliamentary”.

I am not going to claim that every one of more than 200 FE colleges in England are faultless in how they go about their business or in the quality of their teaching. They employ around 120,000 full-time equivalent people and have a key role in developing career opportunities, enhancing skills, creating future leaders, transforming lives and serving businesses.

Not satisfied with having dug themselves into a hole in the form of Clause 5, the Government and the DfE then managed to dig even deeper with their attempt at an explanation for this clause in the Bill’s policy summary notes. On page 11, they ask themselves the question: “Why is legislation needed?” They answer their own question:

“Creating a statutory duty will ensure that aligning provision with local needs is a priority for the governing body of the relevant providers, alongside their other statutory duties, and strengthens accountability for this aspect of their performance.”


I have read that two or three times, and it always reads, to me, like gobbledegook.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, once again, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Addington on special educational needs. I am sorry that we seem to have seen off all the Back-Benchers. It gets a bit lonely when you have only the Front-Benchers in these debates, but I hope that some of them will come back for the next group, because we value the contributions from those who are not on the Front Bench.

We on these Benches have long campaigned to ensure that initial teacher training encompasses awareness of special educational needs, and it is important that those training for further education should be fully aware. As my noble friend said, in some respects, it is more important for FE, because those with special educational needs may well be drawn to the provision within FE, which tends to be more practical and less academic. So the amendment is a no-brainer.

We should ensure that all FE students, whatever their educational needs, have every opportunity to learn skills appropriate to their abilities. Some special educational needs are quite difficult to identify, so teachers need to be trained to spot them.

My noble friend is particularly expert in dyslexia, and I remember, years and years ago, when I was at school, a girl at school was always labelled as thick. She went on to be a very successful businesswoman, having been diagnosed late in life with dyslexia, but her school days were pretty miserable, because she could not do the things that everybody else could and the teachers thought she was just not trying. We had a pretty untrained set of teachers, obviously.

This is a very important amendment, and I hope that the Minister will see that it deserves serious consideration.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to signify our support for Amendment 62 and commend the passion with which the noble Lord, Lord Addington, spoke, as he unfailingly does on matters relating to those with special educational needs.

The Government must surely accept this amendment because page 30 in the Bill’s policy summary notes, under the heading, “What is the Government doing to support the teaching of SEND in FE?”, states:

“The government is also funding an in-service training grants programme to support those training in-service to teach maths, English and SEND. In Academic Year 20/21, 24% of bursaries and 73% of grants were awarded were for teaching SEND.”


Therefore, to add the requirement that SEND awareness training is included is an entirely logical follow-on to that. However, I await with interest the ingenious, perhaps even tortuous, argument that the Minister’s officials have crafted for her to tell us that it is not really necessary. That really would be unfortunate. I say, in a relatively gentle way, that the Government need to understand that accepting that something they have drafted could possibly be improved or even complemented is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength.

My main concern regarding Clause 16 is its intention. It seems to fit the pattern of the excessively hands-on and controlling position that the Government are adopting in many aspects of education. It is already happening with regard to initial training for schoolteachers. The policy summary notes address this question, again on page 30, under the heading, “How do these proposed changes align with the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) market review for school teachers?” It answers its own question:

“The government is not seeking to replicate the reforms taking place in the schools ITT system ... However, officials within the Department for Education are working together to ensure a coherent relationship between our reforms in the two sectors”—


hence my fears and those of many others in the teaching profession at school and college level.

The Government may protest that there is no connection between the two but, as politicians, we naturally do not believe in coincidence. Perhaps the Minister can explain just what is meant by

“a coherent relationship between our reforms in the two sectors”

because there is uproar in the teaching profession and among those who provide teacher education at the Government’s highly controversial and potentially damaging proposals for the review of initial schoolteacher training which are currently out for consultation.

On the FE ITT system, the policy summary notes say:

“The government believes that the FE ITT system could be much better than it is”.


Can the Minister enlighten noble Lords about the evidence for that? There is no clamour in the sector for such a change. I have to say that, again, that Clause 16 smacks of an increasingly voracious government appetite for centralisation and control, with Great Smith Street the control centre. If the Minister believes she can gainsay that impression, I am sure I would not be alone among noble Lords in being very interested to hear it.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I shall aim to be brief, which may be welcome at this stage of the evening. I have added my name to Amendment 31, of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, which leaves out “reasonably”—why not just have “representative”, which is a term that is vague enough not to need qualification? Legislation should be clear. This “reasonably” puts doubts into the worth of the employer representative body. However, I am slightly concerned to see that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has inserted “reasonably” in Amendment 17, which seems to be slightly contradictory.

This group has thrown up many other issues. There are concerns about the creeping potential for the Secretary of State to make overall interventions in matters that were set up to operate with some independence from government—Amendment 36 addresses this. There is obviously a tension between local and national, and we have seen this in a number of recent Bills, where the Government are intent on taking powers that would be much better used by those closer to the issues.

After his impassioned tirade, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has obviously exhausted himself and left, but there are many amendments in this group to do with the importance of local authorities and mayoral combined authorities. They must not be constantly subjected to national government oversight. Further education providers are also expert in these fields and must not be overlooked. As my noble friend Lord Storey set out, much is expected of our further education colleges, but they are overlooked far too often. They are well used to collaborating with other local bodies, and their knowledge and contacts must not be ignored. They are also very good at teamwork.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, also makes clear the importance of SMEs, the self-employed and public and voluntary sector employers—so consultation must be as wide-ranging as possible, with national government taking a back seat, if it takes a seat at all. Colleges should have the power to challenge the local skills improvement plans where, from their local experience, they can see that all is not well.

I support the misgivings of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, about employers. I remember well that, when we were developing national vocational qualifications—which were employer led—at City & Guilds, it was incredibly difficult to get the employers to decide which skills they actually wanted. In the end, it was left to the colleges and the awarding bodies, which barely get a mention in the Bill, to get these employer-led qualifications into action. This is a great lack—the Government ignore the colleges and awarding bodies when they are discussing anything to do with skills, but they are the people who really make it happen.

These amendments call for monitoring and reporting. The crucial element is to give authority to those who are closer to the issues and have the expertise to make judgments. The Government must learn to take a back seat where they do not know best. My noble friend Lord Storey mentioned the effect on Liverpool when it was allowed to thrive when local people took control.

In Amendment 28, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentions plans about “trailblazer areas”. I do not think we know very much about these—perhaps the Minister can enlighten us about them. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, spoke about the LEPs and their work, which has once again been overlooked.

So I trust that the Minister will see that it is in the local and national interest for national government not to intervene at every step and to learn from people who do know what is going on. I hope that she will be able to accept some, if not all, of the amendments in this group.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, despite several noble Lords listed to speak falling by the wayside, I commend those noble Lords who have stuck it out for their contributions to the debate on this group, and I appreciate their support for the amendments standing in my name.

As many noble Lords have already said today, this is a pretty thin Bill. In her response to group 1, the Minister called it a “framework”, and one might say that that is actually generous. However, the cornerstone is the development of local skills improvement plans, with the role of employer representative bodies being crucial in that process. The manner in which the Bill proposes that ERBs—I will use that shortened terminology—should be designated is flawed, to the extent that it would, we believe, make the Bill unworkable.

There needs to be a much more clearly defined and significant role for local and mayoral combined authorities, as well as colleges and other training providers. The skills needed in Greater Manchester will be significantly different from the skills needed in Cornwall or Cumbria. There has to be an appreciation of differing labour markets, and the way they have developed and are likely to develop. Surely that is best understood at local and regional levels. It is impossible to prescribe the skills needs for the whole of England from an office in the DfE HQ in Great Smith Street, yet that is what the centralising measures in the Bill propose. In relation to the skills agenda, as my colleague in another place, the shadow apprenticeships Minister, Toby Perkins MP, memorably said,

“I have never heard anybody suggest that a more hands-on role for Gavin Williamson was needed”.


That centralisation is very much part of a pattern that we have seen from this Government. They seem to be rowing back significantly on English devolution, and last week the Welsh First Minister’s frustration was plain to see as he accused the Prime Minister of what he called “aggressively ignoring” Wales’s Parliament.

In this Bill, local authorities, including mayoral combined authorities, are to be marginalised, ignoring the fact that they have been democratically elected. Although we fully support the principle of employers playing a more active role in driving certain aspects of the skills system, as well as a more specialised role for FE colleges in delivering higher-level technical skills, that must take place within the context of a holistic and objective overview of the whole education, skills and employment support system, to guard against introducing further complexity. That is what our Amendment 13 seeks to achieve.

