Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 27th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my declaration of interests in the register. It is not my intention to repeat the excellent contributions that have already been made, but I want to put on record my commendation for Chris Husbands, the vice-chancellor of what some unwisely call the university in which I am involved “the other university in Sheffield”. Chris Husbands’ work is of an excellent quality and I hope that we will be able to build on it in the years to come.

However, I will repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said in relation to what happens after the general election and ensuring that nothing is done, particularly in relation to the evaluation and the ratings, that damages in any way the enormous contribution of the higher education sector in this country both to the well-being of students and to our economy and our standing in the world. There can be no doubt after the considerable debates that we have had that there is a deep commitment on the part of the Minister in this House to improving teaching and to recognising the critical role of the teaching excellence framework in ensuring that comparator with the research excellence framework.

It is worth putting on the record at this very late stage that there is still a major tendency to value what will pull in major grants for research, even when the research may be of doubtful value, rather than to balance the commitment to high-quality teaching and learning with the REF. That is why I have expressed to Jo Johnson, the Minister in the Commons, what I repeat today, which is my support for the endeavour to put teaching very much at the top of the agenda.

I commend the Government on having listened. This Bill has been an exemplar of how we can work across the political divide both in this House and beyond. I will refer now to speculation in the more reliable media. I hope that no one will be punished in any way for having been prepared to listen and to debate. The idea that a Minister should not be able to express a view internally within the Government is a disgrace. I do not wish to bring in party-political matters, but I know that some MPs are thought to call the Prime Minister “Mummy”. I remember Mummy telling me that she had heard me once, heard me twice and did not want to hear me again—but you cannot conduct government on that basis. Therefore, whatever happens on 8 June, I hope that we will move forward on the understanding that a spirit of co-operation creates better legislation that is more easily implementable and receives a wider welcome than would otherwise be the case, and thus achieves its objective.

I thank the noble Viscount the Minister for repeating the words of Jo Johnson in relation to the move as rapidly as possible to subject rather than institutional comparators. This is an important part of what we were debating on what was Amendment 72, which morphed into Amendment 23 and is back with us in a different form today.

I also want to say, as a new Member of this House, how impressed I have been by the Cross-Bench contributions. I will echo the commendations made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, rather than go through them again. Ministers and civil servants on this Bill have shown that they are of the highest possible calibre by being prepared to listen and respond, and I thank them for that.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may associate these Benches with the eloquent words we have already heard. It is inevitable that there will be a measure of disappointment that not all of your Lordships’ wisdom has been accepted unequivocally by the other House, but I think we can all agree that we have made immense strides in this Bill, and we are deeply appreciative of the way in which Ministers have listened and come forward with proposals. Perhaps I may pick up one thing about which we are particularly pleased, which is that there will be a delay in implementing this while a review is carried out. Some really key measures set out in the Bill need more reflection to see whether they are actually the right path to tread, so we appreciate the fact that the delay has been built in. Again, we appreciate the measures that the Government have taken to come towards us on these issues.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, first, I should declare an interest as a full-time Academic Council member of King’s College, London. I had not expected to speak in this part of the debate and I am afraid that I will be speaking again later. But, since I am on my feet, I would like to say that I agree with all noble Lords who have expressed their appreciation of how the Government have listened to opinions and to the House generally. I, too, feel that we have come a long way. In this context, I will bring back a couple of points that were made in the earlier debates by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and by me in the context of amendments that we had tabled. Since the noble Duke is unable to be here today, I will make them briefly on behalf of us both.

Along with almost all noble Lords here, we strongly welcome the delay in implementing the link with fees—here I endorse the remarks of my noble friend Lord Kerslake. I am delighted to hear that we are moving quickly towards a position where we will have subject-level rather than institution-level assessments. However, one reason we became so concerned about the TEF is that putting a label on an institution is potentially very damaging to it.

One thing that has been rather an eye-opener for me is the extent to which—perhaps inevitably and as someone who teaches public management I should not be surprised—the “sector” is, in the view of the Government, the organised universities and Universities UK, and how few good mechanisms there are for the Bill team and the department to get the voices of students, as opposed to occasionally that of the National Union of Students. Students have been desperately concerned about this, because they are in a world where they pay fees and where the reputation of their institutions is so important. They have been worried about and deeply opposed to anything that puts a single label on them. This single national ranking caused many of us concern.

I will say a couple of things that I hope the incoming Secretary of State will bear in mind. First, as others have alluded to, we have a pilot going on and a system of grades that is out there. I fully understand that that is under way and there are enormous lessons to be learned from it. However, I hope very much that, after the election, whoever the Government may be will think hard about how they use that information, how they publish it, and whether they are in any sense obliged to come forward with the type of single-rank national league table that has caused so much anxiety to students. That is of great concern and it is hard to see how it serves the purpose, also expressed in the current Conservative manifesto, of preserving the reputation of our great university sector.

The other thing, on which I do not have any particular inspiration but about which I would love the incoming Government to think, is how to widen out their contacts with not just the organised sector and Universities UK but the academics and students who are really what the sector is about. We have great universities not because we have activist managerial vice-chancellors but because they are autonomous in large measure internally as well as vis-à-vis the state. That has been of real concern to me. Since we are going to have an Office for Students, it would be very good if, post the election, we could make it genuinely an office for students.

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[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. I am very grateful to the Government for tabling Commons Amendments 15A and 15B and put on record my specific thanks to the Ministers—the honourable Jo Johnson and Chris Skidmore—along with their officials, for their time and willingness to find a compromise following the adoption by the House of my amendment on Report. This issue has been the subject of powerful advocacy by my honourable friend Paul Blomfield MP, who has done much work on the registration of students to vote, and by organisations such as Bite The Ballot and by the APPG on Democratic Participation.

The voice and views of the Association of Electoral Administrators was extremely helpful in supporting my case, and I have to say that the chief executive John Turner expressed some surprise that the Minister suggested on Report that the association did not take a positive view. UUK has been helpful to me personally, although it is divided on the issue. I trust that it will now do everything possible to ensure that all universities comply with this new obligation at the earliest opportunity.

I well understand that we all have the same aim: to enable the greatest number of students to register to vote and thus shape the future of this country so that it works for young people. It will probably not be possible for ministerial guidance to be published before the enrolment of students this autumn, so I hope that the Minister in office, whoever it is, will draw the attention of higher education institutions to the numerous examples of best practice that exist, including those cited by the Minister today. I am very proud of what Bath has done in these endeavours. I am grateful to the Minister for suggesting what will be in the guidance, which is very welcome, but could he say when the guidance is likely to be published and when the Government, if they are a Conservative Government, might expect higher education institutions to comply with the new obligation? Although we might not have another general election for perhaps five years, there will be local government elections in England in May 2018 and my fervent hope is that all HE institutions will have a system in place by then.

I reiterate my thanks and look forward to working with the next Government to ensure that the maximum number of students register to vote so that not only their voices are heard but their views are expressed in the ballot box, thus enabling them to exert maximum influence, as they should, in the democratic life of this country.

As I will not speak again on this Bill, I wish to say that I too think the way in which all Benches have co-operated and collaborated on it has been extraordinary and very welcome. To be partisan for a moment, great thanks go to my noble friend Lord Stevenson and the support he has received from Molly Critchley. I understand that my noble friend is shortly to step down from the Front Bench. He has done the most superb job, not just for the Labour Benches but for the House as a whole, and I look forward to working with him on the Back Benches.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Having been a staunch supporter of the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and indeed of trying to engage young people in the importance of voting in elections—I think this is a valuable step in enabling them to get involved at university level—I am grateful for the amendment that has come in from the Government. As we are trying to involve young people in voting, would it not be wonderful if we could now think of lowering the voting age to 16 to enable more of them to do so?

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment in this Motion regarding the appeals system is greatly improved, as my noble and learned friend Lord Judge has said. I am delighted that this has happened because it is of vital importance in relation to the very serious matters that the Office for Students has the power to deal with. I thank the Ministers who have been involved. I include in this particular thanks to my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, for reasons that I shall explain in a moment, and the Minister in the Commons for the very kind way in which various reactions of mine to this extremely important Bill have been handled.

I want to mention a particular matter that does not arise especially under this Motion but, from my point of view, is rather important. When the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, raised the issue of the new power to search the headquarters of higher education providers, she indicated that it was something that the higher education providers anticipated with a degree of apprehension. In response to that, my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie read out from Schedule 5 the statutory requirements before such a warrant could be granted. I have listened to a lot of the Bill without particularly talking myself, but on that occasion it occurred to me that one of the assurances the academic community was entitled to get was that those restrictions, which are quite powerful and important, would definitely be the subject of consideration by the magistrate. I suggested that the magistrate should sign a document to that effect. I got a letter almost immediately, which is still on the website, to say that such a thing was unheard of.

