Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am happy to support the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on this amendment. It is only the OfS that will do these things when they need doing and keep an eye on them, and it ought to be part of what it is meant to do. It is far too easy for schools, colleges and universities to continue with their current practices and to grouse about what is happening. However, no individual or small collection of individuals ever has sufficient incentive to kick against the current system and to try to get a motion for change going. An example of that is post-qualification admission. I speak to a lot of schools, and a large number of them would like to move to post-qualification admission. Nothing will happen unless the OfS or a similar body decides to take a look at it. I hope that my noble friend can reassure me that, should the OfS or the Government wish to take a look at these things, they can do so without any powers beyond those provided in the Bill.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I support both the amendments in this group. I think that the arguments for post-qualification admissions are very strong and need further review. I would also welcome a mention in the Bill of part-time and mature students, who deserve to be given full consideration and are too often overlooked. I think that there is merit in both the amendments.

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[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, my colleague and right reverend friend the Bishop of Ely is unable to be in his place, but has asked me to bring before your Lordships Amendment 134A. I and he welcome the Minister’s assurances thus far for disabled students. It is very welcome that he intends to publish guidance to ensure that higher education institutions are best able to fulfil their duties to disabled students.

For any student to begin the undertaking of a university course is a large commitment. Students with disabilities may face additional challenges to those encountered by their peers, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, so eloquently expressed last week—hence the importance of ensuring that adequate provision is made to allow them fully to engage with their course of study and all the other dimensions of a university education on equal terms with their fellow students who do not have a disability. In the event of a closure of their course, or even of the whole institution, plainly all students affected would face significant upheaval. For students with disabilities or other learning needs, the stakes are understandably even higher. For example, they may have specific needs around transport, specialist support, or adapted accommodation.

The numbers involved are significant. About 86,000 students in the UK—5% of all students—claim disabled students’ allowance, which, as noble Lords will know, covers those with long-term health conditions, mental health conditions and specific learning difficulties. In addition, there will be other students who are not eligible to claim DSA but who will have support needs which institutions work hard to meet. I mention only one such group: those with mental health issues, for whom we were pleased to hear of plans further to improve support arrangements in conjunction with, for instance, UUK.

That is why I ask the Minister to consider giving specific priority, when student protection plans are being drawn up and approved, to those students with these specific needs. Especially in the light of sympathy expressed so far, will Ministers and officials consider looking afresh at the explicit inclusion of those with specific needs in criteria for approving and reviewing student protection plans, as the amendment would require?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support the right reverend Prelate’s amendment. We hear increasingly of mental ill-health and stress among students, so building in provision for them would be helpful.

On Amendment 138, as the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Norton, have said, it seems strange not to have such a provision in the Bill. I see in the guidance notes that the wording is not quite the same, but these same provisions have been put as “the measures for a protection plan could include”, so there seems no reason why there should not be the extra assurance of having these measures spelled out in the Bill.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, we are surely clear that the route that we are going down will mean that institutions go bust and find themselves unable to function. My noble friend the Minister said in one of his replies to me on Monday that information as to whether a university was getting near the borderline, in terms of having the ability to admit overseas students removed from it, would be concealed. So we must expect students to be faced with the closure of their courses at short notice, and we must expect the institutions running those courses to be completely incapable of helping them.

In those circumstances, we need what my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth has proposed, which is a mutual scheme. That must have the ability to organise for the courses to happen—so it must have money and it must have agreement that room will be made for students. It must have enough leverage to deal with the Home Office, because any student who is looking at an extended time here to complete a course will be in real trouble—returning home; six-month waits—trying to organise extensions. It is difficult enough for a student at Imperial who needs an extra year for his PhD; it will be extremely difficult for students in a failed institution. We need some money, some clout and some organisation behind this. If it is not to be the sort of structure that my noble friend proposes, my Amendment 163 would dump the obligation to look after such students on the OfS—but it has to be somewhere.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking to the various amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevenson, including Schedule 2 stand part.

Schedule 2 is about linking the case for a fees increase to the teaching excellence framework. It provides a mechanism for the setting of fee limits, permitting providers to charge fees up to an inflation-linked cap according to their ratings for teaching quality established through the teaching excellence framework, which is referred to—though not, of course, by name—in Clause 25. The Explanatory Notes reveal the name of the TEF, which is supposed to enable the impartial assessment of different aspects of teaching, including student experience and the job prospects of graduates.

We believe it is important to break the proposed connection between measuring teaching quality and the level of fees that can be charged. Increasing fee limits in line with inflation is of course nothing new. It was introduced in Labour’s Higher Education Act 2004 and was routinely applied between 2007 and 2012, until ended by the coalition Government. What is new is linking fee limits to teaching performance, and that is what has alarmed so many people and institutions in the higher education sector.

The framework is described in Clause 25 as a system for providing,

“ratings … to English higher education providers”.

Schedule 2 sets out the meaning of a high-level quality rating, which will be determined by the Secretary of State. Our Amendment 122B seeks to ensure that the high-level rating is established by regulation so that it can be subject to proper scrutiny by Parliament. That rating will be the gold standard, irrespective of whether we have a traffic-light system, and, as such, will be of crucial importance in the future of higher education in England—too important, we would argue, to be left to the Secretary of State alone to decide.

Universities are rightly concerned about the use of proxy metrics, including statistics on graduate earnings, in a framework that is supposed to be about teaching quality. Also of concern is the fact that a gold, silver and bronze rating system is proposed to differentiate the sector based on those metrics. This will undermine the sector’s reputation both within the UK and overseas because universities deemed to be bronze will have been independently quality assured and have met all expectations of a good provider, but that is not how it will appear to those outside, whether in the UK or, indeed, further afield. That is why we have submitted Amendment 195, which seeks to ensure that the scheme has only two ratings: meets expectations and fails to meet expectations. That has the benefit of being simple to operate and, perhaps as important, simple to understand for those considering whether to apply to a particular institution. It also sends a clear message beyond these shores and enables comparisons to be made with providers in other countries without the confusion of a bizarre system of three categories.

Where metrics are used, they have to be much more securely evidence-based than those suggested. Our Amendments 196 and 198 contain proposals that would oblige the OfS to make an assessment of the evidence that any proposed metric for assessing teaching quality is actually correlated to teaching quality and would ensure that, prior to making that assessment, the OfS consult those who know first-hand what is needed to measure teaching quality namely, academic staff and students. Having carried out those requirements in the interests of full transparency, the OfS should publish the assessments. Surely any inconvenience that the Minister may point to in terms of administrative burdens on the OfS would be more than counterbalanced by the benefits accruing in terms of the much more robust nature of the metrics produced.

We also believe it is necessary for the OfS to demonstrate the number of international students applying to and enrolled at higher education providers that have applied for a rating. It is important to protect the number of international students that providers are permitted to recruit; and to ensure transparency on that, the OfS should be obliged to lay a report before Parliament each year. My noble friend Lord Stevenson has added his name to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, on Amendment 200 to emphasise that we believe it is essential that the TEF must not be used as a determinant when providers seek to enrol international students, and I look to the Minister to confirm that, even if he is unable to accept the amendment itself.

Those faced with a wide range of institutions from which to choose when considering their course of study have a right to the fullest possible information on which to base that choice. That is why our Amendment 176 seeks to alter the wording of Clause 25, in much the same way as is proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in his amendment, to ensure that all the relevant information is made easily accessible to staff, students and parents and that the information is made available in a consistent form in order to facilitate meaningful comparisons between providers.

Noble Lords on all sides of the House made clear at Second Reading their opposition to statutory links between teaching quality and the level of fees being charged for that teaching. Since tuition fees were increased from £3,000 to £9,000 in 2012, there is no evidence to suggest that there has been a consequential improvement in teaching quality. Indeed, the National Union of Students has said that there has been no change in student satisfaction with the teaching on their course, while institutions have, in some cases, been shown to spend additional income from the fees rise on increased marketing materials rather than on efforts to improve course quality.

Why do the Government now believe that there is a link between fees and teaching excellence? Indeed, which should come first or be expected to come first? This is a clear example of the Government’s view that the Bill is as much a question of consumerism as it is about education. As I said at Second Reading, we on these Benches reject the concept of students as customers or consumers in higher education. Many universities have said in their response to the Bill that there is no evidence to point to fee increases improving the quality of teaching. The University of Cambridge stated in its written evidence that the link between the TEF and fees is,

“bound to affect student decision-making adversely and in particular it may deter students from low income families from applying to the best universities”.

Another point of concern in relation to the fees link is that in further stages of the TEF, the Government are moving to subject-based assessment. We do not take issue with that, because universities are large institutions within which there are a huge range of subjects and a great diversity of teaching quality, but linking a fee with an institutional assessment cannot do other than mask that range of teaching quality. People studying in a department where the teaching quality is not as good as in others will also pay higher fees. This flawed proposal does not enhance the Government’s objective, and we believe it should be rejected.

