Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I too declare some interests. I am the principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, I was formerly the president of SOAS and before that I was chancellor of Oxford Brookes University. They are very different institutions, but each is exceptional and each delivers education of high quality that is admired around the world.

This legislation is seriously mistimed in my view. Universities are still reeling from the Brexit vote and its implications for higher education in this country. The vote put in jeopardy the huge amount of research funding that British universities receive from the European Union for collaborative projects, and it is inevitably going to reduce the number of students coming from EU countries, who are going to review their position when they know that they will be charged fees at the higher, overseas rate.

It will also affect staffing. Many of our academic staff—in fact 15% of the UK’s university academics—are from the European Union. In places such as Oxford and Cambridge, there are the ancillary staff: the people involved in catering, hospitality, cleaning and all those other roles that make universities work. Many of them are filled by people who come from other parts of the European Union. In addition, the higher education world depends on hundreds of thousands of non-EU students who choose to study here, but the combination of Brexit and the recent rhetoric about international students having to leave immediately on graduating—the rather unpleasant way in which people have been spoken about and the racist language—means that people are feeling very unwanted, which is likely to have an effect on our intake. One of the biggest challenges facing our universities is repairing the damage caused by the perceived pulling up of the drawbridge to the rest of the world, and this Bill is not going to do anything to help the sector do that.

The Bill displays the application of a rabid and fanatical commitment to market ideology, which is being used to determine policy in a field where it should not be used at all. It is this classic thing where we have something that is world-class and which we can be proud of, yet somehow we are going to start visiting the market into it in ways that will be detrimental. We see that being done stealthily in the National Health Service, the justice system and the BBC—all of them aspects of British life that act as the mortar that holds the bricks together, that bind us as a society and that give us stature in the world. Yet somehow we are so laissez-faire with them.

This Bill will make it easier for new private providers to set up for-profit universities on the back of our taxpayer-funded system, receiving financial incentives from government that we taxpayers will pay for. They will be able to obtain degree-awarding powers, despite having little or no track record. Welcome to the Trump University phenomenon, which others have mentioned. I remind noble Lords of the huge compensation payouts recently received by hundreds of students who have been defrauded. I cannot emphasise enough that a robust gateway into the sector should be the highest priority for the establishment of any new university. I want to understand why the royal charter mechanism, which sets the bar high, is being jettisoned.

The declared intentions of the Bill are to prioritise student interests and teaching quality and to put an engine under the national research capacity. All those are things that I support, but it is much more likely that there will be a bad deal for students, because it will raise student fees. It will also be a hammer blow to our global reputation and will put too much power into the hands of politicians, despite the commitment that the Minister for Universities—whom I admire greatly and I see standing there—made when he said that the Haldane principle would be protected. I would like to see that said in the Bill. Those studying and working in this sector are understandably anxious, because the idea of profitability is going to take priority over quality education. They fear it will mean a lowering of the cost of teaching staff and the deprofessionalising of academics. We have seen that already with zero-hour contracts for young university teachers. They see it as a way of raising the fees in many of our institutions, and they are right to be anxious about that. I quote the American Federation of Teachers:

“Student debt at for-profit colleges is student debt on steroids: bigger and ‘badder’. Bigger because nearly all the tuition at for-profits comes directly from student loans. ‘Badder’ because many for-profits fail to provide high-quality education despite raking in billions in federal financial aid—failing their students and, ultimately, the taxpayers”.

I am afraid we are not learning the lesson there.

I remind everyone that I care about research in our universities and I am worried about the way in which we are going to see that dealt with. Our higher education system is one of our great national assets. We have to understand how important it is and guard it preciously. I am afraid the Bill falls far short in the eyes of many.