We believe that the best way to bring that about is to have a formal role for mayoral combined authorities, where they exist, and other local authorities, in the development of LSIPs, reflecting their unique understanding of their communities and, as I said earlier, their job markets. As my noble friend Lord Bradley said, there is currently no provision or requirement within the Bill for the Secretary of State or the designated ERB to engage with mayoral combined authorities or local authorities—or, indeed, with any other stakeholder —in relation to the designation of an appropriate ERB to lead this activity. The same applies to the boundaries of the LSIPs.

On the subject of mayoral combined authorities, my noble friend Lord Adonis, in a bravura performance earlier, said that the reason he had been given for excluding MCAs was that they were not employers. That might come as news to Sadiq Khan, Tracy Brabin, Andy Burnham, Andy Street and others, who must be superhuman if they do all that work on their own. They have considerable staffs at their disposal: MCAs are indeed employers. I do not have the figures to hand, but I suspect that all of them have several hundred employees. That would be like a small or medium-sized enterprise—and those, as I shall say in a few moments, should very much be part of the consideration when putting together the employer representative bodies.

We agree with the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and of my noble friend Lord Rooker, saying that ERBs must develop local skills improvement plans as joint partners with colleges and have input from the wider community. Our Amendments 14 and 16 emphasise the fact that local skills improvement plans should draw on the views of local authorities and training providers in the area. I have to ask the Minister: why would the Government not want that sort of input, if they want the best possible response to local training and employment needs? Those people should also be involved in the ERB itself. The aim is to ensure that LSIPs are more collaborative, with local further and adult education providers closely aligning with existing strategies. Why not build on the existing skills advisory approach and develop a more inclusive way of providing advice on employers’ needs?

The existing landscape includes, of course, local enterprise partnerships, which do not merit a mention in the Bill. The noble Lords, Lord Inglewood and Lord Curry, both made a strong case for LEPs to have a continued role in the delivery of the skills agenda. I asked the Minister on Second Reading what plans the Government had for LEPs, and perhaps she will enlighten us on that matter on this occasion.

Amendments 28 and 29 seek to ensure that there is appropriate consultation of MCAs and local authorities prior to the publication of the local skills improvement plans, and for those elected bodies to give their consent to the designation of ERBs. Amendment 37 seeks to ensure that, once designated, the ERB ensures effective partnership, working with providers, local authorities and mayoral combined authorities to support integration of the skills and employment system in each locality. Again, why would the Government have a problem with these sensible improvements to the operation of employer representative bodies?

As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, it is about teamwork. That said, I trust that he will forgive me for being somewhat less enthusiastic about his analogy with the England football team, although, for the record, I do wish them well tomorrow. Our Amendments 31 and 32 seek to gain an understanding of the Government’s intentions in Clause 2. The role of employer representative bodies will be important in shaping local systems, and there is a risk that some ERBs might represent a narrow group of employer voices, focus too much on current skills needs, or be unwilling to take advice from other sources. It is important to ensure that they represent the full breadth of employer voices, focus on future demand and, of course, have appropriate governance.

My noble friend Lady Morris said that she is not sure that the Bill has the power structure right, or the right lead provider; I very much agree with her. Another question is: what will be the role of the chambers of commerce? They are not necessarily representative bodies and vary greatly from one part of the country to another. It is an open secret that they are distinctly cool about being directly involved in the formation of the LSIPs and I understand that this is even the case for some of the largest ones, such as Greater Manchester.

Most employers and employers’ organisations do not really want to run the system; they just want a system that works. They have no more interest in running further education than in running a school or a university. They want to concentrate on their core businesses and do not have a great deal of time to spare in developing local structures or devising plans beyond their own personal needs. As my noble friend Lady Morris said, employers are primarily focused on the now. That is generally understandable, but it is important that ERBs really are representative of the area for which they will have responsibility, so I look forward to hearing from the Minister why the Government have no greater ambition than to make a reasonable attempt at making them representative.

As the eagle-eyed noble Baroness, Lady Garden, pointed out, our Amendment 17—which is not being discussed today—also inserts the word “reasonable”. In my defence, I can say only that that refers to relevant providers, whereas the point I am making here applies to the employer representative bodies. It is surely not too much to expect that the ERBs include a wider range of local employer interests, including small and medium-sized enterprises, the self-employed, and public and third-sector employers. This would ensure that a range of employers of different sizes is represented in the ERB, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, seeks in his Amendment 35.

There is also a need to clarify the role and accountabilities of employer representative bodies in developing their LSIPs, including describing the role of the ERBs, their accountabilities and the process for responding to instances where they do not deliver this effectively. Amendment 36 seeks to ensure accountability and oversight of ERBs, about which my noble friend Lord Bradley spoke compellingly, specifically in relation to the Greater Manchester MCA. This includes preparing and publishing a conflict of interest policy, which could be important where major employers such as universities or local authorities are also providers of training, or where employer representative bodies run publicly funded training providers—as some do—which compete with colleges for apprenticeships and other contracts.

The requirement also to have regard to national strategies is important, not least in the run-up to COP 26, because in March the Government published their industrial decarbonisation strategy. What will they have to say to ERBs about, for example, the content of their local skills improvement plans with regard to chapter 6 of the decarbonisation strategy, which is entitled “Accelerating Innovation of Low Carbon Technologies”? That could be one example of a situation where colleges and other providers feel the need to challenge local skills improvement plans and put forward revisions where they feel the plans fall short.

If the aim of the Bill really is to deepen the strategic relationship with, and service to, employers, then delivering this must involve a genuine partnership of colleges and other providers empowered to stimulate and challenge articulated demand rather than acting as passive policy recipients. It is important that they have the means of doing so; if the Minister is unable to support Amendment 36, perhaps she will tell the Committee what recourse will be available to providers in such circumstances.

Education Recovery

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am afraid there is simply no disguising the fact that the resignation of Sir Kevan Collins as Education Recovery Commissioner is a huge blow to the Secretary of State’s hopes of delivering on support for school pupils. I have to say that the Secretary of State’s response to the shadow Secretary of State yesterday was inept. He seems to regard all scrutiny and questioning as opposition, ignoring that all Governments need scrutiny to improve policies and their delivery.

At this time, young people and their families are looking to the Government for urgently needed help; a siege mentality will do very little to meet those needs. The mean-spirited plan outlined in the Statement is the one brought forward after the Prime Minister rejected Sir Kevan Collins’s own proposals to provide pupils with extra time and teaching to catch up on lost education over the next three years. The commissioner used his years of experience to produce plans that were simply cast aside by the Treasury. It is probably stretching things to imagine that the Prime Minister even cast his eye over them. The paltry scheme the Government are willing to fund was described by Sir Kevan as “a half-hearted approach” that

“does not come close to meeting the scale of the challenge”

and

“risks failing hundreds of thousands of pupils.”

It is no wonder he resigned.

Sir Kevan’s proposals were costed at £15 billion over the next three years. Last month, the Education Policy Institute published a full set of proposals for education recovery—a package of £13.5 billion over three years, required to reverse learning loss and support pupil well-being. Last week, Labour published our children’s recovery plan; it was costed in detail and totalled £14.7 billion over the next three years. So, in the past month, there have been three proposals, all within the same ballpark in their costings. Yet the Government reckon they have a monopoly on wisdom and believe that around 10% of that amount will get the job done. I know the Minister will say that some support for the recovery has already been committed and more will follow in the spending review, but the Government are so far short of what the experts—and I am not placing the Labour Party in that category—think is required that they effectively inhabit a different world.

It is not simply academic recovery we should be concerned about. Cases of probable mental health disorders have increased from about one in every nine young people to one in every six because of the pandemic, and we are only now beginning to understand how their well-being has suffered as a result of isolation and anxiety. Yet, there was not a single mention of “well-being” or “children’s mental health” in the Secretary of State’s Statement. Even when asked directly yesterday by the shadow Secretary of State, Kate Green MP, he had nothing to say on those areas, which are vital to children’s recovery.

The Statement does mention the national tutoring programme, and that has failed even to meet the target set by the Secretary of State. He promised that a minimum of 65% of tutoring provision would reach pupil premium children, but the National Audit Office recently found that only 44% of those accessing tutoring could be classified as disadvantaged.

I want to ask the Minister questions that may be familiar to her. They were put to the Secretary of State yesterday by Kate Green, but did not receive answers. I am confident that the Minister can do rather better than her boss. Where is the bold action needed to boost children’s well-being and social development, which parents and teachers say is their top priority and is essential to support learning? Where is the increased expert support to tackle the rise in mental health conditions among young people? Where is the targeted investment for those children who missed most time in class, struggled most to learn at home and were left for months without access to remote learning? Where is the funding needed for the pupil premium to replace the stealth cut to school budgets that the Government imposed when they changed the date of the census recently?