It is 20 years since I handed over with confidence my responsibilities for this part of what is now the Ministry of Justice to my successor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, so it is a very long time since I dealt with this particular matter directly. Still, when I got that response, I thought, “Well, in that case the thing to do is to alter the words of the warrant to make it clear that the warrant’s signature carries that with it”. That was objected to for all sorts of reasons, as your Lordships may remember, and some of them were addressed by my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham on Report. I felt rather strongly about it, as he recognised, and he kindly said the Government would consider it further before Report, giving me an opportunity, which otherwise I would not have had, to raise the matter on Report.

I was still very insistent on this, because I could not see any objection to it. I am particularly obliged to the Minister in the Commons, Mr Johnson, for arranging at the last minute for me to have a chance to deal directly with the Ministry of Justice, from which the objections to my amendments were coming. That afternoon, I was able to meet the official in that part of the Ministry of Justice for which, as I said, long ago I had responsibility. He eventually told me that in fact, the procedure for dealing with warrants had now been altered by order of the Lord Chief Justice, particularly in criminal cases so that, at the end of the application for the warrant—strangely enough—there is a place for the magistrate to indicate whether he or she agrees that the warrant should be granted and, if so, what the reasons are for that decision. He said that he thought that this was probably general practice in relation to warrants in the magistrates’ court—because this is not a criminal warrant under the Bill. My noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie said that that was the position when the Motion was moved on Third Reading.

I therefore express my gratitude to the Minister and the Bill team from the Department for Education for their kind treatment of me in connection with this and other matters. It is important that where a Ministry other than that directly responsible for a Bill gives advice to block an amendment from someone who, after all, was thought of as a government supporter, it should be blocked in a way that depends on Ministers’ expertise. With respect to Mr Johnson’s great variety of eminence, he would not be particularly interested in the magistrates’ courts procedure for warrants, so it is really nothing to do with him. Similarly, for my noble friends Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Younger of Leckie, it is a damaging way of damaging your colleagues without much apparent responsibility. I therefore qualify my thanks for the work that has been done behind the scenes here, modified by that matter, for which the Ministers responsible for the Bill have the right for me to make it clear that it was nothing to do with them; it was from a source for which they have only the responsibility of being in the one Government.

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[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I will not attempt to emulate the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, by making a Fourth Reading speech, but I will make a couple of brief points. I strongly supported the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, when he introduced his amendment and have spoken many times on this subject in your Lordships’ House. I deeply regret that the Government have not felt able to accept the amendment and commend it to the other place. I echo everything that has been said about the understanding and capacity for listening both of my noble friend Lord Younger, the Minister in your Lordships’ House, and of Mr Jo Johnson, but it is a pity that an opportunity has been lost. I am sure that we will return to this subject, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, possibly in a future immigration Bill.

Although I welcome what the Minister said today and what is in the Commons amendment before us, it does not go far enough. There will be real interest in how the Government are able to produce good statistics. It is 35 years ago almost to the day when a famous BBC reporter in the Falklands said, “I counted them all out, and I counted them all back”. We must start doing that with students, and indeed with all immigrants. However, we must not do anything that damages our reputation—however gently—as a place where students at undergraduate and postgraduate level from all over the world can feel welcome. The more we can do to achieve that welcome the better, and we must do everything we possibly can to make sure that there are no implicit deterrents. I am sorry that after a very good morning where the Government have made some very real concessions, for which we are all extremely grateful, the concession on this particular subject is not as great as it should be. I hope my noble friend on the Front Bench will take note of that and that we will come back before too long with a reinforced Government Front Bench and a new determination to accept the logic of the Hannay amendment.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, from these Benches we strongly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and endorse everything that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, just said. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, reminded us of the heady days of coalition when I was his opposite number in this House. I remember the debates that went on between the Secretary of State for BIS and the Home Secretary on this topic: the noble Lord could never get any movement on seeing the illogicality.

What baffles many of us is that the Government reiterate that there is no cap on genuine international students, but then they say, “But we will count them as migrants and we are determined to reduce the number of migrants”. It is incomprehensible that the Government cannot see how very unwelcoming it is to put those things together in sequence. We find it completely baffling that we are not getting any movement on this. We recognise that this issue is probably outside the departmental brief of the Minister, but I echo what has been said already: we hope that very soon there will be movement on this. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, always speaks with great passion and eloquence on this topic, backed with evidence and facts.

This is probably the last time that I shall speak on the Bill, so I reiterate the very sincere thanks to the Minister, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, and Minister Jo Johnson, to the Bill team and to other colleagues who have been so helpful to us on what has turned out to be a very long and drawn-out discussion on the Bill. The amendments that have come through today have already improved it again. As I said before, it would obviously have been lovely if all our amendments had been accepted, but we recognise that we have actually done a very good job in making this Bill a whole lot better than it was before.

I echo the thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who led a collaboration of the engaged on these issues, made up of Members from these Benches, his Benches, the Cross Benches and occasionally some noble Lords on the Conservative Benches, to try to ensure that we could get the very best possible out of this Bill. I also thank my noble friend Lord Storey, who has been a tower of strength throughout. We have made this Bill much better than when it reached us and I am grateful to the Minister for helping that to happen.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, in relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said about the Prime Minister’s remarks on calling the election, I am relying only on my memory but I do not think that she said “the unelected House of Lords”. She referred to unelected Lords who had made it clear that everything they could do to stop Brexit would be done—it was something like that. I do not think that she was referring to the House of Lords as a whole, because apart from anything else it would not fit the description.

I also support what my noble friend Lord Willetts said. He knows much more about the atmosphere in Whitehall now than I do, and he said he hoped that the research promoted in this might well have a good effect in that direction.

Finally, I agree with what has been said about the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. I hope that he will enjoy the freedom of not being on the Front Bench. I want to thank all his colleagues on the Front Bench and those on the Front Bench of the liberal party and on the Cross Benches for their help with some of my efforts. I have enjoyed their co-operation and for that I am very grateful.

Higher Education: Loans

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

This is not good enough. This is why my Motion calls on Her Majesty’s Government to report annually to Parliament on the impact on the economy of the increasing quantum of graduate debt and asks them to provide estimates of payback rates and an estimate of the annual cost to the Exchequer of the present system. It is not a lot to ask, and it is a no-brainer if the Government want to convince us that they are on the right track. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches support the case put so eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and we much regret that he is stepping down from his Front-Bench role. We seem to have had to work together a lot in recent days, and it has always been a great pleasure to do so.

This increase in tuition fees is a significant further step towards full marketisation of the UK higher education sector, which threatens the accessibility and reputation of this vital sector. Allowing some universities with higher teaching ratings to charge higher fees means that students will increasingly have to weigh the opportunity presented by a particular course against the fee being charged. In fact, such a step could simply encourage the development of a two-tier university system whereby richer students go to higher-rated universities while the most disadvantaged students go to the lower-rated universities or not at all.

We on these Benches totally reject the idea of linking fees to teaching excellence framework gradings, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, set out. They are an untried and untested form of assessment which should not be used to determine fees. There appears to be no correlation between increased fees and improved teaching quality. The National Union of Students points out that:

“Since tuition fees were trebled in 2012, there is no evidence to suggest that there was a consequential improvement in teaching quality. There has been no change in student satisfaction with the teaching on their course, while institutions have instead been shown to spend additional income from the fees rise on increased marketing materials, rather than on efforts to improve course quality”.


Doubtless some universities have used the fees to improve quality, but there is no guarantee that that is what the fees are there to do.

We have argued for many years that there is a serious lack of attention to teaching quality in universities. The emphasis has been heavily weighted to research for prestige, funding and career promotions, and we welcome the aims in the Higher Education and Research Bill to redress the balance, but we do not believe the way to solve this is through linking teaching quality to fees.

These changes come on top of other deeply damaging changes to student finance. First, there was the abolition of maintenance grants for lower-income students, which makes these regulations all the more damaging. Getting rid of grants while increasing the cost of university education may put lower-income students off attending higher-performing universities. Secondly, the retrospective change in loan conditions to freeze the repayment threshold for tuition fees at £21,000 breaks the deal done with students by the coalition and changes the terms for many students, meaning paying back from a lower starting point.

