Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

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

Moved by

[Baroness Goldie]

123: Schedule 2, page 76, line 36, after “be” insert “equal to or”

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, as the Government have set out previously in this and the other place, as well as in publications, our policy is that increases in tuition fee limits must be earned by demonstrating excellent teaching quality through participation in the teaching excellence framework.

These amendments correct a small drafting error in Schedule 2 to ensure that this policy is achieved. Under the amended wording, a sub-level amount can be set at the same level as the floor level, meaning that the Secretary of State can create a fee limit that applies specifically to providers that do not participate in TEF—either because they choose not to, or because they are ineligible—and set that limit as equal to the floor level.

Let me be clear: the floor level is the baseline, minimum fee limit, which is £6,000 for those providers without an access and participation plan and £9,000 for those with an access and participation plan. We have no plans to increase these values. Within the sphere of high-quality rating, providers who achieve a gold or silver rating will get a 100% inflationary uplift, and those who achieve a bronze rating will be recognised with a 50% inflationary uplift. Without these amendments, any sub-level amount assigned to non-participating providers would need to be greater than the floor amount. That would mean that these non-participating providers would derive benefit for no reason. That is unfair and contrary to our policy intent. That is why I am speaking to these amendments. I beg to move.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, will the noble Baroness reflect on the point she made as she concluded her remarks when she said that the fees would remain at £6,000 and £9,000 respectively, and gave the reasons for the two different fees and the reason for the amendment? She went on to say that the Government had no plans to increase these. She knows that is not right. A statutory instrument has already been laid—a negative instrument—which we shall debate shortly in this House which seeks to increase these figures by inflation to quite significant sums above £6,000 and £9,000. Will she confirm that that is the case?

As I am on my feet, and reflecting back on the debate we had on the first group of amendments this evening, I say that it was clear from the Minister who responded that he was making play of two reasons why he would not consider the arguments made all around the Committee on the link between the TEF and the increases in fees. One of them was simply that it was a good cause but he repeated the other several times and ended up having to defend it quite vigorously—namely, that this matter was contained in the Conservative Party manifesto at the last general election. The dinner break followed very shortly afterwards and I checked the Conservative Party manifesto. I am afraid that he is wrong on that point. The manifesto says:

“We will ensure that universities deliver the best possible value for money to students: we will introduce a framework to recognise universities offering the highest teaching quality; encourage universities to offer more two-year courses; and require more data to be openly available to potential students so that they can make decisions informed by the career paths of past graduates”.


It does not make a connection between the TEF and the quality of the courses, which would mean that only those with a good rating in the TEF would get increased fees. I therefore ask him to withdraw that when he next has the opportunity to do so, because he has misled the House a little on this. It does not matter in the great scheme of things—he was going to reject the amendment anyway—but we should have the right reasons for doing that, and that was not the case.

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, briefly, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on the specific matter he raised on the values for the floor levels, I can confirm that there are no plans to increase the floor level—I want to make that clear—and the inflationary uplift will be at the higher level. I hope that that clarifies the position.

Amendment 123 agreed.

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[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for tabling a set of amendments relating to admissions. By way of preface, I listened carefully to the points made previously by your Lordships about the importance of retaining the independent and autonomous state of higher education providers. Noble Lords will recall that I yearn to see something comparable in Scotland, but I am afraid that we have lost that.

One consequence of independence is that providers are then responsible for their own admissions decisions and, rightly, government has no power to interfere in this area. Universities are best placed to identify the candidates with the talent and potential to succeed at an institution or on a particular course, and the Bill makes it clear that this will continue. Indeed, Clause 2 ensures that the Secretary of State must have regard to the need to protect the freedom of higher education providers to determine their own admissions criteria. Clause 35 carries forward an important requirement from existing legislation that, like the current Director of Fair Access, the OfS will have a duty to protect academic freedom and institutional autonomy over admissions.

No doubt concerns would be raised across this House and the sector about the OfS overstepping its powers if a requirement regarding admissions were included in the Bill, and those concerns would be justified. The OfS will, as part of its broader duties, want to look strategically across the HE sector and to consider the implications arising from the admissions cycle. However, we would expect the OfS to work with bodies such as UCAS to ensure that the right information was available to inform a broader picture.

UCAS is a charity, established by HE providers, with a clear role in university admissions. It can and already does undertake and publish reports into admissions on behalf of the sector. Through the Bill we are introducing a transparency duty on registered HE providers, requiring them to publish application, offer and drop-out rates broken down by socioeconomic background, ethnicity and gender, and to provide the OfS with these data.