As she left office in February, Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield revealed that she had encountered what she termed “institutional bias against children” in this Government, especially in the Treasury. That was an astonishing claim, yet the parsimony of the education recovery package announced certainly reinforces that view. It is one that the Government will need to work hard—much harder, I suggest, than they have done in the past week—to overcome. In this, their hour of real and urgent need, our young people are being failed by this Government.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with so much of what the noble Lord, Lord Watson, just said. I thank the Minister for the Statement, but I do not think there is much we have not heard before. She often tells us with pride about the £1 million here, the £200 million there, even £14.4 billion—how have I forgotten that, when it is so close to Sir Kevan Collins’s ask? This all begins to add up to real money, but where is the overview, the strategy, the cohesion? I suspect we might have found it in Sir Kevan’s review, had we had the chance to study it before the Government trashed it. I am sure he appreciated being thanked before resigning because of the decimation of his proposals, but then, he consulted real experts and, as I pointed out in my question yesterday, which the Minister wisely ignored, this is not a Government who respect experts, to their shame and to the loss of the rest of us.

I do not suppose that even the Education Secretary’s best friends suggest he is an education expert, so how good it would have been for him and the Government to have taken heed of real education specialists. If the Government genuinely thank Sir Kevan for his efforts, his thoughts and his input, why on earth are they not implementing his well-researched proposals? Of course, tutoring is most welcome. The children who will have lost out most are those from families without the time, technology or education to help them with home lessons and learning. The Minister has told us about the thousands of computers and iPads given to the deserving poor but, for many of them, these will have been useless without tuition. We heard of many families having to share a single piece of kit between numerous students, but without any person to talk them through.

On the tutoring scheme, where are these tutors coming from? Will they be the hard-pressed teachers being asked to do yet more? Or will they perhaps be university students, keen to earn some money while close enough in age but, we hope, superior in wisdom, for the youngsters to feel an affinity? What plans are there to make up all the social parts of school that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to—mixing with others, learning teamwork and how to win, how to lose, how to make friends and how to befriend your enemies? Where are the proposals for the softer skills of school, so vital in life? Where is the careers information and guidance? I could find nothing in the Statement about that.

As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, we know the detrimental impact the pandemic has had on the mental and emotional well-being of children and young people, so will the Government take action to evaluate mental health service provision in schools and allocate enough resources to bolster these services and address shortcomings in provision? Research by the Carers Trust shows there has been a worrying decline in the mental health of young carers during the pandemic. What are the Government planning to do to support the educational and emotional recovery of young carers? We hear that many children return to school having forgotten how to sit in a class for an hour, how to pay attention and even how to hold a knife and fork. How are the Government helping them?

How kind to offer more training for overworked teachers. Most teachers are pretty well trained already, and of course there is always room, if not time, for more training, but would our wonderful teachers, who have gone over and above in lockdown for their pupils, not perhaps appreciate some extra pay as a thank you? I declare an interest as the mother of a primary teacher who is working all the hours God gave to ensure that her little four year-olds continue to learn and, perhaps even more importantly, to enjoy learning. Because school should be fun: learning should be exciting and accessible and the youngest children need to find that that is the case so that they really catch the bug of lifelong learning. If the Government are so intent on investing in teachers, why not pay them more?

So, my verdict on the Government is: “Could do better”. Give us the holistic picture. We can see that vast sums have been spent, but could they not have been spent more cohesively, more helpfully and in a more targeted way? These are the next generations, the young people whose skills, knowledge and enthusiasm will be sorely needed to help us through the aftermath of the pandemic, not to mention Brexit. They will be needed to help revive the economy, take the jobs that are needed, not necessarily the ones they wanted, and to be adaptable. I see little in the Statement to show that the Government appreciate the size and breadth of the job that needs to be done.

Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside and Northumberland Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2019

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for introducing this order, which, as we have heard, provides for a number of adult education functions to be transferred from the Secretary of State to the Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyneside and Northumberland Combined Authority, the name of which, as we heard from my noble friend, has been shortened to the North Tyne Authority, which is much less of a mouthful. It will operate from the 2020-21 academic year onwards. These functions relate to education and training for persons aged 19 or over; to learning aims for such persons and provision of facilities; and to the payment of their tuition fees. The exceptions are in relation to apprenticeship training or a person subject to adult detention. Will the noble Lord clarify why apprenticeships are not included, and who will have responsibility for the education of those in adult detention?

We can all agree with and support the function to encourage education and training for persons aged 19 or over, and the Liberal Democrats supported the creation of this new authority, although we regretted that the four councils south of the Tyne refused to take part. There are powerful combined authorities elsewhere across the north of England that have mayors. They give focus to strategic planning and to the delivery of growth, jobs, higher education and skills standards. The Minister has named those combined authorities.

We support the order and welcome the devolution of functions to local areas, away from central departments. This will allow the combined authority to support the skills that are needed in the local area and ensure that they are appropriate for the local economy. Because, in addition to general skills, many parts of the country have local skills, often craft skills which should be encouraged, particularly where they draw local young people into continuing skills which might otherwise be lost. I do not know exactly what these would be in this area, but I think of such things as papermaking, basket weaving, glass-blowing and watchmaking, all of which have small numbers who keep long-standing crafts alive. At a recent Craft All-Party Parliamentary Group, we had demonstrations of these, along with neon light making. Local crafts for local jobs are an important part of the economy, as well as being important for our heritage.

How much funding will be allocated, and how does this compare with government funding for further education colleges more generally? How will more training and education be encouraged? How will the combined authority be held accountable for the functions that are being devolved? As my noble friend set out so clearly, this is an area with huge transport problems. Given those transport shortages and the long journeys students often have to make, what provision will the Government make to help with transport costs? I welcome the consultation that took place locally on the content of the order, I look forward to the Minister’s reply, and I wish the order well.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for introducing this order. As he said, it is of course similar to orders relating to six other combined authorities which we considered in your Lordships’ House almost exactly a year ago. I do not intend to repeat what I said then—at least, not at the same length. I will repeat, however, that the devolution of powers and funding for adult education that this order introduces are welcome. I very much hope that it enhances the provision of adult education in the north-east.

I thank my noble friend Lord Beecham for his local knowledge and for setting out the region’s funding cuts—sustained over the past decade—and what the new combined authority will face as a result. Much effective adult education provision is delivered locally, in line with the needs of communities. As the accompanying Explanatory Memorandum states, the transfer of those functions will assist in providing local areas with a role in,

“managing and shaping their own economic prosperity”.

Spending on education and adult learning needs to be seen as an investment for the long term. To achieve a sustainable supply of skills with the flexibility needed to meet the ever-evolving needs of business, industry and the public sector, the UK must maximise the potential of its existing workforce. That means that all adults of working age, whatever their background or location, need every opportunity to upskill and/or reskill. Learning and earning will make the biggest and quickest difference for the learners themselves, to their families, and to the communities they live in, as well as to employers and the wider economy itself.

A year ago, I referred to the possible unintended consequences of this transition from centralised to devolved funding. I highlighted the case of the Workers’ Educational Association, a long-established and hugely respected organisation of 116 years’ standing and the UK’s largest voluntary sector provider of adult education. I said then and I repeat now that I need to declare an interest of sorts, as the WEA was my first employer after leaving university. More than 25% of the WEA’s 48,000 students are in the combined authority areas, and many of them are from deprived communities that are furthest from the labour market. The devolution of funding could have the unintended consequence of diminishing this provision rather than enhancing it.

In last year’s debate, the Minister recognised the work being done by the WEA and stated that it,

“has a major role to play in delivering adult education and fostering a culture of lifelong adult learning … It is vital that providers such as the WEA make contact with the MCAs”—

the combined authorities—

“and support them so that the local economy and workforce have the skills and expertise that they need for the future. We have provided some guidance to the MCAs for the transitional years”.—[Official Report, 24/10/18; col. GC 85.]

I regret to say that, one year on, some of the WEA’s fears have been confirmed. The organisation has adapted to the new landscape by securing grants and contracts in most devolved areas, though this has not been without the loss of provision in several areas either because it was unsuccessful in its bids, or the new contracts did not support the same range of provision as the organisation previously delivered. As a national provider delivering locally, it remains in a difficult position, seeking multiple grants and contracts against different criteria, often on a year-by-year basis. It should surely be of benefit to combined authorities to acknowledge the level and impact of existing national provision in their area, not only as regards the WEA, and to seek a degree of continuity and gradual transition. It would help if the Government too acknowledged the role of national providers, thus safeguarding against the unintended consequence of destabilising provision, which is already having an impact on local authorities.

