Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Marsden]

I am grateful to the Minister for that important clarification. It is also important that all fee regulations under the Bill that were previously subject to negative procedure will now be subject to affirmative procedure. That puts daylight on issues related to rocketing fees, and I believe that it will be entirely possible that the Secretary of State, whoever it will be, will have to listen to a dogged independent statutory review that says, “This ain’t working. Either it won’t ever work, or it certainly won’t work for the time being.” It is in all of our interests to make sure that that statutory review is as potent as we wish it to be.

I welcome the Government’s electoral registration amendment, which strengthens the current position to some extent. We would have preferred a full commitment to ensuring block registration, but nevertheless we wholeheartedly welcome anything that will facilitate greater student interest in and awareness of political affairs. I pay tribute to the fantastic work of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central and to the pilot work undertaken at the University of Sheffield and the University of Bath. I also praise my fellow member of the Bill Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North, and my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), all of whom have concerns about students and feel very strongly about the matter. It is important to note that we are not just relying on nudges. The Minister was kind enough to refer to the involvement of the Cabinet Office in this regard, and there will be specific powers to impose an electoral registration commitment to deal with HE providers not doing enough.

Finally, let me turn to the amendments on international students. I praise and welcome the doggedness with which Lord Hannay pursued this matter with the coalition that worked across Parliament to insert the original amendment. I hoped and thought that the strength of that coalition might have moved the Government, but unfortunately it is not a question of the warm words, values and welcomes which the Minister talked about and to which, I am sure, he signs up—he was a dedicated remainer before the election. Unfortunately, he has a Prime Minister who has been at best curmudgeonly and at worst obstructive on this issue. The sharp questions from the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) and the contribution of the Chair of the Select Committee on Education, the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), show where we are on this matter.

At a time when Brexit is throwing up fresh problems for the higher education sector, the Government’s stance is threatening both the sector and our reputation worldwide. Those new issues are about whether we will be able to stay in Erasmus or get funding for beyond Horizon 2020, and about European structural funding, but the university and HE sector has enough to contend with without having a Prime Minister who appears to wrinkle her nose and, sometimes, attach manacles to her colleagues in Cabinet every time they suggest a different path.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

My hon. Friend is making compelling points. In Northern Ireland there are two universities, Queen’s University, Belfast and the Ulster University. They both rely on Erasmus and European social funds to develop cross-border educational research programmes with higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland. The impact of Brexit in the context of this debate is therefore particularly important to us; does he agree with me on that?

[Gordon Marsden]

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend makes a further point about the Government’s still having a long way to go in understanding and realising what that international sector is all about. That is why it is so disappointing that the Minister will not go further—in fact, the truth is that he cannot go further. He and his colleagues have been sat on from a great height by No. 10 and by the Home Office. That is the reality. The Tory party and its members are split down the middle on this issue. It is an unedifying shambles that the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), who is retiring, presciently commented on in The Times today. It is a shambles that Labour, in government, would have no part in.

During this election campaign, we will continue to press for the removal of students from net migration statistics for public policy purposes, and although I genuinely welcome the new designated body that the Minister has talked about, the truth is exactly as the hon. Member for Bedford said: it leaves the Minister without a visible means of support in delivering the objective that he will no doubt fervently wish could be delivered under that process.

The problems and weaknesses of the Bill have been substantial, not least as regards the wilful obtuseness of the Government to do anything to make a pre-Brexit Bill—conceived when the Minister and the Government at the time assumed that Brexit would fall—fit for a post-Brexit world. They could have put it out to pre-legislative scrutiny, but they did not. They could have paused it. That was quite rightly argued for by the University and College Union, the Council for the Defence of British Universities and others, including distinguished figures across the sector and in this House, not least the Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright)—but they did not.

It has been left to us—by us, I mean not just the Labour party, but the other opposition parties in this House and in the House of Lords—to make the arguments in this place. A concerted effort has been made by cross-Benchers, Lib Dem peers, the noble Lord Hannay and the small but important group of Conservative peers, including Lord Patten, who have wrinkled their noses at, and fought ferociously against, the technocratic complexities and central dictation in the Bill. Those things risk blunting the creativity and dynamism of our HE sector, whether delivered at an old university such as Oxford or Cambridge, at the many dynamic new universities which MillionPlus celebrated at its 25th anniversary last night, or in the further education sector. I pay tribute to the Government for extending HE awarding powers to the FE sector, not least because my college, Blackpool Fylde College, will be one of the first to benefit.

