Office for Students: Academic Misconduct Allegations

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Acton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they will consider giving the Office for Students power to investigate serious allegations of academic misconduct where a university has declined to commission an independent inquiry.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

In begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare an interest as the director of the Free Speech Union.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, our world-class higher education system is built on the principle of institutional autonomy. As autonomous institutions, universities are responsible for setting and maintaining the academic standards of the qualifications that they award. The Office for Students regulates these standards through its regulatory framework. When providers fall below minimum requirements, it already has the power to investigate and take regulatory action.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

I am grateful for that reply. Does the Minister accept that the Jason Arday case, where serious allegations of academic misconduct were initially dismissed by Cambridge as a “vile smear”, with an investigation launched only after months of damaging public scrutiny, illustrates why the Office for Students needs this power? Will the Government commit to consulting about it?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have already identified that the Office for Students has that power already. The death of Jason Arday is of course a tragedy. I am sure that, for many people, our heartfelt condolences are with his family and friends and everybody who cared about him. Cambridge is rightly establishing an independent investigation. I had the opportunity yesterday, along with the Secretary of State, to talk to the vice-chancellor and senior leaders of Cambridge University about that, and they will be imminently announcing the detail of the terms of reference for that investigation. Importantly, they gave assurances to me and the Secretary of State that it would be independent and rigorous.

Skills, Vocational Training, and Further and Higher Education

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, on arranging this debate. I declare an interest as the author, eight years ago, of a Centre for Policy Studies paper on technical education.

I acknowledge the work of my noble friend Lord Baker, who has done so much to set up vocational and technical schools—most of which have been a great success, but not all of which have been an unqualified success. Of the 58 UTCs that have opened since 2010, 14 have closed. Studio schools, which are also vocational and technical schools for 14 to 19 year-olds, have fared worse; 59 have opened since 2010, and at least 26 have closed. The problem is that some of these schools became dumping grounds for children that neighbouring comprehensives did not want because they were expected to do poorly in their GCSEs.

How can we stop technical and vocational education being seen as inferior to a more academic pathway? The answer is to grant these schools the ability to select according not to ability but to aptitude for the occupations for which they are designed to prepare children. The most successful occupational school in the country that admits under-16s is the BRIT School, a performing arts school in Croydon which admits children according to their abilities in the performing arts. Both Tom Holland and Adele are among its most successful alumni. That model has been replicated by Birmingham Ormiston Academy, and a second BRIT School has been approved to open next year in Bradford, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, said.

Overseas, the most successful technical and vocational schools also select for aptitude, from South Korea’s Meister schools, which place 93% of graduates directly into employment, to the selective vocational academies of New Jersey, which send pupils to Princeton, Yale and MIT. None of these systems treats technical education as a consolation prize for children who struggle with academic subjects. They treat aptitude for trade as no less real or worthy of cultivation than aptitude for science or maths. I recognise that any form of selection is controversial, but I am not proposing selection by ability, only by aptitude. Academies are already permitted to select up to 10% of their pupils for aptitude in particular specialisms, such as music.

Finally, no primary legislation is required to bring about this change. The Secretary of State already has this power, used for Birmingham Ormiston Academy, to grant a derogation allowing an academy, including UTCs and studio schools, to select by aptitude where there is a demonstrable local need. All that is required is the will to use it more widely. If the Minister, when she returns to her place, would like to learn more, I will happily send her a copy of my paper.

Sport: Supreme Court Ruling on Sex and Gender

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is clear that this is both a difficult and sensitive area, not least because this is my third or fourth appearance at the Dispatch Box on it since the ruling. My noble friend refers particularly to the development of the code of practice by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which will be a very important way of ensuring that providers of services—less so, I have to say, for sports governing bodies—have more clarity about the application of the Supreme Court ruling. It is clearly important that there is sufficient time for people both to consider the implications of that and to make representations. I hope and believe that it is the intention of the Equality and Human Rights Commission that people have the chance to make those representations over a suitable period of time.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from the noble Lord first and then from the noble Baroness on the Lib Dem Benches.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, in light of the Supreme Court judgment, as well as the FA’s change of policy, will the Minister take this opportunity to invite—not tell—the FA to apologise to those women whom it has penalised for objecting to the participation of biological males in women’s football. I am thinking in particular of the teenage girl who received a six-match ban from Lancashire FA for asking a bearded opponent she was about to play against on a ladies team whether he was a man.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As I have said previously, the Supreme Court judgment provides us with some clarity around the definition of sex within the Equality Act on the basis of biological sex. The priority now is for all of us to go forward, through the Equality and Human Right Commission’s code of practice and through the way we deal with this issue, not in a spirit of looking backwards or recrimination but in a way that enables us to ensure that this judgment is properly administered and represented in the changes that are made and to ensure that everybody in this quite sensitive area is treated with decency and respect. Looking forward is important now.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Knowledge Schools Trust and a trustee of the Knowledge Schools Foundation Trust. It is a great privilege to follow the excellent maiden speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, and my noble friend Lord Biggar.