I want to raise a matter relating to the Explanatory Memorandum. Paragraph 12.1, under the heading “Impact”, states that:

“There is no significant impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies”.


It would be helpful—indeed instructive—if the Minister were to explain how such a statement could be included when, in paragraph 10.1, the memorandum states that no consultation was carried out. On what basis was it therefore determined that there was,

“no significant impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies”?

I ask this because the WEA is one of Britain’s biggest charities and a voluntary body. It was not asked what the likely impact would be, although of course it made its representations and concerns known to the DfE in advance of the orders introduced last year. It is clear that the impact of this and the previous orders is certainly “significant” as regards its ability to continue its established delivery of adult education.

The meaning of “significant” is of course subjective. Can the Minister say whether his officials assessed the effect on providers such as the WEA and deemed that effect to be not significant? If so, we should be told what criteria were used and at what level the impact would have been deemed significant. I do not expect him to provide these answers today, but I ask him to write to me setting out explanations. For devolution to be fully effective, support must be offered to the full range of providers—local and national—especially those already working with the most disadvantaged.

As the Open University has reported, the real casualties from the 2012 funding changes in higher education have been part-time students in England, whose numbers have since dropped by around 60%. Those who have been most deterred from study by the trebling of tuition fees are not those aged 18 entering full-time higher education but older, especially disadvantaged students. It is apparent that the biggest reason for the decline is the fees and funding policy in England because the scale of the decline in England, where tuition fees are much higher, is two and a half times greater than in other parts of the UK.

The key question regarding the future delivery of adult education concerns how much funding will transfer and how that will affect the ability of the combined authorities to deliver a full provision. The transitional funding in preparation for the full implementation of this order is not clear. The Minister said there was £6 million available in funding for the six combined authorities that were the subject of orders last year for 2019-20 and 2020-21, funded nationally by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. The combined authority for the north-east opted to begin its transition from academic year 2020-21, so will it also receive transitional funding for two years, including for 2021-22? How much will be made available annually?

The spending review announced £400 million for further education, which was widely welcomed within a sector that had been starved of adequate funding over the previous decade. Yesterday we had the unexpected announcement by the Secretary of State of £120 million for eight new institutes of technology. That was without consultation with the FE sector, which is already performing much of what he seems to envisage, so why reinvent the wheel? Simply fund FE colleges adequately and they will do the job that is necessary. But I am afraid that we now seem to have a rather macho Secretary of State who thinks that the role of Cabinet Minister is not demanding enough, so he has abolished the post of Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills and subsumed that remit within his own. I have never been a Cabinet Minister but I am fairly confident that it is a full-time job. I am equally confident that any previous Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills would contend that that too is a full-time job. To downgrade that post and bury it within the Secretary of State’s own portfolio demeans the importance of the skills agenda and the need to expand it, rather than the opposite. Labour will certainly reinstate the Minister of State post, while ensuring that apprenticeships and skills have the funding and the direction needed to play their part in building the economy that the country needs.

I may have departed somewhat from the order, but my final remarks are directly related to the devolution of adult education functions. The last thing required is mixed messages about how we ensure that we provide for the sustainable supply of flexible skills to which I referred earlier. This order is one part of the jigsaw, which is why we welcome it, but much more needs to be done.

Higher Education (Transparency Condition and Financial Support) (England) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, as ever with such regulations, our task is not to oppose but to seek clarification from the Government over rationale, detail or implementation. I thank my noble friend for her intervention because, although these regulations are to do with students, the point she makes is extremely valid about having diversity elsewhere in universities.

The regulations are largely uncontroversial, but I have some queries. How much resource will it take for universities to supply this information? We note that there is no impact assessment for this. Obviously, the numerical statistics received—of applications received, offers made and accepted, completions and awards made—are fairly straightforward. Gender will probably be straightforward too, although it can be more complex than the male/female of yesteryear, but ethnicity and socioeconomic background might not be straightforward. Will the Government make use of UCAS’s multiple equality measure, which records the multifaceted nature of educational disadvantage? This measure groups the UK’s 18 year-old population into five groups according to their levels of disadvantage. It incorporates sex, ethnicity, the POLAR3 quintile, school type and eligibility for free school meals.

Disadvantaged students will normally be a matter of family income. However, if students are over 18, they are officially adults and, in theory, should have responsibility for their own income rather than be dependent on parents. We can assume, however, that the socioeconomics of this depends on the family rather than on the independent student. There are many families with very limited money but who are very strong on aspiration and work ethic. Young people from these backgrounds may be less disadvantaged than those from backgrounds that a teacher friend of mine once described as, “Three Mercedes, but no books” families: money but no cultural depth nor work ethic. I doubt the statistics will take account of them, although their achievement may be harder won than some of their poorer colleagues.

I note that a review has been ruled out but the OfS will monitor the effectiveness in relation to widening participation. We welcome the advances that the Minister has already mentioned. UCAS has concluded that in universities with the highest entry requirements the entry gap is widest but has narrowed most quickly. It quotes that the most disadvantaged 18 year-olds are 65% more likely to attend an elite university in 2017 than they were in 2011. However, that was starting from a low base rate and, obviously, considerable disparities remain.

We shall be interested to hear in due course how straightforward it is for universities to comply with this data and its impact on widening participation, which I know we all support.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the first of three statutory instruments relating to the Higher Education and Research Act that we will be debating today—ending the term with a flourish in the twilight zone, which I suspect few of our respective colleagues will envy.

Notwithstanding the technical objections of the JCSI, we will not oppose these regulations. It is clearly important that higher education providers receive the necessary funding to enable them to carry out their teaching functions, and Regulation 5 does this. Provided it is delivered efficiently and fairly then we have no other comment to make in respect of this part of the regulations, although I will have more to say on fees in the debate that will follow this one.

Although higher education providers will regard that part of these regulations as being the most relevant, I have no doubt that the transparency provisions of Regulation 4 will have more long-reaching consequences. This is because the information that providers are obliged to provide under these regulations, as set out in detail in the Explanatory Note, will have a significant impact on the choices made by students—not all of whom by any means are 18 year-olds—when they decide which university and what course to apply for. I endorse paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which says that,

“greater transparency is one of the best tools available to drive social mobility”.

We know that many institutions do well in having an inclusive and diverse student population broadly reflective of the population as a whole. Equally, a considerable number do not. The Minister mentioned Oxford and Cambridge universities. A recent survey revealed that several of the most prestigious Oxford colleges each admitted only two black British students as undergraduates in the past three years. Six of Cambridge’s colleges each admitted fewer than 10 black and minority ethnic students between 2010 and 2016. Oxford’s Wadham College is an excellent example, admitting 68% state school students and sitting in the top five college rankings, while making considerable efforts to widen its participation programme with visits to schools. If it can be done at Wadham, I do not see why it cannot be done at other colleges and universities. It is perhaps, a question of priorities. I endorse the view expressed eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, that the need to develop diversity should be extended to management and leadership levels.

The Government regularly declare that widening participation is a key part of their agenda, and the Office for Students states that its aim is to make higher education more representative of wider society. We certainly wish them well with that. However, in nine of the Russel Group’s 24 universities, the proportion of state school students fell over the past year, so it seems that efforts to widen student participation at universities have stalled. It is to be hoped that the transparency provisions of these regulations will help to refocus the recruitment policies of the under-achievers.

There is no doubting the good intentions of both the OfS and the universities, but good intentions are without merit unless they are acted upon. One clear failing concerns the issue of unconscious bias. I repeat a point I made in an earlier debate about the most egregious example of that, which was the admissions process highlighted by UCAS’s own researchers last month when they reported that more than half of all applications flagged for possible fraud were from black applicants, even though these applicants constitute only 9% of the total. That is surely wholly unjustifiable and clearly the result of bias. Whether it is entirely unconscious bias is perhaps a moot point.

As I said, greater transparency in the process is clearly necessary, and we have reason to hope that these regulations can help to provide it. While more free school meals students are going to university than 10 years ago, the increase has not been at the same pace as the number of non-free school meals students going to university. Since 2010, the gap between students from independent schools going to the most selective universities and students from state schools going to those universities has grown substantially. To put it another way, disadvantaged pupils’ progression to university is as far behind that of their more affluent peers as it was seven years ago, which is simply unacceptable.

