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.