These measures will in no way encourage diversity or open access to mature or part-time students, nor encourage lifelong learning. We acknowledge the welcome increase to £833 million for the Director of Fair Access to improve student success for the more disadvantaged, but that is not going to solve the problem. Social mobility is simply not good enough. These measures will do nothing to improve opportunities for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. We join in the regrets.

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a visiting professor at King’s College London, an adviser to 2U and an honorary fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. I am discovering that this debate is a kind of valedictory for the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. I would like to say how much I have enjoyed his interventions from the Front Bench during the debates we have both participated in. I am sure he will continue to contribute to this House; we need his contributions, and I have greatly appreciated what he has done.

It is rather peculiar that on this valedictory we are having a debate about these measures, when of course the truth is that the structure of higher education finance we are considering is one that all three parties have introduced during their times in government. If there is any example of a shared consensus on how to finance higher education, it is the Blair/coalition Government proposals for fees and loans. It is now a stable system, and one that all three parties have contributed to and should support.

It is of course not a system of up-front payment; that is its crucial feature. It is a graduate repayment scheme. When graduates repay, at a rate of 9% on earnings above £21,000, it is nothing like having a commercial debt. If a child of mine left university with £25,000 on their credit card or an overdraft of £50,000, I would be extremely worried as a parent. However, knowing that during their working lives they were going to pay back 9% of their earnings above £21,000, and that they would do so only if they were earning more, and if for whatever reason they were earning less they would not have to—in other words, they would be paying through PAYE—would not cause me concern.

Far more importantly, it does not concern students, which is why we have seen steady increases in the numbers of young people going to university as the successive changes have been brought about. Those changes have led to a growth in the number of places, particularly at universities that students have been choosing. We have indeed begun to see growth and shrinkage between different universities, reflecting student choice. We have seen more undergraduates getting their first choice of university. We have seen more places at university in total; indeed, these reforms made it possible to remove the cap on student numbers.

The increase in the number of university places has been particularly beneficial to students from lower-income backgrounds—the marginal students who are not otherwise getting in. Indeed, we have seen a surge in the number of people going to university from low-income backgrounds. At the beginning of this process, nearly 10 years ago when the Blair changes were first brought in and my party opposed them—with exactly the argument that we have been hearing again today: that they would put off low-income students—10% of students from the poorest backgrounds were going to university. After 10 years of these changes, 20% of students from the poorest backgrounds are going to university. That is not good enough—it is still way behind the 60% of young people from the most affluent backgrounds going to university—nevertheless, it is a doubling. We are on a journey in which we are gradually improving social mobility, with more young people from low-income backgrounds having this opportunity.

So the evidence is that they are not, to quote the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, “debt-averse”, for the reason that it is not debt. I love the noble Lord’s example of his time at university. When he left, I suspect—because we are roughly contemporary—that he was facing an income tax rate of 35%. Now graduates face an income tax rate of 29% above a very high threshold. If he was not income tax-averse to going to university, why should they be income tax-averse now if they are facing a 29% rate of PAYE above a high threshold?

I will not detain the House for much longer, but it is possible, if you get into the figures, to take a flow of payments and convert it into a stock. You can create extraordinary figures for liabilities or assets if you take what is essentially a flow of payments and convert it into a stock.

For example, graduates, during their working lives, are very likely to pay at least £500,000 in income tax. As, by and large, people who go to university earn a bit more, they leave university with the prospect of £500,000 of income tax debt, at least, around their necks. Should we be anxious about that? No. In their working lives, if they earn a decent income, of course we will expect them to make a contribution to the Exchequer through income tax. Just as you can apparently create enormous figures for debt by aggregating lots of years of income tax, if we think of the amount that we as a nation will spend on the National Health Service over the next 20 or 30 years, we can also construct an enormous figure by taking £100 billion a year or whatever and multiplying it by 20 or 30. So graduates have an enormous pile of income tax debt—£500,000 at least—in order to pay for trillions of pounds of National Health Service spending. That is because government is a going concern. Neither of those figures should be of concern to us, because we can manage them through the annual flows of income and expenditure.

I should like to draw these brief remarks to a close, however, by welcoming a point in the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, because it is the only way I should conclude a short speech when we are apparently saying farewell to his Front-Bench service. I agree that we need from time to time to look at how the system is working. We do not need to change the structure—we do not need another big review; another Dearing or Brown—but of course there is a social choice in this system. The social choice is the balance between private repayment by graduates, and the public—the generality of taxpayers—taking the burden of writing off repayments that will not be made by graduates who, for example, do not earn enough to reach the threshold. That is a public-private balance which, in a way, reflects that of public and private benefit from higher education.

It is legitimate from time to time to have a debate about what is the right balance between graduate repayment through PAYE and the likely level at which, eventually, graduates’ loans will be written off because they cannot afford to repay them. Incidentally, that would be impossible if we fixed the term in the way the party opposite want, but I think that every five years—once during the lifetime of a Parliament—such a structured review would be worth while.

I end by welcoming that aspect of the noble Lord’s proposal. This need not be done every year: the information is available. Once again, I thank him personally for the lively and well-informed contributions he has made to our debates on higher education and other matters in the recent past.

Technical Education

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, through the Children and Social Work Bill we are extending the opportunity for support from a personal adviser to all care leavers to the age of 25. We have introduced the “staying put” arrangements, which allow care leavers to continue with their foster parents until they reach the age of 21. We are also piloting the “staying close” scheme for those leaving residential care, and introducing compulsory relationship education in primary schools and a duty on secondary schools to teach relationship and sex education. Together with the MoJ and a partnership led by Achievement for All, we are improving support for young offenders with special educational needs.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, what encouragement can the Government offer to employers to engage more with schools and colleges, and what support can they give to schools and colleges to make time for employers to set out not only the technical skills, but the employability skills that are so necessary for future careers, and which mean that young people leave education ready for work?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes an extremely good point. The Government welcome the engagement of the business and professional communities with the school system in any way that works for them. We want that door to be wide open because it is absolutely clear that the more engagement students have with the world of work, the more likely they are to engage in their studies. This is why we have invested nearly £100 million in the Careers & Enterprise Company to work with other organisations such as Business in the Community, Make the Grade and Inspiring the Future, in order to ensure that this connection between the world of work and schools is close.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

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

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Government for the series of meetings and echo what the noble Lord, Lord Baker, has said.

I was a little disappointed with the letter sent to us on 30 March. The noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, promised on 27 March, at col. 391 of Hansard, to write about the question of signing of contracts, but the letter does not tell us whether or not this is taking place.

We had a significant debate on the question of transition to new technical qualifications but there is no mention of that in the letter. There is in the new guidance issued for the Institute for Apprenticeships, but that merely says:

“We expect the institute to take into account the Department for Education’s development of technical education routes to allow for a smooth transition”.


However, the noble Lord promised that there would be more detailed guidance on the question of transition, so I expected at least a reference to it.

I do not wish to prolong the process but it was disappointing that the House of Commons paper 206 gave apprenticeships a bit of a panning. I do not concur with everything it says but some of the points it makes are valid and worthy of the Minister’s attention, in particular the distribution of the levy and how we will target apprenticeships in areas where there is a drastic skills shortage—in engineering, construction and IT. I would welcome comment from the Minister on that.

Apart from those few caveats, I, too, welcome the way in which the Bill has been handled.

[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.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

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

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I gather from the Public Bill Office that the Bill may have broken all records for the number of amendments tabled during its passage. That is an indication of the interest it generated across the House, which allowed the House to play a full and important role, as just mentioned by the Minister, as we scrutinised every clause and, indeed, virtually every line.

The Minister was kind to say that he felt that the Bill had been improved in this process. Ministers do not always feel that way about Bills that have been torn to pieces and not always put back together in the form that they originally liked. He is right that there were things we could do with the Bill to make it, within the context of its overall shape and form, slightly better and more accommodating of the needs of the sector it was intending to regulate. As the Minister says, there is further to go and perhaps it will change again, but we have certainly made a lot of progress. My noble friend Lord Watson said earlier on another Bill that the work we had done here is what we do best. It is something your Lordships’ House should continue to do.

I add my thanks to those expressed by the Minister, starting with him and his colleagues—the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Prior, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, who all contributed to various areas within the Bill—for their unfailing courtesy and willingness to meet and, of course, to write. We have the epistolary Minister in front of us, who writes letters almost as easily as he breathes. We benefited a lot from those because they were very detailed and gave us a lot of information. We also appreciate, as has been mentioned, the substantial involvement of the Minister for Universities and Science in the other place, who, unusually, is not here today but has been seen around as we have discussed the Bill.