My noble friend Lord Lucas raised post-qualification applications—an issue that has been around for a number of years. As I said earlier, the autonomy of institutions in relation to admissions is enshrined in law. The current system has many strengths, including that prospective students can apply after they have their results, through clearing.

UCAS conducted its own review of the introduction of post-qualification applications and gave a clear recommendation not to move to this system. Should further investigation of the system be desired, it is for higher education providers to instigate it. The OfS could potentially be involved, but I suggest that such a requirement should not be set out in legislation.

The Government agree that part-time and adult education bring enormous benefits to individuals, the economy and employers. Our reforms to part-time learning, advanced learning loans and degree apprenticeships provide significant opportunities for mature students to learn. Allowing new providers to enter the system should result in greater choice of HE provision for part-time and distance learning, which can greatly assist mature learners. Under Clause 2, when carrying out its functions the OfS has a general duty to have regard to the need to promote greater choice and opportunities for students, which would include more choice and opportunities with regard to part-time and mature provision. However, it is important that we keep the duties of the OfS broad and overarching so as not to overburden the organisation and so that we can enable it to function efficiently and flexibly.

Having regard to what I have just said, I very much hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw Amendment 128.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am sorry that the Government take the attitude they do to post-qualification admission. It seems to me that this is something in which schools and students should have a voice and that it should not be entirely down to universities. It distorts school education very substantially and therefore I think that it is not only the interests of universities that should be taken into account. However, I accept that the Government think differently.

Since the noble Baroness is in the business of dispensing bad news to me at the moment, can she confirm the rumour that we are to sit well past midnight on Monday?

[Baroness Goldie]

I have always regarded the noble Lord as my friend and I shall do my best not to alienate that happy relationship. Your Lordships will be aware that this is very significant legislation— I understand that it is unprecedented in terms of amendments. Although I have no precise timings for Monday, it may help your Lordships to know that I am given to understand that we can anticipate a long sitting, but until when, I cannot be precise about.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I am sure that the usual channels will come up with an equitable solution for all concerned. I think it would be for the benefit of the House, and indeed for our ability to cope, if we all cut down our speeches quite a lot more than we are currently doing, but that is not a matter for debate at the moment. I will do my best to live up to my aspirations, although I am not very good at it.

I simply want to say that I agree with what the Minister said about the amendment because I did not ask for any additional burdens to be placed on the OfS or any issues to be raised about the autonomy of individuals and institutions and their admissions. What I asked for was that some regard should be given by OfS to commissioning regular reviews, in consultation with those bodies, in order that there be better information about the advantages of part-time and mature student routes and courses that would appeal more to those with more flexibility. However, I think that enough has been said on the record to make sure that this issue has been picked up. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Willetts]

My Lords, I welcome particularly the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Lucas. The official doctrine has always been that a university can go bust, but I was never able to contemplate the political feasibility of a scenario where a padlock is swinging on the gates of a university, with a group of students outside desperate to go in for their history lectures and being told, “I am terribly sorry; we’re closed”, while tumbleweed blows through the campus. Indeed, Margaret Thatcher faced this in 1985 in Cardiff. She was not willing to allow University College, Cardiff to go bust. I think that we can accept that we are functioning in an environment where in reality it will be very hard just to say, “Bad luck. You’ve done 18 months of a course and it’s come to an end”.

The question is how one should address that, which gets to the heart of some quite important issues in the Bill. There has been a fashionable doctrine for a few years of the ABTA solution—and some kind of scheme like that could be made to work—but in my experience the closest we got to this problem was clearly HEFCE. It was acting as the co-ordinator, organiser and convenor. It might have been that students had to be located at several other universities and it would get different universities to make their contributions so that students would be educated. If we get into such a scenario—my noble friend Lord Lucas is absolutely right that we have to contemplate it—it is very hard to see how it could be resolved without some convening power for the OfS, which, as I have said in other contexts in this Committee stage, is in many respects the son of HEFCE. A lot of our problems will be resolved if we think of it as the son of HEFCE. My noble friend’s proposal to make it clear that there is some legal responsibility for OfS must be an important and credible part of any solution. It is not credible to imagine that the matter could be addressed via an ABTA-type scheme.

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I will try to abbreviate my remarks somewhat but this is a very important group of amendments so I want to try to genuinely address some of the points that have been raised. I am grateful to noble Lords for their contributions. Student protection and experience are important issues.

Student protection plans are important. They should be robust and offer real protection to students, should their provider or course close. The Office for Students will have overall responsibility for creating and issuing specific guidance on student protection plans. That is an important development and a very important safeguard. We expect this guidance to include the content, the process for approval and review, and the likely triggers for implementing student protection measures. The guidance will be developed as part of the regulatory framework, in consultation with the higher education sector, including bodies representing the interests of students.

