Universities: Financial Sustainability

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I appreciate that, but the noble Lord will also understand the pressures that students face. We also have a responsibility to students to make sure that university is affordable.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a visiting professor at King’s and chairman of FutureLearn. If the Prime Minister goes ahead with curbs to the graduate visa, would my noble friend the Minister say how we will replace the £12 billion in economic benefits that international students bring to priority category 1 levelling-up areas, including towns such as Stockton, Middlesbrough and Darlington, which receive £240 million of benefits every year from international students at Teesside University?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

With respect to my noble friend, he makes a very speculative statement, which makes it pretty hard for me to comment on it.

Higher Education: Arts and Humanities

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Baroness knows, the Government strive to create a sustainable student finance system that both remains responsive to the needs of the wider economy and of the labour market, which she referred to, and is fair to students and taxpayers. As she remarked, those with creative and critical-thinking skills in relation to AI are of course important, but so are students with STEM skills.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, ahead of the local and mayoral elections tomorrow, would my noble friend the Minister say what the impact of slashing the graduate route will be on arts and humanities provision, as well as on the levelling- up agenda? I am thinking specifically about towns such as Middlesbrough and Darlington, where every intake of international students at Teesside University brings £240 million of benefits each year to the local economy.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is aware that we remain absolutely committed to our international education strategy, which has been extremely successful in terms of both the number of students who study in this country and their contribution to the economy. I cannot comment on the specifics of individual towns, but we absolutely recognise the value that those students bring.

Student Loan Interest Rates

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I come back to my earlier answer: we have a system in which it is very clear that above a certain threshold, 9% of income goes to repaying part or all of a graduate’s debt. The overall package, obviously, in terms of affordability of mortgages and housing, is dependent on many issues, of which graduate debt is one.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s excellent recent reforms to the student loan book have significantly improved its affordability to the taxpayer, with less than a third now expected to be written off. Given this, and given the funding crunch facing universities—which will be worsened if the Government take a hatchet to the graduate route, by the way—does my noble friend the Minister agree with me that it is time to allow universities to increase fees in line with inflation for those that can demonstrate they are delivering great outcomes for students, as assessed by the teaching excellence framework?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As my noble friend touched on, the Government are trying to balance, or triangulate, a number of things. One is affordability for students, hence the freeze we have had for seven years on fees. Another is addressing poor-quality provision—at the other end of the issue from the one my noble friend raises—through the new Office for Students regime. In relation to motivation, reward and recognition for the highest-performing institutions, a review of allowing indexation of fees based on the TEF is not under consideration currently, but I will say that having a high-quality teaching framework does allow for strong recruitment and research income.

Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Monday 10th July 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 6A in my name. I declare my interests in the register as a visiting professor at King’s College London and as chairman of FutureLearn. As other noble Lords have indicated, this amendment attempts to address what is an elephant in the room in our debates. This is obviously a controversial issue, which is very much present but has largely been avoided as a subject for discussion: the absolute level of fees and tuition fees.

While it is very welcome that we are introducing a more flexible system of student finance, that is not much good on its own unless we address the relentless erosion in the value of tuition fees themselves. I have always found it a little unreal that we have a Bill that refers in its title to “Higher Education Fee Limits” but we have not actually had any discussion whatever of those fee limits.

The legal cap on tuition fees for full-time undergraduate study at most universities is now £9,250—that is barely changed from the £9,000 that it was when the system was introduced a decade ago. By May this year, inflation had eroded the value of these fees to £6,020 in 2012 money. If inflation remains elevated, it will be materially below £6,000 in 2012 money by September and teaching UK students at this level will be loss-making for many, if not most, institutions. Carry on like this and we will have stretched the unit of resource to such a point that a crisis is inevitable. The LLE certainly will not be offered, nor will much else. My view is that we are really not doing our job unless we do something in this Committee, and during the passage of the Bill, about the fact that the system as a whole is becoming unsustainable.

The current impasse is creating a situation in which we are systematically defunding our universities, depriving the engines of our knowledge economy of the fuel they need to offer great teaching and world-class research. If we want to retain our position as one of the world’s most highly regarded higher education systems, and to have a fighting chance of attracting researchers to support our goal of becoming a science superpower, this clearly cannot go on. We all know that this needs to be fixed, yet we seem to lack the political courage to do what needs to be done.