I also thank the Bill team. They were very good at organising meetings and often anticipated what we needed. But they also produced some very helpful factsheets, which have not been mentioned but I found very useful. These were necessary, because for those not involved in higher education it was a bit difficult to get down into the detail of the Bill. The factsheets were very useful in exemplifying what was meant by the various regulatory frameworks and what the architecture would do in practice, and we found them very helpful.

My Front-Bench team was superb. I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Watson and Lord Mendelsohn, who covered large areas of the Bill and obtained many of the concessions now in it. Our legislative assistant, Molly Critchley—we have only one—was extraordinary and superb and kept us going with grids and other materials so necessary for an effective Opposition, as well as dealing with the Public Bill Office and all those amendments. We are very grateful for its work as well in that respect.

One of the greatest pleasures of the Bill has been the experience of working closely with the other groups in the House. We quickly discovered that our views on the Bill were shared by the Liberal Democrats and a substantial number of Cross-Benchers, and indeed some Members on the Government Benches. We found that by meeting regularly and sharing intelligence about what Ministers were saying in bilateral meetings, we could make better progress than perhaps would otherwise have been the case. As I approach the end of my current spell of active Front-Bench responsibilities in your Lordships’ House, the close working relationship we built up over the Bill is one of the memories I will cherish the most.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I add the thanks of the Liberal Democrat Benches to the Ministers—the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, the noble Lords, Lord Prior of Brampton and Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie—who have given such detailed contributions throughout some very tough debates on the Bill. I echo the appreciation expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to the Bill team for their engagement, briefings and meetings—and, indeed, their patience—in the course of the Bill.

We are most grateful that the Government have accepted and introduced so many amendments to the Bill, and we live in hope that the amendments agreed by this House will be confirmed by the Commons when the Bill returns to them. These include amendments on the issue of international students, on which the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, has a compelling article in today’s Guardian; to the teaching excellence framework; on safeguards for the quality of new providers; and on encouraging students to vote. We look forward to hearing the progress of my noble friend Lord Addington’s proposals for guidance for disabled students, and we hope that the Bill more generally will offer more opportunity to adult and part-time students.

Across the House we have all understood the need for teaching in universities to be accorded the same regard as research, but have sought ways which would encourage, rather than brand, institutions. We have seen it as imperative to maintain the worldwide respect of the UK’s higher education, while addressing any areas of shortcoming. I hope that the amended Bill will ensure that both teaching and research continue to flourish and offer learners—young, adult and, indeed, old—opportunities to develop and progress. We wish the ill-named Office for Students and the better-named UKRI every success, in the interests of the country, international collaboration and the individuals who work and achieve within our higher education sector.

I thank my noble friend Lord Storey for his tireless support and invaluable contributions on this and the Technical and Further Education Bill, and Elizabeth Plummer in our Whips’ Office, who provided us with immensely useful briefings. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, we have certainly benefited from close co-operation with the Labour Benches and the Cross Benches, as well as those on the Government Benches who shared some of our concerns. Collaboratively, we have left the Bill much better than how it reached us. Once again, I express the thanks of these Benches for the way in which scrutiny has been conducted, and the hope that the final Bill may reflect the wide- ranging expertise and contributions of your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

My Lords, I, too, will say a few words of thanks on my behalf and on behalf of my noble friends Lady Wolf and Lord Kerslake, who apologise that they are unable to be here today. As we have heard, the Cross Benches have played a significant role in scrutinising and revising the Bill, leading on four major amendments that were approved on Report, and championing many of the important changes that the Government have delivered through their amendments.

I thank the Government for listening and engaging with so many noble Lords from across the House. I particularly thank the Ministers—the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, the noble Lord, Lord Prior, and the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie—for their numerous responses. I have been hugely impressed by their stamina under enormous pressure and very long hours, and their numerous meetings and letters, which have been very helpful in developing a shared understanding of how to regulate and support a successful higher education system.

Most of all, I acknowledge the Bill team, with whom we have had some great, fun, controversial and heated meetings. They are really hard-working and committed civil servants. They have worked some very long and unsocial hours to support the passage of the Bill through your Lordships’ House and they deserve huge credit for that. All these efforts have contributed to what I am very pleased to hear we all agree—and I know the sector agrees—is now a much stronger Bill.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

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.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments. They are very reasonable and it is difficult to find too many reasons for opposing them other than bureaucracy. When you weigh it up, the argument comes down very much on the side of the amendments on this occasion and not on the side of bureaucracy.

This is primarily about delivering good-quality apprenticeships for young people and adults. We all know that one of the challenges is to change the public discourse about apprenticeships and vocational training, and we are going to have to work really hard if that is to happen. When I look back at the reforms in schools over the past two decades, one of the changes that enabled us to have a more effective public discourse and empower people to ask the right questions, both for members of their own family and in general, was the availability of data. I hear good-quality conversations now from parents, teachers and young people about education, and that is because they have the information to ask the questions and have the debate.

However, I do not think it is there with apprenticeships and technical education. We do not have it yet, and we have a responsibility, if this system is to work, to build up the data and language so that the public can have a proper conversation and monitor what is going on with apprenticeships. Certainly in the medium term, this amendment would help deliver that. It would put information in the public domain every year, and in time, if not immediately, that would lead to discussion and debate. That has to be good for raising the profile of this area of education as well as holding the institute to account for what it is delivering.

I accept that entirely, but also want to emphasise a different point. Has the Minister wondered whether this does not in some way reflect the annual HMCI report, which is laid before Parliament and on which there is always a public debate? It gets on the “Today” programme, bits of information get into the newspapers and the media, and it becomes part of the national conversation that we have about schools. So having this information in the public domain is the right thing to do for accountability. But it would also help with the cultural change that we have to bring about to have a public debate about this area of education. This is not unreasonable. I can see that in years to come—say, in five years’ time—we might want to review the minutiae and the details. I do not think we ought to be committed to this for ever and a day, but I cannot see that the value of starting the practice of having an annual report, monitoring progress and building up confidence and awareness, would be outweighed by any bureaucratic burden that it might place on organisations.

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[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

This is another area about which we have had a significant amount of dialogue with the Government during the interregnum between the Committee and Report stages, and we have had some correspondence from the Minister. At first sight the Bill seems to be a modest little measure, until you look into its implications. If there is one area with significant implications, it is around the transition to a new system of technical qualifications. One of the documents that we have received from the noble Lord, Lord Nash, says:

“The current system involves around 3,500 vocational qualifications, which can be hard to distinguish between—our intention is to streamline these options. The current landscape is confusing; for parents, students, careers advisers and employers. That is exactly why we are trying to reform and simplify it”.


It goes on to say:

“The Sainsbury Panel recommended that there should be a single exclusive licence for delivery of each new technical education qualification. The Institute will work with employers and other stakeholders to develop high-quality technical education qualifications, based on the knowledge, skills and behaviours that employers have identified as being a requirement for particular occupations”.


Again, that is a very ambitious objective. I agree that there is a bewildering number of technical qualifications out there. I would also agree that some of them are not of the highest standard, but that is not true of all those qualifications by any means. Some of them are well established and have a very good reputation, whether City & Guilds, HNC or HND. These have taken a long time to establish. We know—when I say “we” I mean the royal we—that is, the previous Labour Government know from when we tried to introduce diplomas that it was not exactly a primrose path to a new qualification. Once again, the law of unintended consequences applied: the intention might have been good, but the delivery was difficult.

When we asked what exactly would be the transition from the 3,500 to a number, depending on the 15 routes, that could possibly be just a single qualification, the response we had from the Bill team was that this is a work in progress. That is not intended to be a derogatory comment on my part because the Government are trying to achieve a complicated process. We have said to the Government to be careful—I was going to say be careful not to throw out some of these babies with the bathwater, but they are not exactly babies; these are very mature, adult qualifications that have been around for a long time and have a high reputation—about getting rid of those qualifications and to understand the difficulty of establishing new ones.

While we have been considering this legislation, a new description for the qualification has appeared: T-levels. I quite like it. I do not know who thought it up, but I thought that since we have A-levels, T-levels potentially sounded good. I and many others who have been looking at this problem are worried for a number of reasons. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and others will come in and expand on this. I do not know why this amendment has been taken as a separate group. The start of this, apart from all the other issues about intellectual property rights and other things that have been raised in the course of this debate, will be to get that transition process right. That will be a key part of establishing new technical qualifications. We do not want to be in a situation where suddenly we are introducing a huge level of doubt and uncertainty, where once again we are trying to create confidence in the apprenticeship brand and in technical education.