In relation to the specific point raised by my noble friend Lord Norton, it is absolutely right that the OfS consults on this issue fully, and it should set out further details and best practice in guidance. We tabled an amendment to the Bill in the other place to require student protection plans to be published and therefore brought to students’ attention. That is an important step to ensure transparency in relation to these plans.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that protection from financial loss could be an important function of some student protection plans, as could measures to enable students to transfer or continue their studies, perhaps within the same institution but in a different faculty or department. Student protection plans are likely to include a diverse range of measures to protect students, reflecting the diversity of the higher education sector, together with a diverse range of possible triggers for a student protection plan, including suspension of registration.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked why we do not have the same degree of reassurance in this Bill as in the further education Bill. The different mechanisms reflect the different characteristics of students in higher and further education as learners in these two spheres. But both approaches are designed to protect the interests of students. That is something we must not lose sight of.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, also raised the issue of strengthening registration conditions for new providers. That is an important matter. In determining initial and ongoing registration conditions, the OfS will assess, among other factors, a provider’s academic track record and—this is very important—its financial sustainability. I assure the noble Lord that where the OfS determines that a new provider represents a higher level of risk, it must, under the provisions already included in Clauses 6 and 7, apply more stringent, but proportionate, conditions to that provider. There is a facility to recognise where there may be an element of risk.

I wholeheartedly agree with the views expressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely in his amendment, which were very helpfully expressed by his colleague, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth. I thank him for being with us this evening. Student protection plans should be mindful of additional or particular protections that may be required for disabled students or those with special educational needs, which the noble Baroness on the Liberal Democrat Benches referred to. Again, this could be made clear in the OfS guidance.

Turning to Amendment 163 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas, I want to make it clear to your Lordships that there are currently no direct regulatory barriers to students moving between universities. Supporting students who wish to switch higher education institution or course is an important part of our reforms.

In relation to student experience, which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, raised, there is no universal neat-fit template that covers all situations because student populations vary hugely in their requirements. As independent and autonomous organisations, higher education institutions are best placed to decide what experiences they can and want to offer. I do not think that that should be prescribed by government.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, also raised the question of involving students in access and participation plans. I reassure the Committee that the Office for Fair Access currently expects providers to include a detailed statement on how they have involved and consulted students in the development of their plan, and the Director of Fair Access has had regard to these when deciding whether to approve a plan. Providers are encouraged, for example, to set out where students have been involved in the design and implementation of financial support packages. Some student unions run information, advice and guidance sessions to explain the support packages to ensure maximum take-up from eligible students. We fully expect this successful approach, which has developed over a number of years, to continue.

I hope these comments reassure your Lordships that these issues have not fallen off the radar screen. They are very much before us and I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Willetts]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Lucas can speak for himself but it is worth focusing on this scenario for a few more minutes. I would be grateful if the Minister could take us through what she expects now to happen if a university gets into difficulties. I can tell her that it will end up on the Minister’s desk within a matter of hours. In my view, the Minister needs to have the power to ask the OfS to do things which ensure that those students continue to get higher education. That could supplement ABTA-type arrangements or whatever. I would be grateful for her assurance to the Committee that either the powers already exist in the legislation as drafted, or that the Government will support measures to ensure there are those powers. There will otherwise be quite a serious gap. We know from other areas, including health service legislation, that it is a fantasy to imagine, “Don’t worry, we can just leave it all to the individual universities and their ABTA arrangements—it is nothing to do with the Minister”. It will end up on the Minister’s desk and we are doing a disservice to future Ministers if they find themselves in this situation and ask, “Why on earth did nobody give me or the OfS any power to do anything in a situation like this?”, where clearly public action to convene is expected as a minimum.

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank my noble friend for raising significant points. Let me try to put his mind at rest. I hope he will accept that the whole thrust of the Bill is to create not just new territory for the way in which we deal with the provision of higher education in England but a set of new relationships, not the least of which is putting the student right at the core of higher education provision—perhaps doing so in a way which we have not seen before. That is to be applauded. The constitution and creation of the OfS develop a body which is not just a paper tiger. This body is given significant, meaningful and tangible powers in the Bill—powers that it will be required to deploy and use if difficult situations arise.

My noble friend posed the specific question of what will happen to students if a higher education institution goes bust. First, it is intended that the OfS will monitor the financial health of institutions and require student protection plans to be implemented if a provider is at risk of being unable to deliver a course. The OfS will not be operating in some silo or vacuum. It will actually be a hands-on and in-touch body, with its finger on the pulse to know what is happening. It will have an early indication if there are reasons for concern.