As far as I can tell, a lot of effort is going on across all parties to work out how to say as little as possible about higher education funding ahead of the next general election. I am very grateful for the support from my colleagues opposite and hope that, were this amendment to find favour, they would continue to support it as we make progress with the Bill. The amendment seeks to force the debate into the open and to flush out the extent to which the Government—and Opposition parties—are seriously engaging with this issue before the crisis in funding takes a further turn for the worse.

The amendment itself is very simple. It would automatically allow higher education institutions that deliver great teaching and student outcomes, as assessed by the teaching excellence framework, to raise fees in line with inflation. There is nothing novel about this. A mechanism to link funding to quality in exactly this way exists already in law in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. Schedule 2 to that Act allows fee caps to be set at differing levels based on a provider’s teaching excellence framework award, subject to overall limits prescribed by regulations that are scrutinised by Parliament. This amendment would ensure that the mechanism is used automatically each year, ensuring that high-quality providers can continue to deliver great teaching and student outcomes without their tuition income being relentlessly eroded by inflation. There is nothing new in it.

As noble Lords may recall, the Cameron Government used this exact method to enable fees to rise with inflation from £9,000 to £9,250, some five years ago. In my view, we should have continued with that approach, as it would have maintained university funding on a more sustainable footing than it is at present and entirely avoided the current crisis. Gold-rated and silver-rated providers would today have been able to charge fees of approaching £12,000. The University of East Anglia, for example, would have had an extra £38 million, which would wipe out the black hole in its finances. Such a system, linking funding to quality, aligns the interests of students, taxpayers and providers, and is an immediately deliverable solution which can be implemented as soon as the next TEF results come out this September.

We do not need a big review. We should not wait for our universities to start falling over one by one. We need to get on and use the mechanism that already exists.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will respond to Amendment 2, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, and Amendment 5, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, and also in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Garden, Lady Wilcox of Newport and Lady Thornton. I will speak also to Amendment 6A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Johnson of Marylebone. These amendments seek to put the number of notional learning hours that constitute one credit in the Bill, to limit the default credit value to a maximum of 20 credits, and to allow certain higher education providers to increase their tuition fees automatically each year in line with inflation if they have a teaching excellence framework rating.

Amendment 2 would define in the Bill a credit as equivalent to 10 notional learning hours. As has been set out in the other place, while it is crucial that the definition of credits in the fee limit calculation aligns to standard practice in the sector, the Government plan to set this out in detail in secondary regulations, rather than in primary legislation. The power to do so is provided for in new paragraph 1B of Schedule 2 to the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, introduced through Clause 1 of this Bill.

Specifying the learning hours in secondary legislation, rather than primary, means that providers which might choose to use a different number of learning hours per credit will simply have those courses treated as non-credit-bearing for fee limit purposes. If we took the approach of this amendment, those same providers could instead be considered in breach of the fee limit rules as a whole, with all the regulatory consequences that that might bring. The Government do not intend to change the number of learning hours in a credit unless standards in the sector change: learning hours are, and should continue to be, based on sector-led standards. Regulations on learning hours will follow the affirmative resolution procedure, so Parliament will always get the opportunity to debate and formally approve any changes to those regulations.

Amendment 5 queries the extent to which the Government are prepared to fund modules of fewer than 30 credits through the LLE. As I referred to in my response made at Second Reading, and as set out in the Government’s consultation response, modules must have a minimum size of 30 credits for funding purposes. This is in line with the recommendation in the Augar review. None the less, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, pointed out, it will be possible to bundle two or more modules from the same parent course to meet the 30-credit funding requirement.

This amendment also refers to the default credit value. If your Lordships will permit, it may be helpful to provide the Committee with some further detail on the purpose of this value. The default credit value is intended to allow fee limits to be set on full courses that do not bear credits or on full courses that are more suited to annual fee limits than credit-based fee limits. For example, this could include some degree programmes at Oxford and Cambridge or sandwich years where the provider has not assigned credits. It could also include courses such as postgraduate certificates in education or first degrees in nursing. For these types of study, a default number of credits will be used in the fee-limit calculation, instead of any provider-assigned number of credits. These default values will be set at 120 credits per year for full-time courses, with other amounts for other intensities, all of which will align with sector-recognised standards. The default credit values will not apply to modules undertaken separately from their full course. As all modules funded through the LLE will be required to bear credit, they will always have the fee limit calculated using the provider-assigned number of credits, not a default number of credits.