I understand that this is a work in progress, but I make a plea to the Minister and his team to recognise first the size of the task, which I think they do, and secondly the sensitivity of what they are dealing with and the need to get it right to ensure that there is adequate consultation, not only with employers but with all the other stakeholders, including the current awarding bodies and educational providers such as FE colleges. That is the basis of the amendment. Once again, I look forward to the ministerial response. I beg to move.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

6: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Technical Education Qualifications
In this Part “technical education qualifications” means the full range of work-based qualifications, whether technical, craft, creative, personal services, or professional.”

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, Amendment 6 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Storey. I will also speak to Amendment 28, which is in my name and supported by the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Watson of Invergowrie, and my noble friend Lord Storey.

I make no apology for bringing back Amendment 6. It is very simple. As we discussed in Committee, it would cost no money but would make a great difference. Craft and creative skills, personal services such as care or hairdressing, and professional skills such as business or accounting are not automatically seen as primarily technical. I accept that there has been a move away from the long-standing term “vocational” to cover non-academic qualifications and that the decision seems to have been taken that “technical” is the word of the moment, particularly now as we seem out of the blue to have T-levels—as the noble Lord, Lord Young explained. It would be interesting to know what consultation went on before the arrival on the scene of T-levels from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In order not to narrow the Bill to purely mechanical technical subjects, an explanatory clause would be a helpful addition and ensure that this legislation is seen to be inclusive of all work-based qualifications and across the range of courses offered in further education.

Arts subjects should be held in the same esteem as other courses. It is of great concern to hear that creativity and the arts are being squeezed out in schools. Between 2003 and 2013, there was a 50% drop in GCSE entries for design and technology, 23% for drama and 25% for other craft-related subjects. It stands to reason that this will have a knock-on effect on the take-up of further education courses in creative subjects. We would like to ensure through this amendment that there is no doubt that the attempts to improve technical education, as outlined in the Bill, apply equally across all courses.

Amendment 28 is for clarification. As we discussed in Committee and as the noble Lord, Lord Young, set out, we would like to clarify the transition process between these schemes. There is already a comprehensive list of approved technical education qualifications in the Ofqual regulated qualifications framework. We seek to clarify the relationship between that framework and the list in the Bill. It would certainly introduce complexity and confusion to have multiple qualification lists. Can the Minister clarify that the institute’s list will be a transfer from rather than in addition to the Ofqual list? If so, what systems will be set up to ensure that the transition and transfers are as straightforward as possible? Does the Minister envisage any major differences between these two lists? I look forward to his reply and beg to move.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I add my support to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. If I remember rightly, in Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen of Pimlico, asked whether the word “professional” might be added to “technical” in the Bill to provide a broader and more prestigious view of what was covered. I think “professional” has a lot of attractions to it in bridging the divide between academic and vocational qualifications. “Technical” gets some of the way but not all the way. I thought it was a good suggestion. The Minister said that he would take it away and think about it. I am sorry if I have missed the results of those deliberations in the letters that have been sent out. But if I have not missed them and we have not had them, could we have them now, please?

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[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I think it is unhelpful to try to put things into the brackets of “low-skilled”, “high-skilled” and “medium-skilled”, particularly based on what we experienced when we were much younger, and to try to connect them with apprenticeships. We are talking about technical education qualifications specifically, which may not be related to an apprenticeship. Occupations at the higher skill level will have technical education qualifications. Other occupations, while equally valid, will not.

Within the technical education routes there will be comprehensive coverage of skilled occupations. However, it is important to be clear that as well as meeting the technical education requirements set out in the Sainsbury panel, there must be labour market evidence to demonstrate employer need and a genuine skills gap. We will review this regularly and will continue to listen to any evidence from employers.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness and noble Lords for tabling Amendment 28 and for providing an opportunity to debate this issue. I hope that my explanation will put their minds at rest. The Ofqual register of regulated qualifications is a public-facing database listing the many qualifications that Ofqual regulates, including A-levels, GCSEs and functional skills. It is used as an indexing tool and includes information that helps employers, students and others understand the relative size and challenge of qualifications.

As noble Lords will be aware, new Section A2HA proposes that the institute will maintain a list of approved high-quality technical education qualifications based on the knowledge, skills and behaviours that employers have identified as requirements for particular occupations. When approving qualifications, the institute will need to ensure that the qualifications are at a level appropriate for the associated occupation or group of occupations. Qualifications will need to contain stretch and challenge that is commensurate with their ascribed level. They will need to be of an agreed size that reflects the amount of time involved in teaching and assessing them. This information will be clearly indicated in the list of qualifications maintained and published by the institute.

Once the institute has approved a new qualification, we will consider future funding for current similar qualifications on a case-by-case basis. We will not withdraw funding for students who are part-way through their course. Ofqual’s register of regulated qualifications and the institute’s register are both important parts of the system, but they have different purposes. If the institute’s register were to replace the Ofqual register, this would remove public information and a frame of reference for thousands of qualifications that would be outside the remit of the institute and which would have already been taken by students, including GCSEs and A-levels.

My noble friend Lord Lucas made a point about the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen, about “professional”. We have given this some consideration, and at the moment there is no consensus on an alternative to “technical education”. We have had a conversation today about technical education versus the entire gamut of qualifications or tests that you might take to work, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. It is important that technical education retains a certain status within the minds of learner and employer.

There is a public need to maintain both registers. I hope that my explanation has reassured the noble Baroness to the extent that she is prepared to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I thank the Minister for her reply. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for raising the matter of “professional”. I thought it had gained a certain accord in Committee, but it has obviously not found favour. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, disagrees with me on things or that she has sought to clarify. The short answer to my amendment is that there will not be only one list; there will be several lists. As the Minister explained, the Ofqual list is much broader. Presumably the institute’s list will be bits of what is on the Ofqual list. It will include some of the things on the Ofqual list which are relevant to higher technical qualifications, but if the Ofqual list is supposed to be a comprehensive list of all available qualifications, it will need to include those which the institute approves—perhaps I have misunderstood that.

I am also interested that it appears that we now have an A-list and a B-list, which I do not think was made particularly clear before. We have an A-list of qualifications which the institute approves, but in order to encompass all the other qualifications—the lower-level ones, for instance—there will be another list of qualifications which somehow will not come under the institute. This is confusing because the institute is now not only the Institute for Apprenticeships but the institute of further education, and further education, by definition, covers lower-level qualifications as well as higher-level qualifications.

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[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I warmly support what the noble Baroness is saying. It is not only lower-level qualifications; there are existing upper-level qualifications, for example, at level 4, which are very well regarded by industry and which are progression courses from level 3 to level 5 and a degree. We do not want them to disappear. They are a very important part of the technical education system of our country.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for his comments. I am pleased that I am not the only one who is finding this amendment rather more confusing than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be very straightforward, but it has brought in other aspects of the Bill. I hope it will be possible to have a meeting before Third Reading so that we can clarify what these two lists of qualifications will be and whether the B-list will be funded and recognised, or whether only the preferred A-list will lead on to apprenticeships and get the blessing of government. On the basis that further dialogue would be very welcome, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 6 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

23: Schedule 1, page 27, line 14, at end insert “using an appropriate form of continuous assessment.”

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 23 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Storey. The Government have introduced a raft of reforms to the apprenticeship system which they hope will contribute to the quality as well as the quantity of apprenticeships. One of the biggest departures, and among the most contentious, is the move to end-point assessment—EPA—as the sole formally recognised method of assessing an apprentice’s competence to do the job they have trained for. I am grateful to SEMTA and to Professor Lorna Unwin and Professor Alison Fuller from the Institute of Education for their work in this area and pay tribute to their expertise.

If we take the example of engineering, employers have looked to continuous assessment over three or more years, with formal qualifications used as the mechanism through which they can both assess and ensure that the full range of skills and knowledge has been learned, and that apprentices’ attainment has met national standards and earned national recognition. In overseas countries where EPA is used, it tends to be used in conjunction with other assessment and formal accreditation practices, with the assessment of skills taking place over the whole lifetime of the apprenticeship as well as in a summative form at the end of the programme and through formal qualifications. It is important that the assessment methodology is appropriate and is encouraging to the apprentice. Young people need to gain confidence as they learn that their skills are being recognised. The best way to do this is through continuous assessment. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that EPA will not be the only assessment used and that learners will be assessed continuously to ensure that they reach their potential and help to plug the yawning skills gap in the country. I beg to move.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to discuss Amendment 23, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, which would require all apprenticeship assessment plans to include continuous assessment.

