Higher Education and Research Bill (Eleventh sitting) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Ben Howlett
Main Page: Ben Howlett (Conservative - Bath)Department Debates - View all Ben Howlett's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Higher Education and Research Bill (Eleventh sitting)
Ben Howlett ExcerptsThursday 13th October 2016
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Higher Education and Research Act 2017 View all Higher Education and Research Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 13 October 2016 - (13 Oct 2016)
Joseph Johnson
The analogy is perfectly reasonable: a regulator is charging a registration fee to the beneficiaries of its regulation. The end users of the service or product are ultimately indirectly contributing towards the cost of the benefits of running the regulator.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
I agree with my hon. Friend; now is not the time to be talking about the proportions between who is paying what, when and how. However, will he confirm that, in the consultation, the proportions between what the state will be paying and what the providers will be paying will be decided at that stage?
Joseph Johnson
Yes, that is exactly right and I have already given some examples of some of the areas in which the Government will want to be making a contribution towards the overall costs of the regulatory framework.
I assure hon. Members that the power under clause 66 is about enabling the Government to express their funding priorities. This recognises that in a world where we set maximum fees, Government need to ensure that they can direct money to some high-cost courses to ensure it remains viable for providers to teach them. Amendment 240 would prevent this. It would also have a further particularly unwelcome, and I am sure unintended, effect in that it would remove the Secretary of State’s ability to make teaching grant to the OFS and replace it with an ability to make grant only for the OFS’s set-up and running costs. That would remove the OFS’s ability to fund activity such as high-cost science, technology, engineering and maths courses or widening participation.
Amendment 240 would undermine the sustainability of our HE funding system, to the detriment of students. Further, we are taking the opportunity in this legislation to refresh the protections for academic freedom so that they are appropriate for today’s circumstances. I ask the hon. Member for City of Durham to withdraw the amendment.