The Americans have a saying that goes something like, “When you get lemons, you have to try to make lemonade,” and that is what we have all tried to do. We have tried to make a flawed Bill better fit for purpose, and to help, not hinder, the dynamism that I have talked about. We have had a decent thrash at it; without that decent thrash and the work of the House of Lords, I think it would have been a very poor Bill indeed.

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[Ms Ritchie]

The hon. Lady will be well aware that Northern Ireland, where both education and higher education are devolved, does not have any political authority at the moment due to the lack of political institutions being up and running. That is particularly damaging for us, with Brexit looming, because our universities rely on EU migrants both for their teaching and student populations. Does she agree that the resolution of both issues is needed to ensure that further and higher education continue to be the pumps that fuel the local economy?

[Carol Monaghan]

SNP Members have of course been consistent in our calls for EU workers and EU students, both in universities and in our local communities, to be given the assurances they need. This is not about them getting assurances that they are allowed to stay; it is about them getting assurances that they are welcome to stay and that we appreciate the contribution they make.

We agree with subsection (4) in Lords amendment 23 that any assessment system should not be used to create a single composite ranking of higher education providers, which would skew prospective students’ opinions about whether to attend a particular institution. Scottish higher education already has its own quality assessment process, which includes inputs not just from students, but from teaching professionals across the sector. The enhancement-led institutional review is highly regarded, and we would not want a UK-wide system to replace or threaten Scotland’s current system. The UK Government do not have any jurisdiction over the Scottish HE sector, and therefore the Secretary of State alone should not be creating an assessment system for Scottish education. We are looking for assurances that the Scottish Government will be allowed to play a full part in the development of any system that could be made to apply, without full consultation, to higher education in Scotland.

On Lords amendment 156, it is positive to hear the Government reiterating their commitment that there are no limits on international student numbers. However, the Government’s amendments in lieu, which place a duty on higher education institutions to publish information relating to international students, do not go far enough to allow this sector to thrive. Current immigration policy poses a significant risk to Scottish universities, and we are losing out to key competitors in attracting international students.

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[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for disagreeing with me. This measure is a step in the right direction, but we will find that it will not go far enough unless we embed electoral registration seamlessly within university enrolment procedures. For many reasons, I hope we can continue to work on that together in the next Parliament.

I welcome the strengthening of provisions on degree-awarding powers, but I retain one concern—the Minister might wish to cover this either in an intervention or in his concluding remarks—about the transfer of ownership. I heard his comment that the Office for Students will be expected to review degree-awarding powers when there is a transfer of ownership, but I am concerned about the nature of that review if ownership is transferred to an organisation that has no track record as a provider. In those circumstances, will we effectively press the reset button and have a comprehensive review as if we were talking about a new provider? I would be grateful if the Minister responded to that point.

Having said all that, I am bitterly disappointed that there has been insufficient movement on the issue of international students, and I say that as co-chair of the all-party group on international students—I share that job with Lord Bilimoria. My disappointment is evidently shared by Conservative Members. In his typically incisive way, the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), who was a great colleague on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, put his finger on the contradiction in the Government’s current position very effectively. I was pleased to hear his subsequent contribution on the issue.

The hon. Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) has been a great colleague during his short time in Parliament so far, and I have been delighted to work with him on the all-party group. He has been a great advocate for higher education and students, and he has done sterling work on championing the cause of international students.

My concern and disappointment cross the House, and I know that the Minister will share my disappointment —he is not alone. From what we hear, the majority of the Cabinet share my disappointment. It is No. 10 that is saying no. Frankly, this is madness. The Government are shooting themselves in the foot. Just when we need to be building on our country’s success, the Government are torpedoing it.

Lords amendment 156 was thoughtfully drafted by Lord Hannay, who made it clear that it would take international students out of consideration as long-term migrants for public policy purposes. The Minister said that we have to count international students. The Government often cite the United States, where the Census Bureau counts international students, but the Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for public policy on migration, does not treat them as migrants. That is the model we are looking for, and it is the model embedded in Lords amendment 156. If the amendment were agreed to, it would enable growth, generate earnings and create jobs in towns and cities across the country. The regional dimension is important, because the distribution of our universities across the regions and nations of the United Kingdom means that when universities succeed, that success is shared, quite uniquely, across the country.

We do not want to reduce the debate about international students to simple economics. International students enrich the learning environment of our campuses.

[Ms Ritchie]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that these international students add to the scholarly, research and investigative processes undertaken by universities in terms of academic freedom and the richness of our society?