Of course it is no coincidence that analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that the ending of maintenance grants finds students from low-income families graduating with the highest debt levels, sometimes in excess of £57,000. Labour believes in the reinstatement of maintenance grants because, no matter how much effort universities put into improving their admissions policies and being transparent about the outcomes, much more remains to be done to reduce the barriers that prevent those from underrepresented groups fulfilling their potential. It will be instructive to return to this subject in three years’ time and to assess how effective these regulations have proved to be in widening access to our higher education institutions.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 4th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, from the Liberal Democrat Benches I add our thanks to the Minister, the noble Baronesses, Lady Vere and Lady Buscombe, and the Bill team for their engagement, briefings and meetings in the course of the Bill’s passage.

We were grateful that the Government accepted the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, early on, which promised more movement than we subsequently achieved, but we hope that those amendments agreed by the House will be confirmed by the Commons when the Bill returns to it, particularly that of my noble friend Lord Storey on careers advice in FE colleges. We also welcome the movement on private providers and I thank the Minister for the meeting yesterday on that.

Perhaps as a result of the Bill we might hear more about the EBacc including more creative and technical subjects, to promote practical skills in the school timetable. It is surely in order that skills should be raised as early as possible in the schools programme, to open opportunities at an early stage to young people whose enthusiasms lie that way.

As the Minister is aware, we still have considerable concerns that some of the measures in the Bill will damage the chances for the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to be as effective as it needs to be. Among them is the issue of copyright, which will impede the awarding bodies in giving the wholehearted co-operation they might wish to give. I am grateful that we have a meeting with officials and others to discuss this in greater detail and hope that the Government might find a way forward before the Bill becomes law which does not prevent some of the most expert champions of practical, technical education from playing their full part.

There are other issues, such as single awarding bodies, consortia and certification which we would wish to continue to discuss and monitor. There is a deal of complexity in the model that the Government are proposing, and complexity does not help to promote the skills agenda.

In wishing the institute every success in its ambitious aims, we would also wish to check that it has the framework and the resources to raise the profile and standards of technical work-based achievement. We hope that it will continue to consult and take advice from those who have many years of experience in this sector—employers, awarding bodies, trainers and lecturers—who have ensured brilliant achievements by many people in skills areas. We only have to think of the UK’s successes in world skills competitions, for instance, and of some of our great entrepreneurs and leaders who began their careers through a skills-based route to see that we are not starting from scratch.

However, there is a mounting skills gap. In the interests of the country, the community and the individual learners, we have to hope that this Bill and the institute fulfil the high expectations placed upon them.

Once again, I express the thanks of these Benches for the way in which scrutiny has been conducted.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not written a speech but, if I had, it would have been more or less word for word what the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, has just said. That is probably an embarrassment to her, but there we are.

The Bill is not the heaviest we have dealt with or will deal with, but it has dealt with important matters. We have all recorded our disappointment that so much of it was to do with the insolvency angle, some of which has caused difficulties to further education colleges, bank loans and, potentially, pensions, but they will have to be dealt with down the line.

The fact that the Institute for Apprenticeships was established a few days ago is a welcome sign. I agree with my noble friend Lord Young that it was disappointing that the letter dated 30 March from the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, did not go into enough detail on what we were looking for in our amendment last week on the institute. However, it will develop and will become the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education in a year’s time and we look forward to that.

I will say a word to the Minister which reflects the report to which my noble friend Lord Young referred. The business last week of the House of Commons sub-committee on education is worth reading. I do not agree with all of it but it highlighted the point—which was also raised by these Benches and other noble Lords over the past few weeks—that it is essential that the 3 million target does not allow quantity to trump quality. It is the quality of the apprenticeships that are provided in the years to come that will decide whether or not this is a success. We have to keep banging that drum. I know from what he has said that the Minister believes that as well. We will have to make sure that it happens.

I thank all those involved in the Bill. The Public Bill Office, as ever, has been extremely helpful. The Minister and the noble Baronesses, Lady Vere and Lady Buscombe, have been, if not accommodating in Committee, helpful in the briefings that we have had. The Minister’s officials and the meetings they set up have been useful in giving a better understanding of the Bill, its intentions, and how we might work with it or frame amendments to try and change it. I finish by thanking my colleagues, my noble friends Lord Stevenson and Lord Hunt. The Minister has a vast array and army of officials behind him but we have only one person—Dan Stevens, the legislative and political adviser for our team. He has been a tireless worker on what was his first Bill and I can pay him no greater compliment than to say that you would not know it.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, again, this is an issue that we considered in Committee. Indeed, it was also discussed in another place. But the fact that we continue to seek a greater level of reporting surely makes it clear to the Minister that we do not accept the responses given by him and his honourable friend the Skills Minister, Mr Halfon. We do not resubmit amendments without believing that they would enhance the Bill. I stress that there is no political point-scoring involved in amendments such as this. The Minister will know that when his arguments convince us—as, indeed, from time to time they do—we do not return to matters that have been taken as far as they usefully can be. But we do not believe that to be the case here.

The amendment is largely self-explanatory so I shall not rehearse the arguments that I used previously, but quality of outcomes will be absolutely key to the extent to which the skills gaps in the economy are able to be filled by UK workers trained for these jobs— initially in the decade ahead but also far beyond that point. The duties that would be placed on the institute by Amendment 2 are hardly onerous. The Minister stated in Committee that they are unnecessary as the Enterprise Act 2016 will require the institute to report on its activities annually. Of course that is the case—but not to the level of detail that we seek here.

The institute is about to come into being and will need some time to find its feet. But the Department for Education’s own website states that, according to the Bill, the institute will ensure, inter alia,

“high quality standards and assessment plans, which will lead to high quality apprenticeships”.

The extent to which the institute is successful will depend on assessing the job outcomes of those completing apprenticeships and the earnings that will result from those or from moving on to higher education. The rationale for the amendment is to go further than the basic reporting required by the Enterprise Act and to make public the extent to which both apprentices and employers believe that training and levels of employability are being strengthened and deepened as a result of the new landscape.

Surely the Secretary of State would expect nothing less than an annual report from the institute on the quality of outcomes from completed apprenticeships. So we ask, why not have that in the Bill? It follows, particularly when the Government are in pursuit of their target of 3 million starts by 2020, that Parliament should have the opportunity to receive and debate the report. If the Government want quality rather than quantity to be the driver, as they say they do, they should welcome the maximum amount of transparency in that regard. The fact that the amendment will require the institute to collect information from the department should be a positive and should be welcomed by the Government as a sign that it is meeting expectations. That is what Amendment 2 is designed to achieve.

Amendment 3 also requires reporting by the institute. I hope that the Minister will not again tell noble Lords that it is not necessary. Noble Lords will note that we are not asking the institute to do anything more than request from the department information which the department already holds. The purpose of doing so is to ensure that the institute is achieving success in turning round the situation identified by the Government’s Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, as it was then known, a year ago. It warned that the Government’s drive on apprenticeships was failing to deliver for young people and pointed out that almost all the recent increase in apprenticeship starts related to people over the age of 24, with the number of young people starting apprenticeships showing little change since 2010.

It also noted that, unlike academic courses, youth apprenticeships typically do not represent a step up. Most A-level-age apprentices do GCSE-level apprenticeships and almost all—97%—university-age apprentices do apprenticeships at A-level equivalent or lower. The commission also highlighted that most youth apprenticeships are in sectors such as health and social care, business administration, and hospitality and catering, which are characterised by low pay and, often, poor progression.

The Commission on Social Mobility also welcomed the Government’s efforts to improve the quality as well as the number of apprenticeships but said that there needed to be a real focus on improving the quality of apprenticeships for young people. It called on the Government to increase the number of young people doing higher apprenticeships to 30,000 by 2020 compared to the present 4,200 19 to 24 year-olds. It also called for a UCAS-style apprenticeship gateway that would give young people much better information on what apprenticeships are available—and, crucially, where they might lead.

Some advantages will be identified as a result of the establishment of the institute, but throughout the passage of the Bill here and in another place we have heard many fears expressed that the drive to 3 million apprenticeship starts risks double or even triple-counting some apprentices. There is a need for improved data transparency so that it is clear how many apprenticeships the starts data relate to. That is what the amendment seeks to achieve and why it makes the connection with those in receipt of the pupil premium, so as to be able to monitor the effect that completed apprenticeships have on young people’s lives in comparison with their more advantaged counterparts.

The Government consistently say that they are committed to social mobility. On that basis, I would say to them that they should embrace this opportunity to demonstrate the success of that aim. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 21 in this group, which is in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Storey and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and add my support to Amendments 2 and 3 to which the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has just spoken. Our amendment came out of discussions with the CBI, which has a great deal of interest and expertise in the future of apprenticeships—indeed, its engagement is vital to the success of this scheme. It expressed the concerns of its members that the new institute will need monitoring and overview, particularly in its early days.