To be clear, the default credit value applies only to full courses, not to modules. If default values are all set at 20 credits, that would mean that, for example, Oxford and Cambridge would be allowed to charge for only 20 credits a year for their degrees, instead of 120 credits, which I am sure is not the noble Baroness’s intention. We would not want providers to be limited to being able to charge for this number of credits per year.

I now turn to speak to Amendment 6A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Johnson of Marylebone. It is clearly vital that our higher education sector remains on a sustainable financial footing. It is an important contributor to our national economy, and it is something that we excel at as a nation. That is why the Government keep all elements of student finance and higher education funding, including fee limits, under constant review. We have said that fees will remain frozen until the start of the 2025 academic year. This ensures that students and taxpayers continue to receive value for money. However, we are also investing an extra £750 million in higher education teaching and students over three years to 2024-25 through the strategic priorities grant. This will help providers to fund their provision of high-cost subjects, such as medicine, science and engineering, and help students to succeed.

We provide support for the sector through subsidised fee loans. This is our investment in the skills, people and economy of this country, and one that is even more important in current circumstances. A continuous automatic increase in fees in line with inflation would undermine the incentive for providers to find efficiencies in their business models or to develop other sources of revenue to diversify their income and achieve sustainability in ways that benefit British students and British taxpayers. Despite current pressures, the Office for Students found in its latest report that the overall aggregate financial position of the sector remains sound, though there is variation between individual providers.

I remind the Committee that overall tuition fee income in English higher education providers has increased in cash terms from £13.7 billion in 2014-15 to £21.6 billion in 2021-22, an increase of around 58%, but there are significant differences in income and student number growth between providers. Some providers have increased their student numbers significantly in recent years, in particular in business and management courses, which have grown rapidly. With the public outlay to support students to go to university having increased so much in recent years in cash terms, the rapid, localised growth that we have seen in some courses and at some providers emphasises the need for us to ensure that the quality of provision remains high, so that students can achieve the employment outcomes that they are looking for and the economy benefits from our considerable investment in higher education.

As my noble friend understands very well indeed, fee income from domestic students is just one element of the income mix of higher education institutions. Obviously, there is income from international students, research fees and funding institutes, as well as commercial income. There are questions that the Government would be keen to work with universities on, and, if helpful, I would be happy to meet my noble friend or providers to think about the scale and breadth of courses offered by individual institutions and groups of institutions within an area, as well as about how the cost base of institutions will develop in future.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Committee stage
Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to address the group of amendments relating to overseas funding.

Amendments 63 and 64, tabled by my noble friend Lord Johnson of Marylebone, seek to amend the transparency measures concerning overseas income received by higher education providers. They would add tuition fees to the categories of overseas funding in scope and require the OfS to consider whether a provider or college was “overly reliant” on funding from a single country of origin.

Increasing awareness of foreign interference risks in higher education is of course vital. That is why we have already added measures to the Bill that will require the OfS to monitor the overseas funding of registered higher education providers and their constituent institutions so that it can assess the risk that the funding may pose to freedom of speech and academic freedom in the provision of higher education within a given institution. However, we have ensured that the scope of these measures is proportionate to the risk, in order to ensure that our universities remain a place where freedom of speech can thrive.

The Government consider that these further amendments are unnecessary and potentially overly bureaucratic. Providers are already required to submit data to the OfS on course fees by broad domicile, broken down by UK, other EU and non-EU. In addition, international student numbers are reported to the Higher Education Statistics Agency and published online, broken down by country of domicile and by provider. This means that information about international tuition fees is already available to the OfS. If the OfS considered that a provider was overly reliant on student tuition fees—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, talked about the business case for overseas students—it could take steps if it thought that this would threaten the financial sustainability of the provider. That is included in the registration conditions that providers must already comply with. The OfS can issue sanctions for breach of these conditions.

Amendment 65, in the name of my noble friend Lord Willetts, seeks to increase the financial threshold for reporting required by higher education providers under Clause 9. This would require that no less than 1% of the total income of a higher education provider would fall to be reported, thereby reducing the burden of reporting on providers.

For many large providers, 1% of their total income could represent tens of millions of pounds, but I am sure noble Lords will agree that, for example, £1 million would be a very significant amount of money if an individual member of the academic staff received it as a research grant. Amendment 65 would mean that such instances might not fall to be reported.