Reviewing the role of continuous assessment in apprenticeships has been a very important part of the apprenticeship reforms following the 2012 Richard review of apprenticeships. It concluded that continuous assessment throughout an apprenticeship tested only incremental progress, not whether the apprentice is fully competent at the time of completing their apprenticeship. This approach also undermines our principle of ensuring that assessment is delivered by an independent third party with nothing to gain from the outcome of the assessment. The continuous assessment model often means that the same individual trains and assesses an apprentice—a conflict of interest we have sought to avoid.

An important feature of approved English apprenticeship standards and plans is therefore the move away from this reliance on a series of small and pre-existing qualifications making up an apprenticeship, and the move instead towards a single, independent end-point assessment, which tests the apprentice in a holistic and robust way. This test at the end of the apprenticeship proves genuine employability by demonstrating that the apprentice has acquired the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to be fully competent in their occupation. The requirements for the end-point assessment of each standard are developed by employer groups and approved by the institute to ensure that it meets the needs for that specific occupation. In view of this, I hope the noble Baroness feels reassured enough to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. He said that the same people will be testing and assessing but the likelihood is that that will be the employer, who will know the standards they wish the apprentice to reach. There is a place for end-point assessment, but it should not be the only way of assessing these skills. They are learned continuously and should be assessed continuously. However, I hear what the noble Lord says, and we need to keep this under review to make sure that we are not putting off a lot of people with practical skills, who find the end-point assessment a real barrier to learning and accreditation. Meanwhile, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 23 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

24: Schedule 1, page 28, line 37, leave out “the qualification to which it considers section A2IA” and insert “relevant standards or common qualification criteria which”

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 26 and 29 to 33, which are in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Watson, and my noble friend Lord Storey.

This series of amendments is intended to limit the institute’s ability to acquire wholesale the intellectual property relating to materials developed by awarding bodies. We expressed serious concerns about this in Committee. This is a significant proposal, which was not canvassed in the skills plan. As drafted, it is unclear whether awarding organisations retain any copyright to potentially key documents relating to a qualification once ownership transfers to the IATE. It is further proposed in paragraph 23 of Schedule 1, proposed new Section A2IA—“Transfer of copyright relating to technical education qualifications”—that:

“The Institute may assign … or grant a licence to another person”,


in the copyright transferred to the institute. These are draconian proposals.

The arguments we have been offered include that the Government—that is, the taxpayer—will have paid the awarding body to develop the materials and are therefore entitled to ownership. Publishers often give advances to authors, but they do not thereafter claim copyright. The payment is for the skills and expertise; the contents should remain the property of the author organisation. Another reason given was that it would provide continuity. If awarding body A loses a contract to awarding body B, there could be a seamless transfer. This begs a few questions. If awarding body B has won the contract, how could it do so without providing its own materials, and what self-respecting awarding body would opt to take over a competitor’s materials? But what if awarding body A had gone bust? I find it sad and inexplicable that so much of the Bill presupposes that those involved with further and technical education are overly liable to go into insolvency. It is a pretty robust sector. Might it have gone into insolvency because the Government have taken over all its materials, one wonders? In any case, in the unlikely event that a key awarding body went into liquidation, I feel sure that measures could be taken to retrieve any materials which had not already been handed over lock, stock and barrel to the Government.

We have heard from City & Guilds and other awarding bodies that the provisions in the Bill on the ownership of intellectual property and qualifications are unclear. As many awarding organisations operate outside England and export their current qualifications overseas, this lack of clarity will have an impact on the development of qualifications. We note, as we did in Committee, that in both general academic studies and higher-level studies the Government do not attempt to own the copyright qualifications. We caution that this approach could have a disproportionate impact on the technical qualifications market in the UK.

We propose that institute-owned copyright is more appropriately applied at the level of national standards, allowing awarding organisations to retain their copyright in their own materials. The power of the institute is so uncertain that it makes it impossible to ascertain the value of investing in developing qualifications going forward. Further, it should be noted that there is no mention in the Sainsbury report, which was the progenitor of the skills plan, or in the skills plan, of the handing over of copyright to the institute in documents related to qualifications.

As to single awarding organisations, what evidence is there that the current awarding arrangement has led to distortions of the vocational market? As we pointed out in Committee, there is a certain inconsistency in government policy, which is going all out for more competition in universities—raising considerable concerns in this House—with a move to a monopolistic model for vocational awarding. The current mixed-market model may not be perfect but it supports and encourages investment and innovation, as well as giving choice and safeguarding learner interests in the event of any awarding organisation failure. A similar model was proposed for GCSE and English baccalaureate subjects, and was abandoned following robust evidence from the Education Select Committee and Ofqual. Why should these qualifications be treated differently? If a single-supplier franchising approach was deemed too high-risk for the general qualifications market, why should it be deemed suitable for technical qualifications? I wonder whether these restrictions might be connected with the fact that those in government—whether in Westminster or Whitehall—will predominantly have achieved their own success through academic routes. How many people in the DfE have followed an apprenticeship or a work-based route and understand first-hand just how relevant and rigorous those programmes are? The Civil Service used to have graduate and direct-entry routes, both of which could lead to the highest levels. These days, most will be graduates. It is therefore all the more important that those in government listen to the practitioners and heed their advice. I hope the Minister will be open to these important amendments, and I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I completely support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. I do not think that any Peer who has been involved in the Bill wishes it anything other than complete success. We are all behind the objectives and the methodology which is set out in the Sainsbury report and what has been built upon that. We want to ensure in the passage of the Bill that what we are producing will work well.

In the process of putting the Bill together, certain ideas have been developed which will not weather exposure to practice. When it comes to sitting down with industries, awarding bodies and others, the ideas that are being touted as the way things will be under the Bill will not be the things that work out. I want to make sure that the Bill has sufficient flexibility built into it so that, if things need to take a different turn to make this project succeed, they will be able to, and we will not find ourselves hobbled by primary legislation.

I have one separate amendment in this group that is aimed at the question of multiple qualifications within one particular sub-route—I do not yet know what they will be called; in the picture supplied to us they look like the fingers of a hand, although I do not think they will be called fingers. To restrict yourself to one single awarding organisation creates a monopoly in the short term, and in the long term it reinforces it. If you take one particular skill set within the universe covered by the Bill, and you say, “Only this awarding organisation can create qualifications for this for the next seven years”, what other awarding organisation will maintain the ability to compete? None of them will. Why should they? There is no business for seven years and they cannot afford to do it. It is all based on a collection of people, and anyway it is not something that stays still; it continuously evolves. There is no way that they will remain in a position to compete, so when you come up to the renewal of this single licence, there will be only one competitor.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas]

I am grateful for what my noble friend said on my amendments, but to turn to the main group, where she has adumbrated some new ideas in very few words, might we have a meeting between Report and Third Reading so that we can better understand the details of what is proposed?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for her full reply on all this, but I am left as confused as at the start. There is this curious thing that the institute can grant a licence back to the awarding body that actually created the materials in the first place or can give them to multiple awarding organisations. I find that a curious concept given that awarding organisations have to have a commercial structure and to make ends meet, and the materials with which they trade are very often their assessment materials. The Minister has made great play of the fact that there is flexibility in the Bill. But the trouble is that, by the time the Bill goes through with these measures enshrined that copyright is transferred to the institute, there is not much flexibility there if copyright is once lost to the institute.

There were a number of other things that I will read in detail in the Minister’s reply. I will not go through the different points that I have scribbled down because they merit a lot of thought. I also pick up the request made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that we will need some serious conversations about this because it will come back at Third Reading for a vote unless we can get some clearer reassurance.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

Can we be clear that this can be brought back at Third Reading and that we can have a debate on principles? That would be very important in bringing this to a conclusion tonight. It is essential that we know that we can bring this back at Third Reading.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Yes. It will definitely come back at Third Reading.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

There is no guarantee at all because the clerks are tight about what they will allow. The Government have to agree that they will allow us to bring it back. That is why I made the point.

[Lord Nash]

I should make it clear that if the noble Baroness and the noble Lord wish to test the temperature of the House, they should do so now.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

We were hoping that we could have a dialogue about this because these matters are key to the success of apprenticeships. But if that is the Minister’s approach, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

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

Moved by

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

34: Schedule 1, page 31, line 26, at end insert—
“( ) about permission for the use of the DfE logo and standard wording on technical education certificates;”

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I fear that this may be something of an anti-climax after the previous excitement. Nevertheless, I wish to move Amendment 34 and speak also to Amendment 35. They have the support of the noble Lords, Lord Lucas and Lord Watson, and of my noble friend Lord Storey.