The amendment aims to ensure that there is regular reporting back to the Secretary of State on the quality of apprenticeships and technical education, calling for,

“a response … containing any actions to be taken as a result”.

Those “any actions” are particularly important because having action plans in response will surely make the difference. There needs to be ongoing communication. There is a weight of responsibility on the institute and high expectations that it will be a real engine for change and will counter generations of undervaluing practical, work-based skills. We need to ensure that there is transparency and accountability from the Government over the quality of technical and further education, and this amendment would help to ensure that the very welcome focus on the technical and further education sector is not lost after the Bill passes into law. I look forward to a positive response from the Minister.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Lord, Lord Young, has tempted me, because I, too, bear the scars of the diploma, GNVQ and various other misguided projects of different Governments. He is quite right that my Amendment 28, which is in the next group, will be relevant here, too. I urge the Minister to consider just how sizeable this task is. We should not demolish existing vocational qualifications—as we were calling them—because many of them have great reputations and have served people well. If we are to build a new bright tomorrow for such qualifications, we need to use all the tools that we already have, which are serving the country well, and expand them into the next range of T-level qualifications.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Young for moving this amendment, which I am happy to support. In broad terms, we believe that the recommendations of the Sainsbury review should be fully implemented and funded. In the short term, there are three clear funding needs from the skills plan: fair funding for colleges; costs associated with finding and managing work placements, because they involve an individualised service to young people and employers rather than education to a group; and the cost of the transition year. A two-year full-time course would be the standard model under the plan, but with the expectation that some school leavers would need to take an additional transition year. This implies a full-time three-year programme. The current 16-to-18 funding system assumes a full two years and then administers a 17.5% cut in the third year. A sensible step, therefore, would be to maintain the full rate for three years for those students taking the transition year.

In his letter to noble Lords dated 22 February, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, stated that there are currently around 3,500 vocational qualifications. Most professionals in the sector have cited a figure of more than three times that amount, but more important is how the transition to the new regime is managed and funded. The Minister also said in his letter that the reforms would be phased in progressively, with the first routes available for delivery from September 2019. That apart, the transition was not set out and the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Young would enable that to happen. It would be a positive move and we believe that it is incumbent on the Minister to commit to it by accepting this modest amendment.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

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

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is fair to say that the question of international students is, to put it mildly, a somewhat thorny one. I do not want to draw parallels too closely with the higher education sector, but there is no reason why the further education sector should not seek to attract more students, and indeed staff, from overseas. The debates that have taken place on the Higher Education and Research Bill suggest that the Government do not fully appreciate the value to many institutions of the contributions made by students from abroad, and I am not just talking in financial terms. The financial contribution is of course important to the further education sector, but no less so is the general contribution made by the presence of students from other countries. Despite the result of the referendum, we do not—and, I would say, must not ever allow ourselves to—live in a world of our own, unwilling to acknowledge or embrace the benefits that flow from interacting with those from other countries and cultures.

There is not a consistency of view regarding the value of those benefits. The Foreign Secretary is a man with whom, I must say, I rarely see eye to eye, but I was at one with him when he said in a recent speech that overseas students should be excluded from the immigration statistics. That is certainly the position of the Labour Party, and I know that it is shared by many others across your Lordships’ House and much further afield. Of course, Mr Johnson was not espousing government policy and he was overruled by 10 Downing Street, but on this occasion certainly he was right. It is common sense to treat international students as a benefit to, and not a burden on, this country.

Amendment 12 would place the onus on the Secretary of State to encourage international students. She could of course delegate that role, and might usefully do so, to the institute. Some further education colleges already reach out and have a presence in other countries—some more successfully than others, it must be said—so this is an area in which there is surely room for expansion. It should be made widely known, particularly when government Ministers are abroad, that applications to further education colleges by young people or by those who want to teach in FE colleges would be welcomed. Students may use this provision as a means to gain the qualifications needed to enter higher education, or teaching staff may use it to broaden their expertise, but whatever the reason, as we close the doors to the European Union, we should be opening them wide to many other countries. This amendment offers a means of doing so by highlighting what further education providers have to offer internationally, and I hope that the Minister will accept it in that light.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on the importance of signalling to international students and staff that they are welcome. Not only are they welcome, they are invaluable in providing teaching skills that we are unable to provide from UK citizens and in bolstering student places in both quality and quantity.

Through this Bill, we would hope to send out positive messages to those from other countries that we are open for business, that we shall honour any commitments to staff or students and that we shall minimise the immigration conditions for all bona fide students and staff who wish to come to our further education colleges or providers. These measures are particularly important now in respect of EU nationals, who play such a significant part in the success of our further and higher education institutions and who are feeling particularly beleaguered and undervalued at the moment, but they are important too for the much wider international community. I hope that the Minister is able to accept this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, we now move on to the question of certificates, which has been raised already this afternoon. There are quite a few questions to be asked about the institute’s power to issue technical education certificates. This is another significant proposal and was not canvased in the skills plan. The proposal potentially removes any continuing link between the awarding organisation and the qualification that it has produced.

The amendment seeks clarity on the relationship between the issuing of the proposed certificates and the qualification certificates issued by the awarding organisations. Will these technical education qualifications be alongside the awarding organisation certificate? The Minister said that employers would pay for this certificate. Does that mean that the submission for it would come from the employer, the training provider or the awarding body? What assessment has been made of the resources required by the institute to authenticate, print and send out the 3 million apprenticeship certificates to meet the government target? Will the institute require the addresses of all the candidates, or will they be sent to the employer or training provider to distribute?

Government issuing of certificates is not common procedure at qualification level in any other area of the education and training system and would appear to bestow unnecessary cost, duplication and complexity on the Department for Education and/or the institute. Would it not be simpler if the certificate issued by the awarding organisation also carried the logo of the institute or of the Department for Education? The amendment proposes the much simpler solution of adding the backing and status of the institute or DfE to a certificate which has already been validated, processed and issued. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment, and the Labour Benches support the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal. She has a great deal of experience in the field of technical qualifications, so I have little meaningful to add. In earlier debates on the Bill, I have said that I hope to see a situation develop which leads to a small and relatively focused group of technical education qualifications. GCSEs and A-levels are instantly and universally recognised and accepted; I want to see something similar for technical education certificates. The current plethora of qualifications means that too few are understood, far less valued, and that diminishes the hard work that young people put into gaining them. How dispiriting it must be to emerge successfully from the end-point assessment only to find that the qualification gained is not widely recognised or transferrable to other employers.

Allowing the use of the DfE logo and consistent wording would standardise the technical education certificates issued, make it clear that they are overseen by the Department for Education and thus have a value transferrable throughout England. That measure is long overdue.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

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

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

The noble Lord, Lord Baker is, of course, a novice at these procedures; or perhaps, like me, he is still getting his breath back following the words “I accept” from the Minister, which were much welcomed.

This is a probing amendment and, to some extent, a read-across from the Higher Education and Research Bill. It is pretty much self-explanatory, although that does not mean I can resist the temptation to say a few words. Almost three decades have passed since the Education Reform Act 1988 ended the tenure that had long been enjoyed by British academics, but an amendment to that legislation protected in law the freedom of academics to question and test received wisdom and to put forward new ideas and controversial and occasionally unpopular opinions without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or the privileges they may have had at their institution. That right that should apply across the board to all academics, whether in higher or further education. I accept that this is an issue of more concern in higher education, but increasing staff insecurity in further education colleges and other further education providers leads us to believe that the principles that apply in higher education should also apply in further education.

The Minister may well say that academic freedom is already established by common practice, but that is not the view of teaching organisations. This amendment applies to the Secretary of State in issuing guidance and directions, and to the institution in performing its functions, giving them a duty to uphold the principles of academic freedom and institutional autonomy. It is not a draconian measure; it merely states unequivocally that institutions have the right to determine which courses to teach and who they appoint to teach them, and that academic staff have the right to speak freely about how their institution is run, what courses should be pursued and how, and to advance unconventional or perhaps unpopular opinions. Such expressions should not impact on the job security of academic staff, and for that reason we believe they have the right to have such protections clearly set out in the Bill.

Amendment 3 would also incorporate the human rights to freedom of expression, assembly, thought and belief. It is unfortunate that this amendment is necessary but, given the threats felt by universities as a result of the dramatic changes being introduced to the sector by the Higher Education and Research Bill, who is to say that providers in the further education sector will not sooner or later experience a similar feeling of threat? Forewarned is forearmed, which is why this issue must at least be highlighted today.