What Schedule 2 would do is introduce the provision that only those providers that can demonstrate high-quality provision can maintain their fees in line with inflation. The specious reasoning behind this proposal, based on metrics that are widely seen as an inappropriate method in which to take such decisions, would lead to a skewed outcome because, as we heard at Second Reading, several high-performing institutions would lose out on a high-level rating through no fault of the actual quality of their teaching.

We of course welcome any means of improving teaching quality in higher education, and we do not oppose a mechanism to measure such improvement if a reliable one can be found. But the TEF as proposed is not that mechanism, for reasons that I have touched on already and shall expand on when we come to debate what is currently group 17. Schedule 2 introduces the whole area of the fee limit and fee regime, a link which we believe is without merit. As such, Schedule 2 is not fit for purpose, and that is why we believe it should not stand part of the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, which complement those that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has already spoken to. The Government’s current policy is for fees, even for those having achieved the top rate of the TEF, to increase only by inflation. However, paragraph 4(2)(b) of Schedule 2—on page 78, line 3—enables an increase by more than inflation if a resolution to that effect is passed in Parliament. Amendment 125 would remove this provision, thus requiring new primary legislation for any Government wishing to go further.

Amendment 199, which mirrors the amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has already spoken to, is somewhat of a pre-emptive amendment. No matter what your view of the TEF, it is clear that it is an attempt, albeit ham-fisted in our view, to give students more information and more security when choosing a course and to lift the standard of teaching in our university sector across the board. Both of these are noble aims. We agree with the aims, but challenge the methods proposed. We particularly deplore the categorisation of gold, silver and bronze, which seems to us to be extraordinarily damaging.

We do not have faith that the TEF will not be used for ulterior purposes in the future, in particular as part of the Government’s continued, blinkered action towards student immigration. This fear is not unfounded. Nick Timothy, the Prime Minister’s most senior adviser, is one of the biggest advocates of further crack-downs on student immigration. In a piece in the Telegraph in June 2015, he made clear his views that students should be,

“expected to leave the country at the end of their course, while only the very best of them should be allowed to work in the UK”.

In the piece, he states that these students are not, in fact, the best and the brightest and key contributors to our future prosperity, as,

“the number of foreign students at Oxford and Cambridge is a little more than 4,000, while there are about 66,000 at the remaining Russell Group universities”.

This attitude displays a staggering lack of understanding about the diversity and value of our higher education institutions and their graduates.

This amendment would prevent the TEF from being used in determining eligibility for a visa for students on leaving university. It would ensure that such a change would require primary legislation and not be possible through a simple change in Immigration Rules. If the Government were to seek to pursue such an approach, they should rightly have to make their case in Parliament. Can the Minister also clarify that the Government do not agree with the approach Nick Timothy has previously advocated? There are very many of the brightest and best students at universities outside the Russell group, and such discrimination can only be damaging.

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

My Lords, I speak in favour of Clause 10 being removed from the Bill. In doing so, I declare my interest as chair of the board of governors of Sheffield Hallam University. I should also note that the vice-chancellor of the university, Professor Chris Husbands, is leading work on behalf of the Government on the development of the teaching excellence framework.

The effect of the deletion of Clause 10 would be to remove the power of the Office for Students to set the fee limit by reference to a provider’s rating under the teaching excellence framework. It is important to say first that I strongly support the Government’s desire to improve the focus of universities on teaching quality. That is absolutely the right thing to do. I am also not opposed to the introduction of the TEF per se. I do, however, have some significant concerns about the approach that the Government are taking to the TEF and, in particular, the link being made between fee levels and the TEF. My three main concerns are as follows.

First, there is not a straight read-across between teaching and research. At a very basic level, publicly funded research has a small number of very informed funders, which make their decisions with a long-standing knowledge of the providers. In this context, the REF provides an effective framework to drive research excellence. In the case of teaching, the decisions are made by millions of individual learners. They will base their decisions on a range of factors: the reputation of the university itself, the place it is located in and their likelihood of securing the necessary grades, but, most importantly, their views of the course of study itself. In this context, the TEF rating of the university will be of interest but it is unlikely to add a great deal to their decision. The value of the TEF is more to the institution than to the student. Having a rating itself, combined with changing demographics, will provide a powerful enough incentive for institutions to improve, just as the NSS scores are now. There is no benefit, and indeed significant perverse consequences, from adding in a link to fees. For example, those institutions most in need of resources to improve their teaching will be deprived of the means to do so.

My second objection is that the TEF is still in development. I have to say that I cannot think of anyone better than Chris Husbands to lead the work on it, but he is inevitably working within parameters set by the Government. The higher education sector is a very differentiated sector, and not all universities are the same. Reducing that wide variation down to a rating of gold, silver or bronze is for me, and I think for many, a gross simplification. A bronze rating risks being seen as failing or poor, even though in athletics, from which this was derived, securing a bronze would be seen, by me at least, as a considerable success.

There remains a very significant debate about the metrics for the TEF, but also about the distribution of the ratings—how many institutions will score the highest rating and therefore increase their fees. I currently understand that the plan is for it to be 15% bronze, 70% silver and 15% gold, but that may well change. Moreover, the TEF rating, as has already been said, is in the first instance about the institution and not the course. Yet the proposals will allow the institutions to raise fees regardless of individual course quality. All of these are symptoms of a system that is still in development and unproven. Until we are really confident about these issues, it seems to be completely wrong to link the TEF to fees.

My third and final concern is that, even if these issues can be resolved satisfactorily, it seems wrong in principle to approach increases in fees in this way. The reason that the vast majority of universities raised fees to the level of the £9,000 cap in 2012 was that they needed to offset the loss of other government support. Universities have been spared the brunt of the austerity measures experienced in local government and other sectors, but at the price of increased fees for students and, arguably, for future generations for those students who are unable to repay their loans.

There is an important debate to be had about the future resources that universities need, the level of student fees and indeed the amount of government funding provided to support them. No doubt vice-chancellors, faced with the prospect of this being the only way to increase fees, will go along with it. Fundamentally, though, it sidesteps what should be a public debate. If there is a case to be made for increasing fees in future then it should be made, but this is making that policy by the back door.

I recognise that the Government have dug in on this, but there is still time to think again. The proposal is understandably deeply unpopular with students and the NUS. In my view, it is also the product of some deeply flawed thinking.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 16th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, although I am a thoroughgoing advocate of freedom of information, I am very conscious of what my noble friend Lord Willetts said shortly before supper: we must be careful of the degree and direction of obligations that we put on universities. This amendment is therefore very much phrased as not prescribing any particular outcome but saying that it must be equal. That is born of my experience, when, under the last Government, UCAS was deemed to have public functions and made subject to the Freedom of Information Act. I immediately requested some information from it and was refused, and went through the appeal procedure. The case having been ruled partially in my favour, UCAS went through two sets of tribunals, with QCs. It must have cost it about half a million quid to resist the commissioner’s attempts to pin it to the Freedom of Information Act obligations. That is perhaps why I reacted so fiercely to the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, when she quoted “commercial interests”. It was quite clear then that UCAS’s order of priorities was: first, making money; secondly, looking after the universities; and thirdly, the students. I did not think that was right and nor do I think it is right that universities put money first and other things second.

We are dealing—or ought to be dealing—with different kinds of institutions. On the bits that I did not get through the commissioner, some of which is information now being made available through this Bill, I failed because of the inequality of treatment of universities, which were subject to freedom of information, and other higher education institutions, for instance BPP, which were not. That inequality created a commercial tension between those who might have been asked to reveal information and those who were not subject to FoI, which prevented information being released under it. My recommendation to the Government is, whatever you do, do the same for everybody and then everybody has to comply. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 238 in this group. It was proposed by Universities UK and follows on from what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has just been saying about equality of treatment. The Higher Education and Research Bill creates three types of registered providers—basic, approved and approved with a fee cap. Universities, as public authorities, are currently subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. However, to ensure a level playing field for access to information it is important for all registered providers designated for the purpose of student support under Section 22 of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 to be subject to the same level of public scrutiny. Schedule 11 to the Bill as currently drafted leaves open what categories of provider should be caught by freedom of information by leaving it to the Secretary of State to specify categories and regulations. If there is the appetite to be more prescriptive, the schedule could adopt the revised new Clause 4A wording as proposed.

Universities are currently subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We propose further consideration be given to whether adherence to the FoI Act should be a condition for initial registration for higher education providers designated for the purpose of student support under Section 22 of the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998. This new clause would amend the Freedom of Information Act to apply its provisions to all higher education providers designated for the purpose of student support registered with the OfS. This means registered providers eligible for public grant funding and/or access to student loans. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not thought about this topic before, so I welcome the amendment. On the face of it, I very much agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, have said. It seems to me that there is a case for a level playing field in principle. It would be very interesting to know what the Minister regards as the argument against a level playing field on this question. I am relaxed about new entrants to the higher education market. I want to see more diversity and innovation in higher education but, if that is to happen, there will clearly be risks of the Trump University type, as we know from the United States. I do not believe that universities are public sector institutions—they are public institutions—but requiring everybody to be open in their dealings and comply with freedom of information obligations seems highly desirable.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 16th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, who is not well, I shall move this amendment and speak to this group. We wish her a speedy recovery. The Bill proposes to reverse the current legal position that prevents Ministers giving guidance and directions about particular courses of study. We have been told that the power is needed to resolve an existing legal lack of clarity about the Secretary of State’s power to communicate his—in this case—priorities. While the Government’s amendment means that the Secretary of State cannot now guide or direct the Office for Students to prevent the closure of existing courses or the creation of new ones, it will, nevertheless, still allow the Secretary of State to decide, in part, what subjects should be funded.