For example, if in the unlikely and very unhappy event that a higher education institution goes bust, existing students might be taught out for the remainder of their course or academic year, with provision to transfer to another institution having banked their existing credits. It would entirely depend on the terms of the student protection plan but that is indicative of how these plans have to be broad, far-reaching and flexible. The core of all this is that at the end of the day, they must provide that underpinning protection to which students are entitled.

It is currently the case with HEFCE that the Office of Students may be able to support an institution while it implements a student protection plan. It might, for example, reprofile loan repayments or provide short-term emergency support. This is very much a nuclear option because instances of a provider suddenly and without warning exiting the market completely are likely to remain extremely rare. We would expect student protection plans to be implemented as far as possible—for example, measures to financially compensate students—and the OfS to support students in transferring to alternative institutions. There is a variety of solutions, remedies and initiatives which could be deployed, and it is very clear that the powers that will be available to the OfS will make such deployment perfectly practical, reasonable and manageable. I hope that reassures my noble friend on the issues which he raised.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I have to say to the Minister, who cannot see behind her, that her noble friend was not looking that reassured.

[Lord Lucas]

No, I do not find myself reassured. I very much hope my noble friend may be able to write to us. The sort of protection plan she is talking about is starting to look extremely expensive. Are they going to hold a year’s fees in reserve? If we do not have some kind of mutual arrangement, each course will have to look out for itself; that is going to be extremely expensive and make new initiatives very difficult to finance. I would really appreciate a properly worked example of what happens when a university ceases to trade at relatively short notice.

[Baroness Goldie]

I am very happy to undertake to write to my noble friend. I have so much of interest to tell him that it will be a long letter.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

As I was saying, I do not think the Minister quite got to the heart of the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, about what the Minister does when this letter arrives on the desk. I think the noble Baroness managed to avoid mentioning Ministers at all. We take on board what the Minister is saying about the role of student protection plans and the institution in this. She is right to say that this has to be settled long in advance and we have to know what we are doing, but there is the question of realpolitik. When these matters arrive courtesy of the Daily Mail and land on the Minister’s desk, she is going to have to have a better answer than that. I suspect that the answer is that the power to direct the OfS will remain in the armoury given to the Minister. Although we have some reservations about that, in exceptional circumstances that will obviously be the right thing to do. I was pleased to hear that, like us, the Government accept that if the student is at the heart of this new reformed plan for higher education, the student has to have some rights and responsibilities, and they have to be real and exercisable. The letter should try to cover that journey in these extreme situations.

I am, however, left with Amendment 138 and its drafting. I think the Minister said that it is not necessary to bring it into the current Bill from the Technical and Further Education Bill because the institutions are different. These institutions will probably be offering a similar number of courses around degree apprenticeships, and higher education is often provided in further education situations, so I do not think that argument sustains itself. Will the Minister write to us about the reasons for not including these rather well-worked-through arrangements, which seem to answer all the questions she has been asked, as they exist in legislation which we are about to consider and could, with very little effort, be copied into the current Bill? I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, as someone who is not an academic, I find it quite surprising that amendments of this sort should be necessary, but given that they have been moved and supported by very long-established academics, it is clear that there is an issue here. I thought that that blind-marking assessment was what happened all the time in the established universities, but it may not be the situation in some of the newer or smaller providers, and the question is what will happen with some of the future providers. To me, this is something any student should have a right to expect. Nobody, whatever their background, should be discriminated against, consciously or unconsciously, by whoever is involved in marking an assessment. If we are being told by academics, as it appears we are, that these amendments are necessary, I would certainly want to support them. I hope the Minister will take it in good faith that they are necessary.

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Desai, for tabling these amendments, which speak to concerns about unconscious bias in admissions and assessment, which I know we all take very seriously. As we have established, institutional autonomy is a vital principle for higher education, and academic freedom will continue to be protected through the Bill. I suggest the matters raised in these amendments are for individual institutions to take their own decisions on, as independent and autonomous bodies.

Amendment 133A would add a new requirement to Clause 13 to ensure that judgments made by higher education staff when making an assessment of a student’s work are not pre-determined by knowledge of the student whose work is under consideration. Under the current quality system, this is covered by the UK Quality Code. Expectations and guidance to ensure that judgments of student performance are based on the extent to which the student is able to demonstrate achievement of the corresponding intended learning outcomes are of course the essence of what is intended by that quality code. Indeed, all providers are expected to abide by the requirements of the quality code, and that will continue under the OfS. We would not want to undermine the flexibility of providers to achieve a fair assessment by introducing a new level of prescription, which the amendment would do. We do not feel that would be in the best interests of providers or indeed of students.