Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Baroness Deech and Lord Mackay of Clashfern

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I shall speak to this amendment although my name is not on it. As we got to the end of this Committee stage, this group of amendments struck me as a chance to give Parliament more oversight into fleshing out the Bill. The Bill—and now we are nearly at the end—is not much more than a framework, albeit a very heavy framework, on which later policy is to be hung. We have no detail on the metrics in the teaching excellence framework or the detailed criteria that the Office for Students may use to establish or abolish universities. It is not clear how a lot of this Bill will work in practice. Over and over again we have been asked to take matters on trust and have been told that details will follow. We do not know how much of a light touch or not the Secretary of State will be using in guidance to the UKRI and the OfS. We do not know what providers will do to the market or how the status of the sector will hold up. We do not know how much there will be a fracture between teaching and research to the detriment of both. Now that we have reached the end of the Committee with so many gaps in the Bill, can the Minister assure us that there will be some process of post-legislative scrutiny to ensure that this experiment is working? I beg to move.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

I take this opportunity simply to congratulate the Minister on having taken over this intricate and important part of the Bill. He has discharged his responsibilities with great skill.