Although most funding for teaching will come from fees backed by student loans, direct funding from the Office for Students is essential to meet the additional costs of subjects that are expensive to teach; for example, chemistry and engineering, et cetera. The Bill would give the Secretary of State a new power to tell the Office for Students not to fund a particular subject if that subject cost more to teach than the maximum fee that the university was allowed to charge. This goes significantly beyond the current power to give general directions about ministerial priorities, which the Funding Council translates into allocations to universities.

With these proposed amendments, Ministers would still be able to give the Office for Students guidance and direction about their priorities for the funding available but the final decisions on funding for high-cost subjects would be taken by the Office for Students, as they are now by the Funding Council. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group to which I have added my name and those that have come from the Cross Benches—Amendments 69 and 510—on which I think we will be hearing shortly. These amendments come out of the report from the Delegated Powers Committee, which claims that the wide range of functions that are now being conferred on the Office for Students will give it the ability to bring change to the whole of the higher education sector. We consider that the guidance issued by the Secretary of State under Clause 2 will act as a significant control over how the Office for Students exercises its functions. However, we cannot guarantee that Secretaries of State will always be wise and non-interventionist, and I think that these amendments will provide much-needed safeguards in the Bill.

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 65 and 510 in this group were tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, who is unable to be with us today. I wish to make a few comments in support of those amendments.

The concept of quasi-legislation—the generation of rules and guidance by public authorities—is not new. However, the use of such quasi-legislation appears to be growing: it is convenient to government, it provides some degree of flexibility and it may also put it beyond legislative scrutiny and approval unless provision is made for such scrutiny and approval.

This Bill is of extreme importance. It creates a body, the Office for Students, that is much more powerful than HEFCE. The functions that it draws together are quite substantial and extensive. They enable the OfS, essentially, to shape the nature of higher education. That in itself raises issues which we will be discussing further. However, here, under Clause 2(2), we have the power to give guidance but without any transparency and with no parliamentary involvement. That matters, especially in the context of this Bill. Through the power to give guidance, the Minister may, effectively, usurp the power of the OfS. I am sure my noble friend the Minister will say that guidance will be rare and benign, but there is nothing to stop a future Secretary of State with less than benign intent using the power on a scale that is significant, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

As the noble Baroness has just said, this provision has been commented on by the Delegated Powers Committee. It stressed that there is no parliamentary scrutiny of the guidance and no requirement for it to be published. In response to the Government’s defence of the provision, the committee goes on to say:

“We are wholly unconvinced by the Department’s reasons”.


That includes, as I have already stressed, the fact that the remit of the OfS goes far broader than HEFCE, and the guidance that the Minister can give to HEFCE has no statutory basis.

The committee also makes the point, of course, that the requirement for the OfS to “have regard to” guidance rather limits it. The Office for Students could, if it had cogent reasons, discard the guidance. However, there would have to be compelling reasons for that, and, as the Delegated Powers Committee points out, under Clause 71(1), the Secretary of State has the power to give the OfS “general directions” about the performance of its functions.

There is a powerful case for ensuring there is parliamentary scrutiny and engagement in respect of the power to give guidance—that is the purpose of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane. Other provisions in the Bill are clearly Henry VIII provisions. The measure is extensive in terms of the concept of quasi-legislation. I am sure we will be coming back to this on several occasions during the passage of the Bill. However, I look forward to my noble friend’s response acknowledging the significance of the powers that are being confirmed and I look forward to hearing what the Government plan to do about it.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, in deferring to the noble Baronesses on the Cross Benches, Lady Brown and Lady Wolf, I now have pleasure in supporting the amendments in this group to which I have added my name. They express concerns raised by Universities UK and GuildHE, two bodies with immense expertise in this sector and fully committed to its standards and reputation.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, has said, central to our concerns about the erosion of university autonomy is the need for the Government and the Bill to be clearer in their approach to standards. UUK and others have noted that the Bill unhelpfully elides quality and standards—we have had reference to this already in debate in this Chamber—but they are two separate concepts in higher education policy. While there is a legitimate role for the new Office for Students in assessing quality, standards are the preserve of independent academic institutions and should be free from political interference. The proposed changes to the Bill would therefore: separate quality and standards to enable different treatment in subsequent clauses; clarify the definition of standards to focus on threshold standards and a condition of registration focused on academic governance of standards; recognise that academic standards are sector-owned and ensure a sector-owned process for agreeing threshold standards; and remove or limit the reference to standards in relation to the teaching access framework, as it is inappropriate to attempt to rank standards.

Quality and standards are separate, distinct concepts in higher education. Amendments 63 and 129 to 131 would remove references to standards to make what was one potential condition of the OfS into two separate conditions for quality and standards. Amendment 131 would make robust academic governance a condition of registration with the OfS, which protects the principle that self-critical autonomous academic institutions are responsible for the maintenance of academic standards.

Amendments 167, 169 and 170 would ensure consistency of definition when it comes to quality and standards and, again, that governance of academic standards sits with the institution. Amendments 168, 180 and 184 seek to clarify that the proposed assessments of teaching quality established by these clauses is based on the quality of teaching in an institution and not on standards, while Amendments 214 and 215 would ensure the separation of quality and standards once again.

At various points the Bill brackets quality and standards together, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, has pointed out, when they are in fact related but distinct elements of quality assurance and assessment. Academic quality covers how an institution supports students to enable them to progress and achieve their award; academic standards are the student outcome standards that individual degree-awarding bodies set and maintain for the award of their own academic credit or qualifications. As drafted, the Bill risks the OfS being able in future to define and determine the standards applied, rather than ensuring that the standards set by autonomous universities are met.

During Committee in the Commons, the Minister gave some reassurance, saying:

“Let me be absolutely clear … this is not about undermining the prerogative of providers in determining standards. This is about ensuring that all providers in the system are meeting the threshold standards set out in the ‘Frameworks for Higher Education Qualifications’, a document endorsed and agreed by the sector”.—[Official Report, Commons, Higher Education and Research Bill Committee, 15/9/16; col. 308.]


This was helpful but the lack of clarity in the Bill should be addressed. It is essential that student outcome standards remain the responsibility of autonomous institutional academic communities and continue to reflect the pedagogical diversity of higher education. I hope the Minister will respond favourably to these amendments.

[Lord Willetts]

My Lords, briefly, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, on her lucid explanation of the thinking behind her amendments. She makes an absolutely correct point: quality and standards are distinct. As they were always put together in some of the original drafting, the understanding of their different functions in the system was being lost. She is right to remind the House of that. I do not know about the exact way in which her proposals have been drafted but the spirit in which she is trying to make that distinction much clearer must be right. We already have, through the QAA, a direct role in the regulation and inspection of quality, and that is right.

However, to just comment on what the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, said, there also is and has been a legitimate role in standards. Of course universities and higher education institutions have to be responsible for the specific decisions about standards, but threshold standards have been part of the QAA’s remit. At the moment, for example, in response to I think widespread concern about the effectiveness of the external examiner system—a concern raised by the Minister for Universities and Science, who it is good to see with us again today—HEFCE is investigating how that system operates. It is absolutely not, and should not be, intruding on the autonomy of individual institutions, but it is undoubtedly, in a broad sense, investigating and considering standards.

Provided that we have the capacity for that type of engagement in standards to occur—as we heard from what the Minister said in the other House, the threshold standards is a legitimate function as well—I hope it will be possible to find a way forward which embraces the spirit of what the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, is doing but at the same time recognises that any regulator has some legitimate role in standards, not just in quality.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

72: After Clause 2, insert the following new Clause—
“Meaning of higher education
For the purposes of this Act, the provision of higher education by English higher education providers comprises higher education provision by—(a) universities,(b) colleges of further education, and(c) other higher education providers, both registered and unregistered.”

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, I beg to move this amendment, to which I have added my name. It attempts to ensure that a proper meaning of higher education is in the Bill—the public deserve to know what the Bill means by it. In the absence of a clear definition, it is important to specify the organisations that can provide it. Universities and colleges of further education are important providers of higher education and must not be overlooked in the Bill, but there are other providers, which may be registered or unregistered. There are different criteria for registered and unregistered providers, and both have a part to play. We also need to make it clear that not all providers are universities. So, not necessarily on the face of the Bill but somewhere in the guidance, there should be clarification, as provided for in the amendment.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests, as declared in the register.