The aim of Clause 9 is to increase the transparency of overseas funding. The OfS will require providers to supply information to them on relevant overseas funding. Relevant funding is defined as certain specified types of funding received by the provider, a constituent institution or a member or members of staff from a relevant overseas person, where that exceeds a threshold—to be set out in legislation—within a period of 12 months. The current intention is to set this at £75,000 in a 12-month period for providers and colleges.

We recognise that the risk of undue influence arising from smaller amounts of overseas income is likely to be lower. We have therefore ensured that the scope of these measures is proportionate to the possible risk to freedom of speech. We believe that the intended threshold of £75,000 for providers and colleges is appropriate, as it will strike the right balance by increasing the transparency of significant transactions without creating undue bureaucracy by requiring the reporting of smaller transactions that are less likely to pose a risk. The information required is further narrowed in scope, as “relevant overseas person” is a limited category and there will also be countries that are excluded from this provision that will be set out in regulations.

We take the impact on the higher education sector seriously, which is why the Bill includes the measures that I have just described to reduce the level of reporting required. We are therefore ensuring the proper targeting of the measure to the risk to freedom of speech, and that the burden on providers will not be too great.

I now turn to Amendment 66 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, which seeks to clarify why students’ unions have been included within the scope of the overseas income measure in Clause 9. The overseas funding measures in the Bill seek to increase the transparency of overseas donations and other income received by higher education providers, their constituent institutions and students’ unions to better enable the OfS as a regulator to understand the possible extent of financial leverage from a foreign source, which may influence behaviour to pose a threat to freedom of speech and academic freedom. The information reported will enable the OfS to monitor and report on any sector trends and patterns.

In order for these measures to have the maximum intended effect on countering the threat of foreign interference in higher education and to increase public confidence in the sector, we considered it vital that the overseas funding duties extend to students’ unions, as other measures in the Bill do. Students’ unions across England are in receipt of a variety of overseas income every year and there is diversity across students’ unions in the ways in which they are funded. Information published by the Charity Commission demonstrates that a large number of students’ unions are very reliant on the annual donations and legacies that they receive. Therefore, it would be remiss not to include students’ unions in Clause 9.

The scope of the measure—noting in particular the threshold amount, which we anticipate will be set at an appropriate level for students’ unions—means that the burden on those unions will not be too great and will ensure the proper targeting of the measure to the risk to freedom of speech. I trust I have given reassurance that Clause 9 as drafted offers sufficient and proportionate protection against undue foreign influence on freedom of speech and academic freedom within higher education.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her response and to noble Lords for their excellent contributions. I will reflect on the debate and particularly on whether this was the best place for my amendment, which I recognise I have rather contrived to attach to this Bill. In the meantime, I am very happy to beg leave to withdraw it.

Higher Education Reform

Debate between Baroness Barran and Lord Johnson of Marylebone

Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness asks a number of important questions about the funding model for our universities but, as she acknowledged, they are incredibly successful in attracting international students, with over 605,000 of those students coming to our universities. In the other place the other day, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State quoted the figure that of every four international students, two go to the US, one comes to the UK and the rest of the world shares the last one.

We are aiming to build on that success; the investment that we announced along with this package aims to focus on both teaching and facilities to make sure that the highest-quality future-facing education is offered in our universities. My right honourable friend the Minister for Universities and Higher Education has been extremely active in stressing her concerns about how students’ experience has suffered over Covid and the responsibility of universities to respond, get back to face-to-face teaching and meet their needs, but I am happy to pick up in writing some of the wider points that the noble Baroness raised.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support the Government’s student finance reforms, which strengthen what I think is the least bad system of funding higher education, but I have to say that I am puzzled by why the Government appear to be disavowing what in my view has been the standout levelling-up policy of the last decade: the removal of student number controls, which have allowed disadvantaged young people to go to university in far greater numbers—they are 80% more likely to do so in 2021 than they were in 2010. I would be very grateful if the Minister could reassure me that any student number controls will be imposed only in the most egregious cases of poor outcomes identified by the OfS and will not be used as a back-door means of reimposing sweeping caps or quotas on aspiration across the entire system.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am delighted to reassure my noble friend that we will not be introducing the sweeping caps to which he alludes. As he said, universities have been extremely successful in terms of social mobility. By consulting on student number controls, we are not taking a position on what the correct proportion of people going to university should be, but we want to tilt provision towards the best outcomes for students and, as I said, make sure that our further education system also offers fantastic pathways to success.