As we set out in Committee, there are quite a few questions to be asked about the institute’s power to issue technical education certificates. We understand that this will not be done by the institute but be delegated to the Skills Funding Agency. Either way, public time and money will be used to duplicate a function which is already well covered under existing systems.

This proposal was not set out in the skills plan. It potentially removes any continuing link between the awarding body and the qualification that it has produced. We are here attempting to clarify the relationship between the issuing of the proposed certificates and the qualification certificates issued by awarding organisations. Are the Government proposing to issue these “technical education certificates” alongside the awarding organisation’s certificate?

We heard earlier from the Minister that employers would pay for the certificate. It would be helpful to hear more about who makes the application. Does it come from the employer, from the training provider or from the awarding body? Is it automatically triggered by attainment of a qualification?

I do not think that we have had an assessment of the resources required by the institute, or the SFA, 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?

There is a very simple solution. 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 to whichever body is tasked with carrying it out. 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? This has been common practice in the past, including with national vocational qualifications, and would have the benefit of adding government backing and status to a certificate already being validated, processed and issued.

I assure your Lordships that awarding bodies can produce some immensely impressive certificates to meet immensely impressive achievements. I hope that the amendment will be seen as positive and helpful. I beg to move.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for tabling these amendments. A fundamental reason for introducing the technical education reforms is to tackle the weakness in the current 16 to 19 education system caused by fragmentation and variation in the quality and value of the qualification certificates currently provided by many individual awarding organisations.

To address this, it is important that the technical education certificates are issued consistently by one entity under consistent branding so that they are recognised and understood by employers regardless of the qualification or where it was undertaken. The Bill makes provision for the Secretary of State to issue a technical education certificate to any person who has completed a technical education qualification and any other steps determined under new Section A2DB.

Those completing either an apprenticeship or a technical education course will receive a nationally awarded certificate from the Secretary of State. This will confirm that they obtained as many of the key skills and behaviours as the institute deems appropriate for a particular occupation. The technical education certificate will also recognise the other essential elements such as attainment in English and maths, completion of work placements and other route-specific qualifications. The certificate will demonstrate to employers that individuals obtained the knowledge, skills and behaviours necessary to undertake their chosen occupation. It will provide clarity for employers and support the portability and progression value of the qualifications.

As currently drafted, these amendments will allow the Secretary of State to use the DfE logo and standard wording on technical education certificates—which of course she may already do. It is also right that only the certificate should bear the department’s logo and standard wording. This will also ensure that certificates for technical education align as closely as possible with certificates for apprenticeships. However, this will not affect any arrangements that the institute entered into with an organisational consortium that is approved to deliver a technical education qualification. These arrangements are likely to include the use of their own logo or branding on any certificate that they issue in respect of that qualification.

We expect costs to be incurred in issuing the certificates. It is therefore right that the Secretary of State should be able to determine whether to charge for the first technical education certificate and a copy of it, and if so how much. This is consistent with the procedure already followed for charging for the issuing of apprenticeship certificates or supplying copies of them. Our reforms will ensure we operate a system for the future, providing a national offer that is recognised and understood by employers regardless of the qualification or where it is undertaken.

I hope that clarifies the situation for the noble Baroness. She made a point about how the institute will be aware of the addresses of recipients. That information will come via the awarding organisation to the institute. Students must apply to the Secretary of State for their certificate. If I have not answered all the points that the noble Baroness is concerned about, I am happy to discuss this with her further and to provide more information. In that spirit, I hope she will feel reassured to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I thank the Minister for his reply. I am slightly bemused because employers seem to understand very well the previous certificates that went out, with NVQ and awarding-body logos. There was not a particular confusion about the standards there. As I say, given that the awarding organisations already issue certificates, it would seem a much neater operation if it was combined into one certificate instead of having the confusion of two. I thank the noble Lord for his offer to have further discussion on this and meanwhile beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 34 withdrawn.

Universities: European Union Students

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My noble friend is absolutely right and, on the statistics for 2015-16, there were 33,700 EU national academic staff at UK higher education institutions, accounting for around 17% of the total academic workforce—so it is an important point. The Prime Minister has been clear that we want to guarantee rights for EU nationals in Britain and British nationals in the EU as early as we can. Our European partners agree with this and, as my noble friend Lord Bridges said the other day,

“the Polish Prime Minister has said: ‘Of course, these guarantees would need to be reciprocal. It is also important what guarantees the British citizens living and working in other member states of the European Union will have’”.—[Official Report, 13/3/17; col. 1719.]

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, among the many concerns of present and potential EU students are not just financial considerations but the fear that they may be refused entry back into the UK if they have spent time abroad—on a third-year abroad scheme, say, or other things that take them out of the country for several months. What assurances can the Government give both to current and prospective students that they will be able to travel freely in and out of the UK in the course of their studies?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. These are reassurances that we are looking to give, and I reassure her further that we are maintaining our dialogue with the sector about the risks and the opportunities that Brexit presents. Jo Johnson, the Minister for Universities, has established a high-level stakeholder working group on the EU exit for universities, research and innovation.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

We on this side of the House know all about people who believe that they can set aside reality and that people will go with them—but you cannot. So the relative judgments to help students know what type of university they are going to and what they are going to get are fine, but relative outcomes are not suitable in terms of a judgment of the ranking of universities across the board in this country. What is, is—and universities should be judged holistically on what they offer and the outcome measures they provide, not on what the comparator is with another institution of a particular type. Therefore, we need to be clear that in future we will want to lift the quality in every aspect of higher education, whatever the background and historic resonance of the university. In the end, we want people to know that quality means quality.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments proposed by the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. I have added my name to Amendment 72 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and I entirely endorse all that he has said. I pay tribute to him for all that he has done for education in this country. His amendment is supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, and myself, and I shall speak briefly to Amendment 73, which stands in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Storey.

Amendment 72 sets out a scheme to evaluate teaching and encourage best practice based on systems already in place in universities. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Storey said:

“Teaching is not just about knowledge but also about how you relate to young people. The most knowledgeable and gifted professor may be unable to relate to a young person, and therefore cannot teach the subject”.—[Official Report, 18/1/17; col. 272.]


That is why I come back to my call for all those required to teach in universities to be offered training in the skill of teaching. Having a higher education teaching qualification would be ideal, but it is very unlikely to meet the favour of the Government or, indeed, of universities. It is important that training in how to teach should be available to all those who are expected to teach in universities. That would do more to raise standards than the threats of the TEF metrics. I repeat the call to end zero-hours contracts for academic staff, to which we will refer later today. Constant employment insecurity is not conducive to commitment to high standards of teaching.

The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, offers a productive way forward. It calls for assessment of meeting or not meeting expectations and would certainly minimise the damaging league tables or single composite rankings, which do much more to disincentivise those working hard in challenging situations than they do to encourage those who regularly feature at the top of such rankings.

I also pick up the noble Duke’s point. It may be that universities that support the TEF do so not just to raise teaching standards but because the Government are coercing them with fee rises. It would be interesting to see, if fee rises were uncoupled, how many would be so wholehearted in this untried and untested set of metrics.

Our Amendment 73 has already been addressed in earlier debates. It would prevent the TEF being used to determine eligibility for a visa for students to attend universities. I shall not speak more on that because we covered this issue pretty comprehensively. I certainly support all the amendments in this group.

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 69 on the National Student Survey and Amendment 67 on postponing by a year the ability of TEF rankings to affect the fees universities can charge. Noble Lords will be relieved to hear that I will not repeat the longish and geekish speech I made in Committee on the National Student Survey. I look forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Bew—a man whose expertise in this field no one in the House will doubt—putting the main arguments forward. However, the House ought to be updated on two recent developments that bear on the validity of the NSS.

First, there is the letter of 23 February from Ed Humpherson, the director-general for regulation at the UK Statistics Authority, to the DfE, responding to concerns raised with that authority on the NSS. It is a letter that needs a little reading between the lines, but in summary it refers approvingly to what Ministers have done to downgrade the NSS in the TEF. I will come back to that in a minute. It tells the department it must address the recommendations in the ONS report of June 2016 on the NSS and of the Royal Statistical Society in July 2016. Why do I draw attention to those two documents? They are the fundamental and official documents on which the critics of the NSS rest their case. They also take reading between the lines, but when this is done they are excoriating critiques.