Freedom of speech is the subject of Amendment 7. It, too, is a provision that ought not to be necessary, but the hard facts are that it is necessary. Recent events, particularly in some educational institutions involving Jewish students or staff, demonstrate that for some people freedom of speech can and does become unlawful speech. My view on this goes back to my days as a student activist, some four decades ago, and is that a demand to no-platform a particular speaker is wrong. I have never believed that you deny someone a platform simply because you disagree with them. Even if you disagree vehemently with what they are saying, my response is that you should take them on by argument, but when that kind of speech enters the world of racism, misogyny, homophobia or threatening behaviour, it contravenes the law, and the law should intervene.

It is unfortunate that these matters have to be aired, but I believe they should be. They are matters of concern in the further education sector as well as the higher education sector. I hope the Minister will take them on board and given them due consideration. I beg to move.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I should say at the start that I am not quite sure why Amendments 6 and 8 have been grouped but, as they say, we are where we are.

Noble Lords may feel it a little odd that, in a Bill very largely concerned with assisting further education colleges that have slipped into insolvency, we find an amendment seeking to address new further education institutions. I am being upbeat here: it is to be hoped that the time will arrive when the Government of the day fund the further education sector adequately and the post-16 skills plan and the 15 occupational routes for apprentices are successful, so that the sector will be seen as attractive to new entrants. That is the situation in higher education and safeguards have had to be built in in anticipation of an influx of more new entrants. It may well be the case that a so-called challenger institution will seek to establish itself in the further education sector and, when that happens, the sector needs to be prepared.

It is no more than reasonable that, before the institute recommends to the Secretary of State that a new further education institution be admitted, that institution should be able to demonstrate that satisfactory validation arrangements have been in place for a minimum of four years. Noble Lords may be aware that the Higher Education and Research Bill suggests that new entrants should be able to be given, albeit temporarily, degree-awarding powers from day one. We strongly believe that that is not appropriate and that there has to be an amount of time in which an institution has shown its ability not just to operate as a business but to provide students with everything that they are entitled to expect when they sign up for courses. That is what is behind the mention of a minimum of four years in the amendment.

The Minister may say that this is unnecessary, but he said at Second Reading that he did not envisage the insolvency procedures being used other than in very rare cases. With 28 out of 45 clauses in the Bill concerned with insolvency, methinks he may have protested too much. None the less, reasonable man that I am, I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that these clauses may well prove necessary from time to time and that we need them. In return, I hope he will be willing to accept that Amendment 6 envisages a situation that may prove equally necessary in the future, and I await his response on that point with interest.

Amendments 13 and 14 are concerned with broadening access to post-school education or training, and Amendment 14 is specifically about equality of opportunity. The Learning and Work Institute gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee in another place in which it said that people with disabilities and learning difficulties and people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds had been under-represented in apprenticeships for many years. The introduction of the institute offers an opportunity to make a real difference by improving access to apprenticeships for traditionally under-represented groups.

The Government already have targets to increase the proportion of BME apprentices by 20%. Perhaps the Minister can say whether the intention is to do the same—not necessarily in terms of the percentage but in setting targets—for people with disabilities and those leaving care. Giving the institute a duty to widen access and participation would be beneficial for all parties. Only 50% of disabled people have a job, compared with eight in 10 able-bodied people. The Government have stated their aim of halving the level of unemployment among people with disabilities, so we believe that this offers an opportunity to use apprenticeships as a step towards narrowing that gap.

When it is fully established, we believe that the institute should consider as a priority what can be done for groups which are under-represented, not only women, those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds or those leaving care but also those who leave school with no qualifications at all. During consideration of this Bill in another place, the Minister for Schools, Mr Robert Halfon, talked about traineeships and the possibility of them forming an introductory route into apprenticeships. Traineeships would be particularly appropriate for the groups of people I have mentioned when it comes to promoting equality of opportunity for access and participation. Traineeships are also appropriate for retraining, particularly as the institute has now been given additional responsibility for technical education. I hope that the Minister will follow that up with his colleagues to consider what might be achieved. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 8 in this group, which covers some of the same ground that we have already addressed. It seems appropriate, in setting up this new institute, to specify what it is supposed to do—its functions and duties. I have rather optimistically put its “additional” functions and duties because, looking through the Bill, it is difficult to see any clarity on what its functions and duties actually are. However, the role it will play in apprenticeship standards is obviously set out clearly in the Bill. I have added certification, although I think there is a later amendment on this aspect, which perhaps we should address at that point because I do not think it is as straightforward as it appears. It is particularly important that the institute should have an overview of where the skills shortages are and be in a position to divert funding and encourage participation to address those shortages.

The second part of the amendment deals with promotion and consultation. As we have discussed on previous amendments, having set up the new institute, surely it is only right that it should have a role in promoting apprenticeships and work-based skills. It would be a pretty poor body if it did not support the qualifications it has been set up to oversee, and we have such a long way to go. We have already discussed careers education, advice and guidance quite comprehensively, but we have heard from school leavers many accounts of the difficulties they face if they want to pursue the apprenticeship route rather than the university one.

There are steps that the Government could take, as we have already heard from the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. One would be to expand the measurements for school league tables to include vocational and practical achievement alongside academic results. Currently, schools get public recognition purely on their academic results, so obviously there is a lot of pressure on them to make sure that youngsters are diverted on to those routes regardless of where their aptitudes lie. They could also encourage schools to celebrate their students who leave to take up apprenticeships with the same enthusiasm they give to their university entrants. One can see on school noticeboards long lists showing how many students have gone on to university, and it would be cheering to read alongside them that a certain number went on to take up apprenticeships. However, schools do not seem to take that on board as something to celebrate. Instead, they keep trying to dissuade bright young people from seeking out apprenticeships, as we discussed when we were considering careers advice.

There was too little consultation with stakeholders before the Bill was drafted. It is difficult to believe that, in a rare further education Bill, they would have chosen that a major part of it—more than 30 clauses—should be devoted to the insolvency and financial difficulties of further education bodies. What a negative view of the sector when there are so many positive aspects of further education that could have been assisted through legislation. Even before the Bill has become law, this is having an impact. We are already hearing that, because of these provisions, banks and other financial organisations are treating colleges with some suspicion. The biggest area of current concern for colleges is the impact on local government pension scheme funds. What was the rationale in casting doubt on colleges, which will be one of the main providers of the qualifications the Government have said they wish to promote? With so many doubts being cast on the viability of the providers, how will that help to generate the 3 million apprenticeships being sought? There appear to be only sticks and no carrots from the Government.

The current situation requires very expensive financial consultants filling in enormous spreadsheets and application forms to the transaction unit—time and resources that could be spent more constructively. It may be better to have an orderly college insolvency regime that colleges hardly ever use than continuing the risk of a disorderly one, but why make it such a large part of the Bill? Which of the stakeholders supported this part of the Bill?

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

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

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, which is self-explanatory. She has set out very clearly the reasons behind it: to ensure that the OfS can place restrictions on the number of new students a particular higher education provider may enrol, if it has reasonable grounds for believing that the provider is in breach of a registration condition.

Given that the Bill aims to improve the student experience, it is particularly important that, if a higher education provider is falling short in the provision it should be offering, the OfS should, as part of its duty, have powers to intervene to prevent cohorts of new students being enrolled. The registration conditions in the Bill are important but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, set out, it is important that the OfS should have a range of sanctions available if a particular provider is not abiding by the registration conditions, and that those sanctions should be proportionate. On the amendment’s second paragraph, it is only right that that there should be regulations setting out the procedures, but only right too that rights of appeal for any such sanction should be added to the clause.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, set out very clearly, her amendment would allow the OfS to place,

“quantitative restrictions on the number of new students that the provider may enrol”,

if it has,

“reasonable grounds for believing that a registered higher education provider is in breach of an ongoing registration condition with respect to the quality of the higher education provided … or to its ability to implement a student protection plan”.

She went into some interesting and rather unfortunate detail about what can happen when colleges or providers get into serious difficulty.

The amendment has echoes of Amendment 142, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, last week, which sought to replace the words,

“it appears to the OfS”,

with,

“the OfS has reasonable grounds for believing”,

relating to the power to impose monetary penalties in Clause 15. Restrictions on new students would be a new power following the provisions of Clause 15. In effect, it is another form of monetary penalty, which we support in principle, although we would be concerned if it were left open-ended. As soon as a breach is shown to have been brought to a conclusion, we believe the restriction should be lifted so as not to harm existing students, who are blameless but could be affected—as the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, graphically explained—to their detriment through the institution either being closed, or having fewer resources.

I read closely the Minister’s response to the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, from our debates on Wednesday. I cannot say that he made a convincing case for rejecting the rather stronger words in that amendment. He basically stated that as the wording in the Bill is used in other legislation—he quoted the apprenticeships Act of 2009—there was therefore no reason to change it. He did not come up with any other reason, despite the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, saying in moving the amendment that “it appears to” was but one of the options available and one of the lower ones at that.