The education reforms that the Government are seeking to reverse in the second part of this Bill have been a great success. It has been a natural experiment, because education is a devolved area of policy. The way to measure the success of the educational reforms, dating back at least to 2000 and beyond, is to compare the performance of schools in England, where the reforms have been embedded, with those of Scotland and Wales, where they have not. I will not repeat the PISA data that has been cited by numerous people on this side of the House, but it shows very clearly that the education reforms embedded in the English state school system have been a success.

Given how successful they have been, I am astonished that the party opposite, and indeed the Lib Dems, do not want to share some credit for it. As several noble Lords have pointed out, the education reforms that began with the creation of city technology colleges by my noble friend Lord Baker, as created by the Education Reform Act 1988, were continued by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, in the Learning and Skills Act 2000, which created city academies, and built on by the Academies Act of the coalition Government, as my noble friend Lord Hill pointed out.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said earlier that he hoped all sides could work together in this House. But that is precisely what has been happening for the last 37 years, and it is his party that has decided to abandon this cross-party consensus, not mine. The part of the education reform programme I care most about is free schools, having helped to set up four of them. In a nakedly ideological act, the Government have pulled the plug on the programme, in spite of its success. The English secondary school where children make the most progress is the Michaela Community School, a free school. The sixth form that gets the best A-level results in the country is not Winchester or Eton but a free school, King’s Maths School, where the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, is the chair of governors. The secondary school I helped to set up, the West London Free School, was named last year by the Sunday Times as the best comprehensive in London.

I note that my noble friend Lord Harris, who has done more to transform the life chances of children from disadvantaged backgrounds than anyone else I can think of, says his trust’s funding for 2025-26 has increased by only 1.3%, which will not cover the pay award of 2.8% that the Government has agreed with the teaching unions. Incidentally, the teaching unions have said that they want more. They are not satisfied with that and are threatening industrial action if they do not get more, even though it was agreed. I hope the noble Baronesses, Lady Bousted and Lady Blower, will urge their former colleagues to show some restraint. I want to tell my noble friend Lord Harris that, in the case of my trust, our funding has gone up by only 1.1%, not 1.3%, and the CEO of my trust tells me that the only way it will be able to remain solvent in 2025-26 is by making between 8% and 10% of the staff redundant.

It is not just our academy chains that are in this predicament. A survey by Teacher Tapp and SchoolDash published last week in Schools Week, found that one-third of primaries and 40% of secondaries in England will be forced to make redundancies in 2025-26 due to funding shortfalls. I regret to say that the staff most at risk of being made redundant across the sector are specialist SEND support staff. So much for this Government wanting to do more for children with SEND, and so much for wanting to find 6,500 more teachers. Incidentally, what became of the £1.7 billion that the Government’s VAT raid on independent schools was supposed to raise for state schools? I hope that the Minister can tell us what has happened to that in her closing remarks.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said earlier that we should remember what has worked and replicate that. This Government should be replicating those reforms—dating back to the 1980s—that have worked, not trying to take us back to the 1970s. For the sake of our children, I urge the Government to be guided by evidence, not ideology.

Universities: Free Speech

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

We will hear from my noble friend Lady Levitt next and then from the noble Lord, Lord Young, after that.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is exactly right: it is wholly possible to carry out the sort of important research that the noble Baroness referenced, including in the area of gender-critical research, and to treat trans people with the respect that they deserve and ensure that they are able to play their full role in our society.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, in the light of the Office for Students’ finding that Sussex University’s trans and non-binary equality policy is incompatible with the registration conditions imposed by the Office for Students on all English universities, which require them to uphold free speech and academic freedom, would the Minister advise all universities to review their EDI policies to ensure that they do not chill lawful speech and are not incompatible with their regulatory compliance requirements?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that part of the ruling was about the specifics of the University of Sussex’s trans and non-binary policy and its failure to recognise the requirements on the university to ensure freedom of speech and academic freedom. I hope that all universities will look carefully at this ruling and will note its second element, which was around the governance to consider issues such as this. All universities need to be clear that these important decisions, and sometimes these challenging conflicts, need to be considered at the highest possible level and with the strongest possible governance.