I support the amendment, to which I have added my name. As the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, has already pointed out, the majority of higher education will be undertaken in traditional higher education institutions, including further education colleges. Those institutions are accountable for innovative, appropriate curriculum design, as outlined earlier by my noble friend Lady Brown. It is appropriate that curriculum design includes enabling students to have degrees awarded when a proportion of their programme is either with employers or on placements. In health, for example, students need to learn in hospitals and communities, and some very innovative new approaches in higher education are associated with degree-level apprenticeships. At the University of Exeter there is an ambitious approach to the new degree-level apprenticeship schemes, which involve working with employers and their staff. The first of these programmes commenced in September 2016—a BSc honours in digital and technology solutions. It involves working with four employers, including IBM.

A degree-level apprenticeship offers a new route to achieving a university degree in collaboration with employers. Apprentices are full-time, paid employees of the business partner, but a proportion of the student’s time is spent participating in a programme, using blended learning, residential teaching blocks and assessed projects and placements.

Therefore, it is imperative that we are clear in the Bill about the definition of higher education and that we recognise that, whether it is in health or industry, part of students’ higher education experience is increasingly in a workplace. Amendment 72 would encompass, and make provision for, this approach through the definition that it provides, thus strengthening the Bill at this point.

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[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, I can understand the motivation behind this amendment. At the outset, I would like to address a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, when discussing definitions. As she will know, we want to encourage innovative approaches, and the question of degree apprenticeships very much comes into that. We wholeheartedly support the need for innovative provision and I want to assure her that the Government are fully committed to degree apprenticeships—this is captured by the OfS’s duty on promoting choice. In the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, I would be happy to further discuss this amendment outside the Chamber with her or any other speaker in today’s debate. For now, I shall keep my comments relatively brief.

I fear that this amendment inadvertently goes too far in that it seeks to extend the regulatory coverage of the OfS to all higher education providers as defined by the proposed new clause, including those not on the register. The OfS must focus its resources and regulatory activity where public money is at stake. Extending its duties in this manner—for example, in promoting quality, choice, opportunity, competition, value for money and equality of opportunity—increases the OfS’s regulatory purview and risks decreasing its ability to focus attention where it is needed most; that is, on monitoring those institutions which pass the regulatory entry requirements to the OfS register.

We discussed definitions at some length last Monday. The Bill uses “higher education providers” as a blanket term to mean any provider of a higher education course as defined by the Education Reform Act 1988, including further education colleges providing higher education. This is already defined in the Bill in Clause 77. I very much noted the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and which was alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on clarification of what “English higher education provider” means. Although I have, I hope, reassured noble Lords that it is defined in Clause 77, I do feel another letter coming on to clarify to the House exactly what we mean by that. I hope that that is of some help. Therefore, we believe that introducing a new definition is unnecessary and could have unintended consequences.

I understand the sprit in which this amendment has been tabled. However, the OfS’s regulatory role is defined by those providers that it registers. I respectfully ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I thank the Minister for his reply and note that Clause 77 includes the meaning of “higher education providers”, but not in quite the same clear way that we have set out here. We look forward to hearing a fuller explanation in answer to the question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. This amendment was on a point of clarification. It was not the intention that it sit on the face of the Bill but rather that we have a simple explanation of “higher education” which would include full and part-time students and all the other different points we will come to later in the Bill. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 72 withdrawn.

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[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and with her consent, I shall introduce her amendment. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, and the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Lexden, all of whom are in their places, for their support.

This amendment was moved in Committee in another place by my honourable friend Paul Blomfield. It raises an issue he has been concerned about and has experience of, in that he sits for a constituency in Sheffield which is alleged to have the highest number of students who are registered to vote. The underlying issue is the move to individual electoral registration under which all of us are required to sign up individually to vote. This has had a huge impact not only on family households, where many people have dropped off the register, but on the practice which had been going on for many years in universities. The standard way in which that operated was that universities which had halls of residence, or at least organised accommodation for students, registered them en bloc. That, unfortunately, has been outlawed and there is a real danger that students will not be on an electoral register—not necessarily the one where the university is, but any one.

That has two implications. It is important that people should be registered to vote. If you do not have a chance to vote, you are not a part of the overall democratic process. That is a bad thing, particularly for students and young people, who should be brought in at the earliest opportunity—perhaps even younger than today—in order to ensure that they get into the habit of voting and participate as a result. It is a particular issue for universities, which will not have the voice of those who are participating at university in the wider democratic process. There are two sides to this.

If students are not registered in the university or higher education institution they are at, those constituencies will not only be disadvantaged in terms of the representation of people who live and operate in those places but will shrink, which will affect the size of constituencies and therefore have an impact on the way in which they are drawn up. Many issues arise from the initial proposal.

The background to the particularity of this amendment is that attempts were made to see whether universities could help and assist in this. It was found early on that universities already collect most of the data needed to register students. All that is needed is a national insurance number. This is not routinely collected by universities because students are not employed there.

Obviously there are ways in which one could pose questions to students at points in the process of being at university without being intrusive. The example I have here is from the University of Sheffield—but there are other institutions—which worked with the city’s electoral registration officer and introduced questions for students at the time they were registering or reregistering for their courses. The first question was, “Do you wish to register to vote?”. If they said no, no further action was taken; and if they said yes, they would like to register to vote, they had to provide their national insurance number. The results were amazing: 64% of students opted to register to vote within Sheffield, although there were difficulties in getting some students to find their national insurance number—a problem not confined to students; I can never remember where mine is. I have now memorised it because I got so cross about being unable to complete forms online at the time I wanted to do them. I now have it and can give it to you now, if you want it, without breaching any personal information, of course.

The Cabinet Office then made a change and issued new guidance, which meant that it did not have to have a national insurance number. This was a sensible and unexpected move in support of the process by the Cabinet Office, and I am delighted it happened. We have an opportunity to help in that process. It has a more general particularity than just this Bill, but it is an opportunity that we should take to do it.

The amendment would create an opportunity within which universities could help participation using their function, not as a public sector body but as a public body with wider interests in the public well-being, in order to achieve the good outcome of having more people registered to vote. I beg to move.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment for the good reasons set out by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to ensure that all eligible students are provided with an opportunity to opt in to the electoral register at the location in which they are studying. Since I have been in the Chamber I have been handed a helpful briefing from the Cabinet Office on this very amendment, which points out that as part of the Government’s Every Voice Matters campaign, the Minister for the Constitution is holding a series of round tables, including with the higher and further education sector, to assess what barriers there may be to electoral registration and what the Government could do to address them, so this issue is under active discussion.

As the noble Lord has said, under the old system of block registration, universities could go quite some way in assisting their students to become enrolled, but under individual electoral registration that has ceased to exist and the focus is on individuals to register. The benefit is that this system is more resilient to fraud, has a reduced risk of a student being registered at two locations, and—which I think is rather more important—has a reduced risk of a student being able to vote at several locations. But as we know, when someone is moving house, registering to vote is a low priority and many people realise that they did not get around to registering only when it comes to election time and it is already too late. Analysis by the Electoral Commission shows that areas with a high concentration of certain demographics, including students, private renters and especially young adults, where people move on a regular basis are particularly in danger of having low registration numbers. It is therefore important that special care is taken to prevent at-risk groups failing to register and have their say at an election.

We are well aware that universities already encourage students to register and vote, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, spelled out. Sheffield has been successful in increasing the number of students registered and many other institutions are already taking steps to encourage young people to ensure that they are on the register. Surely it is vital that the student voice should be heard in the democratic process, and that young people should get into the habit earlier rather than later of making their voices heard in elections. For all those reasons, I hope that favourable attention will be given to this amendment to try to make sure that as many students as possible are both registered to vote and then use their vote.

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[Lord Storey]

My Lords, your Lordships’ House has an excellent record on the issue of mental health. In fact it was this House that persuaded the Government, by insisting on it, on parity of NHS treatment of physical and mental illness.

On many issues we are persuaded by our own personal experiences. I remember taking my daughter the couple of hours’ drive to university, five years ago now. A couple of years later she said to me, “You don’t realise the abject horror that was. You put me in the car with all my possessions and dropped me off at this strange place where I knew no one and had to sink or swim”. In her halls she befriended and became close to a girl who was in her first year and whose sister, a year older, was at another university. Very tragically, those girls’ father then died at a relatively young age. Both sisters were completely traumatised. You would be; you are a young girl away from home for the first time, and your father dies. One university was absolutely stunning in the support that it gave that girl. Her sister at the other university did not even get to see her personal tutor; no support was given at all. That is the difference. That is why this amendment says, importantly, that the university “must”—not “may”—provide services for mental health.

It is often said that when it comes to mental health, ignoring the problem—if it is even recognised in the first place—is not the solution. However, neither is dealing with it alone. Nationally, only 13% of the NHS budget is currently committed to mental health services, despite the fact that mental health illness accounts for 28% of the total burden to the NHS. The problem in many universities across the UK is the same: the underfunding of support services does not accurately reflect today’s reality. Many thousands of children and young people when at university are isolated, unhappy and—because of the pressures of the new regime, if you like—perhaps have eating disorders and self-harm. Tragically, of course, some can take their own lives.