Secondly, there is the question of benchmarking. Those reports and everyone who has addressed this subject agree that you cannot use the TEF for direct comparison between institutions. You simply cannot use it to compare the Royal College of Music and Trinity Laban—the two conservatoires that my noble friend Lord Winston and I have the honour of chairing—with Kingston University or any other I could mention. Instead, we are supposed to use benchmarking, which means comparing similar institutions.

Benchmarking raises its own set of statistical questions, which I will spare the House, so the Government decided that they needed an independent report on benchmarking and its statistical difficulties. What does that report say? It says nothing. Why does it say nothing? It is because it does not exist. Why does it not exist? It is because the Higher Education Statistics Agency, which admits this perfectly freely, has failed to commission it. It has been very difficult to get anyone to take it on. The pillar that bears the NSS in the TEF may be of solid oak, or it may be completely rotten. Without that study we have no idea.

The amendment I am speaking to calls for an inquiry into the NSS. I am delighted by all the concessions that the Government have made on the NSS in the TEF—although I should not call them “concessions”; they have given way to reason on these subjects—including its official downgrading to the least important metric, the admission of its shortcomings for small institutions, the one-year postponement of the subject TEF and the lessons-learned exercise. All those are sensible and welcome concessions from the Government. However, they mandate one further concession. It would be a self-inflicted blunder by the Government now to go ahead and let the TEF stop some universities’ raising fees on the original timetable until and unless that lessons-learned exercise has been completed and, indeed, the study that was supposed to have been commissioned by the Higher Education Statistics Agency has been commissioned.

We have been jumping in the dark into a pit whose depth we do not know. I want, and most noble Lords want, the TEF to work, but a rushed TEF, littered with statistical errors, will not work. If Ministers want the TEF to last—they do, and I do—they need a measured timetable for its introduction. They need to give it time to bed down. Otherwise, the flaws that I and others have been pointing to in this debate will turn from glints in the eyes of the geeks to real-world inadequacies and perhaps in some cases will even threaten the existence of the institutions that lose out as a result of those flaws. That would undermine the legitimacy of the whole scheme.

I beg the Minister, who has made so much progress with this Bill, not to concede, at the last minute, an own goal which may mean that what could have been a reasonable victory turns into a dreadful loss.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I thank the Minister for Amendment 100. We had a quick gloss over this the other day, and I sought a device to bring Amendment 100 back because in our heady and heavy discussions, sometimes we have lost sight of the other side of higher education and, in particular, of students who are working part-time and the significant number of students who drop out of higher education. Every year, approximately 8% of students drop out of their courses; for some courses the figure is as high as 30%. I am doing some work on nursing degrees, and research is showing that as many as 35% of students start a degree but do not finish it. That is a huge waste of talent. Some of those people—albeit very few of them—come back to complete their degrees, but the whole system in the UK is very much geared against that. If you fail, you fail: that is the maxim throughout our education system. It applies at GCSE and A-levels and certainly at university.

The Government are to be hugely congratulated on Amendment 100 which, for the very first time, accepts that this is a real issue. One of the problems is that if students are on the wrong course, how do they transfer to another one, particularly one at another university? Students often enter vocational degrees later in life, and there are changes in their lives. A student marries, or their partner needs to move for their career, so the student needs to go to another institution to complete their studies, and there is a host of problems in doing that. Very few institutions have a robust, well-advertised, student-friendly system whereby students can leave and come back, or leave and go to another university.

The trouble is that we have a higher education system that prizes its autonomy above everything else. It is one of the great strengths of our education system. In the short time I have been in your Lordships’ House and the time I was in the other place, I have seen nothing excite people more, be they MPs or Peers, than attacks on the higher education system. Everyone comes out, as your Lordships have seen this afternoon.

I want to make sure that we do something about it when students, for whatever reason—sometimes it is for personal reasons; sometimes it is because they are just not coping with the course—drop out of the system. The first step is to make sure you have a robust system whereby students know they can transfer somewhere else if they are not succeeding, or if they drop out, they can either return or transfer somewhere else if they need to. Amendment 100 deals with a lot of those issues, but the Government have slightly let us down here—I say “slightly” because I very much support what they are trying to do. New subsection (1)(a) says that the Office for Students “must monitor the availability”, while new subsection (1)(b) says that it,

“must include in its annual report a summary of conclusions drawn … for the financial year”.

But when it comes to the vital part—ensuring that universities have robust systems in place to enable students to arrange transfers—the amendment brings in the word “may”. New subsection (1)(c) says that the OfS,

“may facilitate, encourage, or promote awareness”.

Your Lordships know full well what “may” means—it basically means you do not have to do it. That is the problem with this.

The previous Labour Government, in 2009, brought in some similar regulations, which were advisory. The current Government, to their credit, did a piece of research in summer last year on what was happening with student transfer in various universities. I read the results, which were published in December, and they were hugely disappointing. It is not this Government’s fault, the previous Government’s fault or the previous Labour Government’s fault. The reality is that this is not taken seriously by most universities. I have the most enormous regard for the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, but we had a slight spat in Committee when I said that the Russell group universities were the worst offenders. I stick by that, although in actual fact I do not know. She took me to task, but the reality is that she does not know either, as they do not publish anything to back up the case.

Through Amendment 100A, I want to change the word “may” to “must”, so that the Office for Students must facilitate, must encourage and must promote awareness of the provision of arrangements. Universities would then have to have a system, because that system would be reported back to the OfS and would appear in the annual report. It is a very simple change. I am sure that the Minister, in his wisdom and in his love and affection for all that is happening in the higher education system, will agree to this very small amendment, which would make a huge difference to the very significant number of students who, for whatever reason, drop out. We want them back.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment for all the good reasons that he has given. In addition, given that the Government are making provision for some providers to fail, it is important that measures are in place for students to have records of the credits they have accumulated from their studies, so that they are best placed to find an alternative provider without going back to the start and can get credit for partial awards they have achieved. I know that even in the days of the polytechnics, with their single validator, the CNAA, it was not always straightforward for students to take their credits from one polytechnic to the other; with different and varied providers, it will be even less straightforward. It is a time-consuming process, as providers need to be able to match the credits from an organisation to bring them across into their own systems. But it is still well worth doing, and the Bill could help by making it mandatory for institutions to set up systems to,

“facilitate, encourage, or promote awareness of … arrangements … for student transfers”.

Changing this one word, “may” to “must”, should enable that to happen.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Democracy is fragile and a healthy democracy requires democratic participation. Enabling and empowering young people to vote is our democratic duty. Here we have a real opportunity to increase participation among hundreds of thousands of those least likely to be on the electoral register. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment and congratulate the noble Baroness on her appointment to Somerville—that is great. As she explained, the amendment would ensure that all eligible students are provided with an opportunity to opt in to the electoral register for the location in which they are studying.

The introduction of individual electoral registration—IER—is a huge change in how elections operate in the UK. It helps the accuracy of the register and helps to counter fraud. So we support IER but want to ensure that it is implemented in the right way. Often when someone is moving house, registering to vote can be a low priority. Many people realise that they did not get around to registering only at election time, when it is already too late. Analysis from the Electoral Commission has shown that areas with a high concentration of certain demographics—students, private renters and especially young adults, who move regularly—are in particular danger of having low registration numbers. It is therefore important that special care is taken to prevent at-risk groups failing to register and failing to have their say at an election. It is particularly important that young people at university should have every encouragement to engage with democracy and the political process as early as possible. We need the engagement of young people to ensure the survival of democracy.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, many universities already do this. The amendment would mean that all would be involved. It would go a long way to helping students to be aware of the need to register and help them to do so quickly and easily. I fully support the amendment.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support the aim of this amendment, having spoken in favour of its predecessor in Committee. Across the House there is a firm view that all possible means should be employed to get more young people on to the electoral register. Those of us who visit schools, as part of the Lord Speaker’s outreach programme—my noble friend the Minister is one of that number—often urge action in concert with local electoral registration offices. I did so myself last Friday. As the noble Baronesses have emphasised, higher education institutions can make a significant contribution to the increased registration of young people, on which the whole future success of our democracy depends. The means lie readily to hand, the procedure is simple and the will is clearly present in many universities. All of them now need to be encompassed in a strong and determined higher education initiative on behalf of our young people and their democratic future. As I have said before, the campaign for increased registration needs sustained cross-party support. All parties must be in this together, to coin a phrase.

In replying to a debate in Committee, my noble friend Lady Goldie suggested that in some higher education institutions a lack of resources might impede or delay progress. I hope that in replying to this debate my noble friend Lord Young will give a clear assurance that the Government will play their full part in helping to remove any obstacles to progress and to achieving the sustained campaign of action that is so urgent.