Although the words “it appears to” are used in other pieces of legislation, few use the formulation in the context of a decision to take enforcement action, which is what raises concern with this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, stressed that the aim was to raise the legal threshold before the OfS was entitled to take action. In doing so, he was supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, one of whose cases was quoted. It seems at least odd that the Government feel that their lawyers, who I suggest probably do not have the noble and learned Lord’s expertise and experience, know better on this matter. The same applies to some extent to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. Having had time to reflect, perhaps the Minister will—if not today, before Report—come to the view that it is appropriate to raise the standard required of the OfS in such situations.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Baroness Garden of Frognal

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

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking to the various amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson, including Schedule 2 stand part.

Schedule 2 is about linking the case for a fees increase to the teaching excellence framework. It provides a mechanism for the setting of fee limits, permitting providers to charge fees up to an inflation-linked cap according to their ratings for teaching quality established through the teaching excellence framework, which is referred to—though not, of course, by name—in Clause 25. The Explanatory Notes reveal the name of the TEF, which is supposed to enable the impartial assessment of different aspects of teaching, including student experience and the job prospects of graduates.

We believe it is important to break the proposed connection between measuring teaching quality and the level of fees that can be charged. Increasing fee limits in line with inflation is of course nothing new. It was introduced in Labour’s Higher Education Act 2004 and was routinely applied between 2007 and 2012, until ended by the coalition Government. What is new is linking fee limits to teaching performance, and that is what has alarmed so many people and institutions in the higher education sector.

The framework is described in Clause 25 as a system for providing,

“ratings … to English higher education providers”.

Schedule 2 sets out the meaning of a high-level quality rating, which will be determined by the Secretary of State. Our Amendment 122B seeks to ensure that the high-level rating is established by regulation so that it can be subject to proper scrutiny by Parliament. That rating will be the gold standard, irrespective of whether we have a traffic-light system, and, as such, will be of crucial importance in the future of higher education in England—too important, we would argue, to be left to the Secretary of State alone to decide.

Universities are rightly concerned about the use of proxy metrics, including statistics on graduate earnings, in a framework that is supposed to be about teaching quality. Also of concern is the fact that a gold, silver and bronze rating system is proposed to differentiate the sector based on those metrics. This will undermine the sector’s reputation both within the UK and overseas because universities deemed to be bronze will have been independently quality assured and have met all expectations of a good provider, but that is not how it will appear to those outside, whether in the UK or, indeed, further afield. That is why we have submitted Amendment 195, which seeks to ensure that the scheme has only two ratings: meets expectations and fails to meet expectations. That has the benefit of being simple to operate and, perhaps as important, simple to understand for those considering whether to apply to a particular institution. It also sends a clear message beyond these shores and enables comparisons to be made with providers in other countries without the confusion of a bizarre system of three categories.

Where metrics are used, they have to be much more securely evidence-based than those suggested. Our Amendments 196 and 198 contain proposals that would oblige the OfS to make an assessment of the evidence that any proposed metric for assessing teaching quality is actually correlated to teaching quality and would ensure that, prior to making that assessment, the OfS consult those who know first-hand what is needed to measure teaching quality namely, academic staff and students. Having carried out those requirements in the interests of full transparency, the OfS should publish the assessments. Surely any inconvenience that the Minister may point to in terms of administrative burdens on the OfS would be more than counterbalanced by the benefits accruing in terms of the much more robust nature of the metrics produced.

We also believe it is necessary for the OfS to demonstrate the number of international students applying to and enrolled at higher education providers that have applied for a rating. It is important to protect the number of international students that providers are permitted to recruit; and to ensure transparency on that, the OfS should be obliged to lay a report before Parliament each year. My noble friend Lord Stevenson has added his name to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, on Amendment 200 to emphasise that we believe it is essential that the TEF must not be used as a determinant when providers seek to enrol international students, and I look to the Minister to confirm that, even if he is unable to accept the amendment itself.

Those faced with a wide range of institutions from which to choose when considering their course of study have a right to the fullest possible information on which to base that choice. That is why our Amendment 176 seeks to alter the wording of Clause 25, in much the same way as is proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in his amendment, to ensure that all the relevant information is made easily accessible to staff, students and parents and that the information is made available in a consistent form in order to facilitate meaningful comparisons between providers.

Noble Lords on all sides of the House made clear at Second Reading their opposition to statutory links between teaching quality and the level of fees being charged for that teaching. Since tuition fees were increased from £3,000 to £9,000 in 2012, there is no evidence to suggest that there has been a consequential improvement in teaching quality. Indeed, the National Union of Students has said that there has been no change in student satisfaction with the teaching on their course, while institutions have, in some cases, been shown to spend additional income from the fees rise on increased marketing materials rather than on efforts to improve course quality.

Why do the Government now believe that there is a link between fees and teaching excellence? Indeed, which should come first or be expected to come first? This is a clear example of the Government’s view that the Bill is as much a question of consumerism as it is about education. As I said at Second Reading, we on these Benches reject the concept of students as customers or consumers in higher education. Many universities have said in their response to the Bill that there is no evidence to point to fee increases improving the quality of teaching. The University of Cambridge stated in its written evidence that the link between the TEF and fees is,

“bound to affect student decision-making adversely and in particular it may deter students from low income families from applying to the best universities”.

Another point of concern in relation to the fees link is that in further stages of the TEF, the Government are moving to subject-based assessment. We do not take issue with that, because universities are large institutions within which there are a huge range of subjects and a great diversity of teaching quality, but linking a fee with an institutional assessment cannot do other than mask that range of teaching quality. People studying in a department where the teaching quality is not as good as in others will also pay higher fees. This flawed proposal does not enhance the Government’s objective, and we believe it should be rejected.

What Schedule 2 would do is introduce the provision that only those providers that can demonstrate high-quality provision can maintain their fees in line with inflation. The specious reasoning behind this proposal, based on metrics that are widely seen as an inappropriate method in which to take such decisions, would lead to a skewed outcome because, as we heard at Second Reading, several high-performing institutions would lose out on a high-level rating through no fault of the actual quality of their teaching.

We of course welcome any means of improving teaching quality in higher education, and we do not oppose a mechanism to measure such improvement if a reliable one can be found. But the TEF as proposed is not that mechanism, for reasons that I have touched on already and shall expand on when we come to debate what is currently group 17. Schedule 2 introduces the whole area of the fee limit and fee regime, a link which we believe is without merit. As such, Schedule 2 is not fit for purpose, and that is why we believe it should not stand part of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, which complement those that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has already spoken to. The Government’s current policy is for fees, even for those having achieved the top rate of the TEF, to increase only by inflation. However, paragraph 4(2)(b) of Schedule 2—on page 78, line 3—enables an increase by more than inflation if a resolution to that effect is passed in Parliament. Amendment 125 would remove this provision, thus requiring new primary legislation for any Government wishing to go further.

Amendment 199, which mirrors the amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has already spoken to, is somewhat of a pre-emptive amendment. No matter what your view of the TEF, it is clear that it is an attempt, albeit ham-fisted in our view, to give students more information and more security when choosing a course and to lift the standard of teaching in our university sector across the board. Both of these are noble aims. We agree with the aims, but challenge the methods proposed. We particularly deplore the categorisation of gold, silver and bronze, which seems to us to be extraordinarily damaging.

We do not have faith that the TEF will not be used for ulterior purposes in the future, in particular as part of the Government’s continued, blinkered action towards student immigration. This fear is not unfounded. Nick Timothy, the Prime Minister’s most senior adviser, is one of the biggest advocates of further crack-downs on student immigration. In a piece in the Telegraph in June 2015, he made clear his views that students should be,

“expected to leave the country at the end of their course, while only the very best of them should be allowed to work in the UK”.

In the piece, he states that these students are not, in fact, the best and the brightest and key contributors to our future prosperity, as,

“the number of foreign students at Oxford and Cambridge is a little more than 4,000, while there are about 66,000 at the remaining Russell Group universities”.

This attitude displays a staggering lack of understanding about the diversity and value of our higher education institutions and their graduates.

This amendment would prevent the TEF from being used in determining eligibility for a visa for students on leaving university. It would ensure that such a change would require primary legislation and not be possible through a simple change in Immigration Rules. If the Government were to seek to pursue such an approach, they should rightly have to make their case in Parliament. Can the Minister also clarify that the Government do not agree with the approach Nick Timothy has previously advocated? There are very many of the brightest and best students at universities outside the Russell group, and such discrimination can only be damaging.