There is still huge stigma around mental health, which means that young people are not getting the support they need. The amendment is important not only for those who might develop mental health problems during their time at university but for those who have experienced mental health problems in the past. Young people who need help and support from mental health services can find themselves with no help or support when they most need it. To get any service from adult mental health services, the threshold in terms of severity of illness is higher than for children and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, so many young people are locked out from receiving the service. For some, their illness has to reach a crisis point before they receive the service that they need, with the effect that their entry to the service is more traumatic and costly to the young person, their family and the service than if their needs had been met earlier. Differences between service locations and the style of the two services alienate many young people, who end up slipping off the radar of services. Ensuring that mental health support services are available to students when they need them is really important.

I have one final observation. There is a clear link between poor mental health and student retention. The emphasis on student retention is higher in those institutions that provide proper mental health support than in those that do not. I hope we will realise that, just as we have done in the education service as a whole and in the NHS, providing a service in universities is hugely important. Sometimes we say, “Oh, there’s no money available”, but of course there is money available. I sometimes have a little wry smile on my face when I get to Euston station and see all the billboards advertising different universities. The cost of that runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds. Surely we can find the money for every university to provide mental health support for its young students—not “may”, but “must”.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. In coalition, our Health Minister, Norman Lamb, campaigned staunchly for parity of esteem and funding for mental health in order to bring it up to the same standards as physical health. We are still a long way from achieving that parity.

My noble friend has spoken particularly about students. In the amendment we included care for university staff, many of whom work under intense pressure. The introduction of new assessment measures in the Bill may well increase those pressures on staff, many of whom may be on insecure contracts, with high ambitions, high expectations and long hours. We know that many universities already have a great duty of care to their staff as well as their students, but this measure would see all universities, as places of study and work, fulfil their duty of care to both their staff and their students.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I commend the amendment. It is enlightened and imaginative. University should be a thrilling and fulfilling experience. Of course it should be testing—there is no question about that—but it should be an experience in which a person develops their potential and begins to flourish intellectually and as a being. There is no doubt now, with our increasing awareness of the nature of mental illness, that there are disturbing numbers of students for whom that is just not the reality, and university becomes a hell. As a civilised society, we should not tolerate a situation like that when very often quite a small amount of highly professional help can enable students to come out of this nightmare and join the rich learning experience. The amendment is just the sort of thing this House should take part in.

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Moved by

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

110A: Clause 9, page 6, line 14, at end insert—
“( ) Information provided to the OfS and published under subsection (2) must separately identify the number of care leavers within each overall figure.”

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I recognise that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, is not here to move the initial amendment in this group, but the other two are my Amendments 113 and 115, which have already been spoken to, largely by my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. These amendments have been proposed by the Open University which, of course, has a tremendous record in encouraging diversity of applicants, both through age and through disability.

An analysis of current statistics demonstrates the dramatic decline in the number of part-time students aged 21 and over. In England, the number of part-time students aged 21 and over has declined by 57% since 2007-08. Since then, nearly 400,000 part-time students aged 21 and over have been lost from higher education. Most initial entrants into higher education studying part-time are aged 31 to 60. Participation by this age group has declined more steeply than any other, a decrease of nearly 60% since 2007-08 compared to 2014-15. As age group data are already collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency from HEIs, it would not be overly resource-intensive for HEIs themselves to publish such data if this is included in the Bill.

The second amendment refers to disability, which is also seen as a disadvantage to social mobility. The Bill makes no provision for compulsory reporting to improve transparency. By introducing compulsory publication of data relating to the access, participation and attainment of disabled students, not only will transparency be markedly improved but HEIs will be encouraged to take greater responsibility for working towards eliminating the disabled student attainment gap. The Equality Challenges 2015 data report indicated that 68.7% of disabled students attained a First or 2.1 degree qualification compared to 70.4% of non-disabled students. Therefore, closing or substantially narrowing gaps such as these between those with or without disabilities is a key theme in the recently published Green Paper on work, health and disability.

I recognise the point made that disabled students may choose not to self-declare, but, in any event, it could be helpful in raising both aspiration and attainment to have these characteristics listed. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

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[Baroness Goldie]

For reasons which I think are apparent to us all, there are issues of sensitivity there. It would be ill-advised either to disregard or underestimate the significance of that sensitivity. I repeat that interesting and important points have been raised. We will reflect on them. On the specific issue raised by the noble and learned Lord’s colleague, I undertake to write. I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for responding, in particular to the amendment in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, who as we all know is a tremendous champion for those in care. All the amendments aim to make it a more level playing field for groups which have not hitherto had the same advantages. I also thank my noble friend Lord Willis and my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace for their interventions—my noble friend Lord Willis raised an interesting issue about the data of HESA not being accessible. We shall all seek ways of increasing the engagement of these particular groups in higher education. In the light of the Minister’s remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 110A withdrawn.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as pro-chancellor of Lancaster University. I fear that noble Lords may feel that I have worked out my line with the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, because it is very similar to hers in its thrust.

I am not against competition per se. I am in favour of it. There is a lot of competition in the university sector as it is. My own institution is deeply competitive in trying to recruit students within a group of universities which it sees as its prime competitors. For instance, we have to invest an awful lot in our high-quality management school if we are going to continue to attract the international students who are so important to our income. Let us not pretend that we do not have competition. We have a lot of it. On the whole, at present it is healthy.

If we are to have more competition, it must not be bargain basement competition at the bottom end of the market, trying to erode margins in the cheap-to-teach subjects—let us put it like that—because ultimately that would undermine the viability of the university sector as a whole. Therefore, when we are talking about competition, the duties ought to have a heavy emphasis on innovation. I would like to see more competition in the area of new courses and institutions that reach out to people who have had apprenticeships and give them a ladder of opportunity into degrees. I would like to see more innovation in trying to attract to university people who are bright but have not succeeded in our conventional education system. There is a strong role for innovation but it has to be guided and managed. I would be horrified by the possibility that the OfS should think that competition should override all other considerations.

I do not have a word formula to meet these requirements, but this requires thought. I would like to hear from the Minister whether the Government share the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, and I and others have expressed in this debate, and to hear that they emphatically do not think that the promotion of competition should override other objectives. My noble friend Lord Stevenson spoke to his amendments on having regard to the public interest. I would like to see a provision on having regard to the financial sustainability of the sector as a whole. Such amendments are very important, as we have to have balance on this question.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to amendments in this group as set out by the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. I also support Amendment 57, as introduced by my noble friend Lord Addington. They relate to the general duties of the Office for Students and reflect some of the concerns over the unprecedented powers of this new body. We have already addressed the issues in Amendment 41 to do with part-time study and lifelong learning.

Amendment 42 comes from MillionPlus, which is the Association for Modern Universities and has as much interest as anybody in maintaining confidence in the sector, which they have all joined relatively recently, and promoting the reputation which has been hard earned and needs to be protected.

Of the other amendments in the group, Amendment 43 is on the provision of higher education which meets the vocational and professional needs of the students. In the 20 years that I worked for City & Guilds, my work involved linking in with universities, professional bodies and the higher reaches on trying to gain transferability and acceptance for different types of awards. Anything that can be done to try to promote that transferability between types of qualification has to be commended—particularly, I suppose, in view of the degree apprenticeships coming up. Again, recognition of vocational achievement within an academic context there would surely be for the good.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has introduced amendments on supporting and working with student representatives. As we have addressed previously, if the Office for Students is to live up to its name it would be quite useful if students had something to do with it. Amendment 67 suggests that they could even have current experience of being a student.

The amendments on the financial health and viability of the sector are all self-explanatory and seem good. My last comment is on the right reverend Prelate’s amendment. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, about the importance of diversity and how having providers with a denominational characteristic has to be a good part of the mix that we are trying to promote in higher education.

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to comment on some of the interventions we have heard expressing concerns about alternative providers. Sometimes, it has been an unhappy story and alternative providers have not delivered what they were supposed to but some of the criticisms are unfair, for two reasons.

First, we should remember that these organisations have no access to research funding or funding for higher cost subjects, so there is a large range of university activities for which they have no access to public funding to engage in. In fact I know that for some of them, their grievance is that they would rather like to have access to some of these strands of funding so that they could provide a greater range of subjects.

Secondly, it is not entirely true to say that they are all of a sort. In my experience, they are quite astute at identifying where there are gaps in provision. For example, modern music is not a subject which is particularly accessible and well taught in higher education institutions. If you want some qualifications of higher education standard for modern music, you by and large go to an alternative provider. Many of them have focused on vocational courses. There is increasing interest in alternative models for delivering medical education. I am being wary as I see the noble Lord, Lord Winston, is poised but there is beginning to be debate about whether medical education could do with some innovation, and some new providers would like to come in.

The argument on this was very well set out at the time of Robbins. There was a lively debate then about new ways of delivering higher education, and the conclusion of some of the leading universities at the time and of the UGC was that the best way to get innovation in higher education was to allow in new institutions to deliver it, as that was a better way of achieving it than expecting the existing ones to do things differently. The new Robbins universities were of course set up without any prior track record. They got university title straightaway and came in with great ambitions for doing things differently.

As we go through these clauses there are lots of genuine concerns, which we need to focus on, about the weight given to competition and collaboration. I may come to those when we debate those clauses, but we should just remember that the story of the advance of British higher education is successive waves of new entrants coming in and doing things differently. That is why we have the diversity that we currently celebrate, and we should, as a minimum, expect it to be as possible in the future for new entrants to come in as it was at the time of Robbins and of the great Victorian reforms.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

9: Schedule 1, page 70, line 37, at end insert “, including those offering part-time and distance learning.”

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 9 and shall speak to Amendments 31, 32 and 172. I have added my name to Amendments 41 and 46 in this group. The amendments all support adult lifelong part-time and distance learning. A prosperous part-time higher education market is essential now, more than ever, to address the challenges and opportunities which lie ahead to deliver economic growth and raise national productivity by closing skills gaps and increasing social mobility.

Only 13% of the 9.5 million people in the UK who are considering higher education in the next five years are school leavers; the majority are working adults. Up to 90% of the current workforce will still be in work in the next decade. Over the next 10 years, there will be 13 million vacancies, but only 7 million school leavers to fill them. Such learning is a cost-effective way of raising skills levels and training, so people can earn and learn, as do 75% of Open University students. The benefits are also felt immediately—from the first day of study—by the individual as well as the employer. One in five undergraduate entrants in England—22%—from low participation neighbourhoods either choose or have no option but to study part-time, and 38% of all undergraduate students from disadvantaged groups are mature students.

It is essential that these far-reaching proposals are not developed solely through the policy lens of an 18-year-old student entering higher education for the first time. Reskilling and upskilling the adult workforce are essential, as I mentioned. Economic success in the coming years depends on embedding a lifelong learning and training culture which rests on three coequal pillars: the highest quality further education and higher education, undergraduate and postgraduate, after leaving compulsory full-time education; the highest quality apprenticeships for all; and flexible lifetime learning opportunities.

Part-time study is often the way that people from disadvantaged backgrounds or places enter higher education. In 2015-16, almost one in five of all new Open University undergraduate students were from a low socioeconomic status background—that is, they came from the most deprived 25% of neighbourhoods across the UK and had no previous higher education qualifications. But the number of part-time students continues to decline. Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency published in January showed that in England, 58% fewer students started part-time study in 2014-15 than in 2009-10. This equates to an almost 40% drop in the market, although the OU continues to be the largest provider, with a growing share of the market.

This decline is of particular concern in relation to widening participation in higher education by students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Bill’s equality analysis references, on page nine, the dramatic improvement in the participation rate of disadvantaged young people but omits to point out that this has not been seen for mature students, most of whom can only study part-time.

There are opportunities in the Bill to give more explicit reference to the different modes of higher education provision and different types of student. Both the White Paper, Success as a Knowledge Economy, and the teaching excellence framework technical consultation on year 2 are explicit in this area. Amendment 9 provides an opportunity to make it clearer that the membership of all key agencies, boards and committees should reflect the full range of different types of higher education provider. Amendments 31 and 32 ensure that an express commitment to all forms of higher education is included in the general duties of the Office for Students to,

“promote quality, and greater choice and opportunities for students, in the provision of higher education by English higher education providers”—

Clause 2(1)(a). The wording used here is consistent with that used in the TEF technical consultation. This is also an opportunity to make it clearer that the membership of all key agencies, boards and committees should reflect the full range of different types of higher education provider—in this case, the Quality Assessment Committee. Amendment 172 fulfils this purpose.

If there is no dedicated board member on the OfS to represent part-time students, how do the Government envisage those students being represented by the OfS? Secondly, how will the new system improve part-time student understanding compared with existing arrangements? Thirdly, what further measures will the Government introduce to prevent a decline in part-time numbers? I beg to move.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I have one amendment in this group, Amendment 53. Much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, has said applies to my amendment, too. There are clearly going to be opportunities to change how we deliver higher education; there already are some, such as two-year degrees. We really need to make sure that this body is not discriminating in favour of the current pattern—and some elements of the current set-up do, such as funding rates for accelerated degrees. We need to take a broad view of what higher education could be, which is why I tabled my amendment.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords from all around the Chamber who have spoken in this short debate. They have done so with a fairly unanimous voice, which is always rather wonderful, but that obviously creates some problems for the Minister.

As my noble friend Lord Storey said, most of us in this Chamber probably went through university straight from school, because our generation was the sort who did that kind of thing, but life has changed so very much. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Rees, mentioned MOOCs, which are one example of how technology is helping to change the ways in which we learn and the times and places at which we can learn. I support the noble Lord, Lord Desai, in saying that we should not concentrate just on learning which leads to a degree, a qualification or a job. There was tremendous social benefit in that whole range of what used to be called leisure courses at FE colleges, which were often an introduction for people who had been turned off formal learning to become involved and promote their learning further. We can all be sorry to see how much that part of further education has declined, not least because, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, said, it keeps the brain cells alive and therefore contributes to better health and well-being.

We have heard from all around the Committee of the importance of putting these parts of education in the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, they are considered as second-class learning. It is all very well for the Minister to say that the OfS has a general duty to promote choice and that such courses will therefore somehow be swept up in a wonderful, comprehensive and wide-ranging form of learning, but the problem that we are all trying to get across is that this does not happen. Unless we put adult, lifelong and part-time learning on the face of the Bill, it will be overlooked in the massive move to promote traditional, full-time courses.

I am disappointed that the Minister is not prepared to accept at least some of the amendments, which would have been of huge help to the Committee. In view of all the support expressed from around the Chamber, I am sure that we shall continue to press on this matter and come back to it in later debates on the Bill. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 9 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

My Lords, I support this amendment and will speak to Amendments 508A and 509A in my name. The Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation will need to work closely together on many important issues for the higher education sector. Particular examples that come to mind are: the granting of research degree awarding powers, in which many of us feel very strongly that the research community should be involved; the quality and access issues that were spoken about earlier in higher and research degrees; issues to do with the higher education innovation fund, HEIF, which I understand from discussions with the Minister’s team will be delivered through Research England and therefore under UKRI, which covers undergraduate enterprise and innovation as well as postgraduate and research issues; and the really key area of reporting on the health of the sector across the closely interrelated areas of teaching, scholarship, research, enterprise and innovation. These links are extremely important and I would urge the noble Viscount that the OfS and UKRI should have a duty to co-operate and that, indeed, there should be an element of cross-membership of each other’s boards, which is what these two amendments would deliver.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support these amendments. The Bill will set up two very powerful new bodies in the OfS and UKRI and so the importance of them collaborating and working together cannot be overstated. Teaching and research are two vital components in the university world, and to have separate bodies looking after them—compounded by the fact that, not for the first time, they will find themselves in different government departments, so that although there is a single Minister, there are two Secretaries of State—means that anything which sees them working more closely together, particularly in the early days, is of the utmost importance. The proposal in Amendment 509A for the exchange of board members is a simple and straightforward measure to try to make sure that that happens.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, your Lordships will be aware that in Amendment 509 the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, and I suggest that in the areas of research degree awarding powers and so on, the decision should be joint. I have no particular objection to the amendments because they are about co-operation rather more generally than what we are dealing with, but I want to make it clear that in due course we will be pressing for our amendment. As the noble Baroness has just said, these are vital parts of many universities, although of course not all universities have a research capability. From the point of view of teaching, if students know that they are being taught by a person who is at the forefront of research, that is thrilling and can have quite an encouraging effect on them. However, I have no objection whatever, and I do not imagine that the noble Lord, Lord Smith, has either, to co-operation of a lesser kind in relation to the ordinary business of these bodies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and will speak to Amendments 85 and 127 in my name. Like the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I wondered about the linkage with the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, but he talked about transparency and accountability, which we are also talking about. The amendments in my name were previously tabled in the Commons by the Liberal Democrats but they reflect numerous debates on this subject in both Houses over the years.

The intention of the amendments is to highlight the very significant impact of international students on UK universities, in particular the contribution they make to the financial health of an individual university. Previous debates and reports in both Houses have rightly concluded that counting international students in migration targets is a poor policy choice, damages the reputation of UK universities and should be reversed. We shall discuss these issues in much more detail when we debate the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, later on.

In connection with the amendments in this group, and to set the context, almost everyone agrees that including students within the net migration target is wrong. The list of those who have spoken out includes: the BIS Select Committee in its 2012 report; 68 university vice-chancellors, who wrote on the subject to David Cameron, warning about the impact on universities’ reputation, also in 2012; the Institute of Directors and other business groups; Philip Hammond, indeed, who suggested conversations were going on in government about this until Theresa May publicly slapped him down; and even David Cameron, who, according to Max Chambers, his former home affairs adviser, had decided to take students out of the immigration target and,

“planned to do so after the EU referendum”—

ah, the best-laid plans of mice, men and politicians.

It is not even a question of public opinion. A YouGov poll from May last year showed that 57% of the public said that foreign students should not be in the figures, compared to only 32% who thought they should. The fact that they are included makes us somewhat of an anathema even among our closest international allies. President Obama has previously spoken about the need for the US to welcome foreign students and Australia, the country with the very points-based immigration system promised—and now abandoned—by the leave campaign, changed its system in 2012 to position Australia as a preferred study destination for international students.

The Government’s justification for the continued policy has been the international rules around reporting of migrant numbers. However, as the Migration Observatory at Oxford has made clear, there is a big difference between the migration statistics and the Government’s self-imposed migration target. The amendments do not, however, seek to override the Government’s decision. They simply ask them to put their money where their mouth is by ensuring that the value of these students to universities is made public each year, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has set out in his amendments, too.

Among my amendments, there is one where the provider would have to provide information about the fees charged to international students and, in Amendment 127, the OfS would have to set out in its report,

“the financial contribution of international students to English higher education providers”.

If the Government want to continue to stand in the way of this consensus, they should be made to do so publicly and in the face of statistics. These amendments would therefore play a minor but important role in informing public debate on this issue.

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden. I start by declaring my interest as a third-generation former international student in this country: both my grandfathers, my mother and I were, and now my son is, at Cambridge University.

The benefits that international students bring to this country and to our universities are enormous and priceless. It is our biggest element of soft power. There are 30 world leaders at any one time who have been educated at British universities. Generation-long links are built and, most importantly, the international students enrich the experience of our domestic students and universities. Then of course there is the money: directly and indirectly, £14 billion is brought in by international students to our universities and they create employment for 130,000 people. Yet every single time the issue has been debated in this Chamber, we have had unanimous consensus except from the Minister responding. A straight bat is played back to us, with a no.

The country does not think that international students are immigrants. The public do not mind international students staying on and working for a while after they finish their studies. This wretched referendum has brought immigration together into one bad thing and the Government insist on categorising international students as immigrants. There may be a UN definition, but when you come to calculate your net migration figures, you do not have to include international students as migrants. Our competitor countries—the United States, Australia and Canada—do not include them.

Statistics are available to show that international students, on the whole, return to their countries; those statistics are not being released. Can the Minister tell us why? I believe these figures show that only 1.5% of international students, if that—it may be 1,500—overstay and do not go back. We have removed the exit checks from our borders, so we do not know who has left our country. We should be scanning every passport, EU and non-EU, into and out of this country. We should introduce visible exit checks at our ports and borders immediately; we would then have that information at our fingertips and we should release it.

I declare an interest as president of UKCISA, the UK Council for International Student Affairs, which represents the 450,000 international students at all our educational institutions in this country. We despair that these students who bring this benefit to this country are not acknowledged. In fact, the perception that this creates is terrible. I know for a fact that Jo Johnson, the Minister for Universities, is very supportive of international students. I have seen that personally. He is here and I thank him for his support, which I know is genuine. However, I am sorry to be very personal but we have a Prime Minister who, when she was Home Secretary, said that every international student should leave the day that they graduated. The headlines in India were, “Take our money and get out”. That is the perception created.

I have had the Australian high commissioner to India say to me, “What are you doing with your attitude to international students? We have a Minister for International Students in Australia and we welcome them. In fact, if they want to stay on and pass through all the filters, they are welcome because they have paid for their education and will benefit our economy. On the other hand, you are turning them away and turning them to us, for which we are very grateful”. We are being made a laughing stock. There is an increase in international students around the world of 8% a year from countries such as India. As our former Prime Minister David Cameron said, we are in a global race. Well, we are not in that race if this is the attitude and perception that we give out.

If the Prime Minister is not willing to listen and if, sadly, the perception of immigration is so bad that the good people who visit this country—the tourists, business visitors and international students, and in fact the migrants who benefit this country over the generations, and without whom we would not be the successful country we are and the fifth-largest economy in the world—are not appreciated, then the only way to address this is through legislation. An amendment would say, “We must declare and detail the actual benefits and contributions of international students at our universities”. It is the only way that the Government will listen, and if they continue to include international students in the net migration figures then the amendment coming up in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, is the only way that we will be able to address this. We will do that down the line and say, “Let’s legislate that they should be excluded when counting net migration figures”. This is very important because it goes to our soft power, to the impression we create around the world as a country and to our economy and universities. It is part of what has made our universities the best in the world and this country so wonderful.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico (Lab)]

Perhaps I may add to my earlier remarks. This proposed new clause is absolute anathema to those of us who are chancellors of substantial private universities set up under the 2004 legislation and regulated to the hilt. My organisation, BPP, has 20,000 students, we have 5,000 to 6,000 undergraduates and we make a profit. We charge £5,000 a year, which is very much less than £9,000 a year, for a three-year degree, and £6,000 a year for a two-year degree. We have part-time degrees all over the place and we offer degree-awarding apprenticeships. We are fairly specialised. We stick within the general field of law and business, although we have just branched out into nursing and medicine—so tomorrow the world.

However, none of that is envisaged in the clause produced by my noble friend Lord Stevenson. I cannot believe that this House intends to outlaw this kind of university. Indeed, you can hardly do so because BPP was granted university status in 2013 after four heavy-duty years of regulation—and we are still heavily regulated, which we do not mind at all.

We would all be perfectly happy with the autonomy clause. For BPP, autonomy is guaranteed by a very tough academic council. You try telling the academic council what to do. That is just impossible—and occasionally it frustrates things that the management would like to do.

Therefore, we really do have to rethink this and, as my noble friend said, bottom out what we mean by “for-profit universities”. I cannot believe that BPP is the only organisation that would be affected by this proposal, yet it is the only one of any size that I can describe. Further on in the debate I will want to emphasise that we went through four years of heavy-duty regulation to get there. To be honest, that is about what it took to convert us from a first-class, long-established training establishment to something that had proper academic qualifications and worked as a university. Therefore, I suggest that we look very carefully at probationary degree-awarding powers. I feel equally strongly about the idea of outlawing private sector universities. There would be one set of things called UK universities, which would be the gold standard, and then there would be the rest of us. What would that say about the 2004 legislation—or indeed about the future of universities in this country? We will have to think about this rather carefully.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment on the basis that it seemed to contain some things that were very worthy of discussion. As we have heard, this is obviously a rather controversial area, but it gives us another chance to look closely at what we understand by universities and at what characteristics in them we value.

There is much to support the ongoing role of the Privy Council in the establishment of universities, providing as it does impartiality, expertise and universal standing in the awarding of royal charters. This clause would also allow for Acts of Parliament—but, again, it is open to debate as to whether there should be other sources of authority. There is a general anxiety that there should be authoritative powers to set up new universities because there is a concern that the Bill as it stands seems to give a fairly free hand for new universities to be set up without necessarily the standards that we have all grown accustomed to.

The other amendments in this group to which I have added my name are all to do with autonomy, which we discussed at great length in the debate on Amendment 1. The success of universities depends on their ability to take their own decisions, so that they can be flexible and responsible to the environment in which they are working and decide for themselves on courses, staffing and admissions. The Bill as drafted includes a number of areas where a future regime could seek to intervene in matters that are for individual institutions. Autonomy has been recognised as providing a key competitive advantage and, indeed, has been identified as a critical factor in making the UK the top performer in the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending in tertiary education. These amendments would enshrine university autonomy in the Bill.

We welcome the Government’s amendment that states:

“Guidance framed by reference to a particular course of study must not guide the OfS to perform a function in a way which prohibits or requires the provision of a particular course of study”.

This addresses concerns about the Government directing individual institutions on which courses they can open or close. However, autonomy is such a fundamental principle of the UK higher education system that we would want the Bill to go further. The amendments in this group enshrine that.

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 65 and give my general support to the other amendments in the group. I first declare my interest as chair of Sheffield Hallam University’s board of governors.

Free institutions are a fundamental part of a truly democratic society. We sadly know that simply having the power to vote is not in itself a guarantee of a democratic and free society—you need only to look at Russia to see an example of that. For me, the issue of free institutions is not simply about the benefit to the institution itself but is fundamental to an open society. That is true of a free press but, in my view, it is equally true of free universities. This has been a fundamental tenet of thinking for a long time. Indeed, there is unanimous agreement across all parties about the issue of institutional autonomy.

The question therefore is: why does the issue arise now? I am afraid that it arises precisely because of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, put it well when he said that the Bill itself has raised concerns and questions about institutional autonomy. Yet we would all sign up to the freedom of universities to decide which courses they run, which staff they employ and which students they choose to admit or not admit.

The very particular concern goes to the powers given to the Secretary of State and to the new Office for Students. Others have spoken on this at length and I will not repeat that. However, I will cite three examples that concern me. First, the threshold for the OfS to undertake action against a university is if it appears to the OfS—I emphasise “appears”—that it has breached the conditions of its registration. Surely that is too broad a basis on which to intervene. Secondly, the Bill gives the OfS the power to search and enter the premises of an HE provider registered with it, subject to a court order. Surely that should be limited to situations where there is a concern about fraud or severe financial mismanagement. It is too open at the moment.

Thirdly, the Bill allows the Secretary of State to frame the guidance given to the OfS by reference to particular courses. As this House will know, that contrasts sharply with the current legislation—the 1992 Act—in which the Secretary of State is specifically forbidden from setting guidance to HEFCE in this way. Those are three very specific examples of why this Bill causes concern.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

I support my noble friend Lord Lipsey in deploring this title. Words are significant. My noble friend mentioned George Orwell. He knew how slippery language can be. In the fake news and post-truth era, getting words exact matters more than ever. We know that in the light of the Bill students could be called consumers and providers could be entrepreneurs—business men or women. We know that language is loose and being used loosely in politics generally. Hard, soft—when have these words ever been as powerful as they are today? We have to be very thoughtful about this title.

We have spent the day discussing a whole range of activities—knowledge, research, wisdom, range of scholarship, academic life, the global achievements of our universities—and the best we can come up with is the Office for Students. What about the rest of us? What about all the universities and their authority? What about the range of scholarship and achievement of which we are so proud? Finally, on a rather silly note, are the Government really pleased that this will become known as “Ofstud”?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

I, too, support the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. The Office for Students was always a rather strange title for this all-encompassing and all-powerful body. It was particularly ironic because it took quite some effort to get students in any way involved with it or represented on it. The Office for Higher Education seems an eminently sensible title for it. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said, that covers all the aspects that this strange body is going to be responsible for. The Minister should think very seriously about changing the title.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, I agree that the Office for Students is a very strange name for this body. I take this opportunity to remind anybody in the House who does not already know how very opposed to much of what it is going to do most of our students are, and publicly so. Although the automatic response one gets when this is pointed out is, “Oh, they just don’t want their fees put up”, that is not the sole thing they are complaining about—not at all. I also take this opportunity to put on record my appreciation of the University of Warwick student union, with which I have no connection whatever, which wrote an extremely well-thought-out critique of the Bill back in June, which was the first thing to alert me to many of the things that I have become very concerned about since. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, that this is not an appropriate title and it would be very good if we could come up with another—but I do not think I will be collecting his champagne.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

Can I just confirm that that is exactly what I meant?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I add my wholehearted support to these amendments. Further education is all too often the Cinderella of the education world, yet further education colleges do an absolutely phenomenal job across a very wide range of students and subjects, so having them represented on this body is absolutely essential. I also support the adult and part-time education students, who form a critical and very important part of the student body. They have different sorts of views and needs from those who are the typical 18 year-olds going to university.

There is also the point that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made about vocational and professional education, which often links very closely with higher education institutions but has a different sort of ethos and different cohorts of people. All these amendments to add to the membership of the OfS board are critical, and I hope that the Minister will look favourably on these amendments.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, said about part-time students. We will come back to that subject in more detail during these debates. Of all days, today we should think about that really seriously. London has been brought to a standstill by a transport strike, and it is only a matter of time before the drivers of those trains, not merely the people and guards and the other people on the platforms, will no longer be working, because science and technology is advancing rapidly. That is a model for our society, and people will have to retrain.

In my 15 years’ involvement with Sheffield Hallam University, one thing that I have learned above all is that people taking part-time courses have transformed their lives in gaining skills, coming from relatively manual jobs, or jobs with a low level of skill. It is vital that we find every possibility of supporting those students. I urge the Government to consider that during the passage of this Bill. I also briefly defer to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and congratulate him on his interest in school students, which has been long-standing and of great importance.

From my experience, I cannot emphasise enough the lack of aspiration that so many school students have because they do not really believe that they can go to university. That is why it is so important that we have the bridge between school and university which this minor amendment would help to promote. There are all sorts of reasons why that is important. We may have the best school teachers in the world, but so many children go home to a desert where there is no aspiration. Their parents ask them: “Why aren’t you going out to work; why aren’t you earning money; why aren’t you supporting the household?”. It is extremely important to find ways of encouraging people from those sorts of backgrounds to understand that they should be considering further or higher education. Having people on this new body who can help universities interface with schools and teachers to give better career guidance would be a blessing and it should be incorporated in the Bill.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment for all the good reasons that we have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. The Office for Students takes on powerful responsibilities to approve and disband universities and other higher education organisations with speedier timescales and lower thresholds. It is only right that criteria for these new organisations should be clearly set out. One reason given for the legislation has been that it is 25 years since the last Higher Education Bill in 1992. We do not question that some updating is necessary to reflect developments and to ensure that teaching has the same status as research, but we question whether 119 clauses and 12 schedules are necessary for this purpose. Could it be that our universities have flourished and retained world rankings because they have not been subjected to government interference? Within education, schools and colleges have suffered from changes imposed by different Governments and by the churn of Ministers seeking to make their mark, regardless of advice from professionals in the sector. Universities for some years have been relatively free of such assistance, and they have flourished as a result.

The importance of setting out the functions of universities is all the more crucial, given that increasing the numbers of universities and opening up new commercial providers sits oddly with other government policy. The country faces acute skill shortages: we need more builders, engineers, carers and technicians. The Government have ambitious plans to increase the numbers, quality and status of apprenticeships. How can that be achieved if they are also set on increasing provision of degrees, in whatever discipline—probably mainly business and other cheaper-to-run programmes—from an expanding range of organisations whose skills could be better focused on training and reskilling for real jobs in real shortage areas? In the interests of joined-up government, could the Minister say what discussions have taken place with the Skills Minister and his team over the unintended consequences for raising the profile of much-needed skills of implying, through this Bill, that degrees are the only game in town?

Without this clause, the first reference to universities comes in Clause 51. Not long ago, universities were pretty well the only option for higher education. Many of the expansions into higher education by colleges, for instance, have been welcome responses to demand and to opening opportunities for non-traditional students. This Bill brings to mind attempts to create corporate universities in the 1990s. There was British Aerospace’s Virtual University; Unipart U, which is now a virtual U; and the University for Industry—the misnomer of all time—which came into its own only when it abandoned any claims on the title of university and changed its name to learndirect. But those initiatives morphed into closer collaboration between academia and industry, to the benefit of both, and with both contributing their different skills and ethos. Encouraging more such partnerships would surely be better for students, employers and the country than trying to widen and potentially weaken the range of higher education providers.

The criteria in this amendment provide safeguards that the core functions and values of British universities will be protected. It would be sadly ironic if the Bill produced a double whammy of undermining efforts to raise the standing and importance of skills, while damaging the standing and reputation of UK universities. There is much at stake in this Bill. We look forward to working with Ministers to ensure that market forces, competition and red tape are not allowed to damage our world-ranking universities. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope that he feels able to accept the amendment.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to this important amendment and speak in support of it. I declare my interests in higher education, as indicated in the register, and declare and acknowledge the research support from colleagues at Universities UK and my university, Aston University.

As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, says, UK universities have an exceptional international reputation for teaching and scholarship in many forms. They are places where teaching and research are intimately interwoven. Undergraduate programmes benefit from research-based learning, and graduate students and researchers are beneficially involved in teaching. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Stern, commented very positively on that in his recent review of the research excellence framework. Universities are places where new academic fields grow from interactions between colleagues in different disciplines, and places where the encouragement of independent thought and the challenge to the status quo delivers technological change and innovation. Indeed, that is why so many large companies, such as Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems, engage closely with universities—for example, through their university technology centres—to ensure that academics can challenge the stove-pipe thinking that can develop in large corporations.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, has commented, the autonomy of UK universities is recognised by our European colleagues as key to their exceptional positions in the ranking tables. Surely a broad and inclusive definition of the functions of something as important as a university in the UK is to be welcomed. That proposed in the amendment encompasses the key ingredients: autonomy; free speech; academic freedom; interdisciplinarity; teaching, scholarship and research; and, of course, the mission to contribute to society. We must recognise that being a higher education provider, delivering high-quality teaching, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for being a university. I look forward to the Minister’s response in this area.

Technical Education and Apprenticeships

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My noble friend is absolutely right and I pay tribute to him, and indeed to Dearing, for the part they played in setting up the UTC programme. I remember standing at this very Dispatch Box about three years ago and speaking about just seven UTCs; there are now 48. We continue to look at the performance of the UTC model and learn lessons from those that are open to ensure that they offer a great education for young people who want to follow a technical path and that, crucially, they produce the necessary skills to help us grow our talent.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

What consideration have the Government given to including technical and vocational achievement in school league tables and to encouraging schools to celebrate their apprenticeship leavers with the same pride that they show in their university entrants?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

That is a good point. It is very much up to schools to make those decisions but, again, as part of our campaign—our PR—we are encouraging schools in what they do to give advice on careers in general. This is very much part of it.