Higher Education and Research Bill

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

As the Prime Minister said outside Downing Street last week, this Government want to give everybody, no matter what their background, the opportunity to go as far as their talents will take them, in a country that works for everyone. Our higher education institutions are crucial to giving people the power to determine their own futures. They present opportunities for individuals to better themselves—to broaden their knowledge base, sharpen their skills, and participate in the groundbreaking research that can make the future brighter for everyone.

My time at Southampton University was one of the most shaping periods of my life. I should point to my time at the Department for International Development as another of those periods. For me, the chance to go to university was absolutely pivotal to being able to make something of myself. Today, I can still point to the telephone box in Kingsbridge, Devon where I rang through to get my A-level results while we were on holiday that year. In that moment, my whole future changed for the better. I was the first person in my family to be able to go to university. I remember, after that call, going to the pub across the road to celebrate with a drink. None of us really knew what going to university would be like for me, but we all knew that it was going to be the best thing and that it would improve my life chances. Opportunity is about giving our young people the freedom to fly, and universities are absolutely central to that.

My party’s record on this in government is one we can be proud of. We have taken away the limit on student numbers so that more people than ever before can benefit from higher education, and the participation rate among students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds is at record levels. We have put in place the essential funding changes that have placed our universities on a stable financial footing so that they are resourced for success, and we have protected investment in our world-class science base.

The universities that our young people attend are some of the best in the world. We punch well above our weight, with 34 institutions ranked in the world’s top 200 and more than twice that number in the top 800. But there is more to do to make sure that everyone can access a high-quality university place, and in spite of the progress made, we are far from meeting our economy’s need for graduates, so this Government are absolutely determined to support and nurture our universities, and to ensure that they are open to every student who has the potential to benefit from them.

The creation of new universities is an undoubted force for good, both academically and economically. Recent research by the London School of Economics shows that doubling the number of universities per capita could mean a 4% rise in future GDP per capita too. However, the current system for creating universities can feel highly restrictive, with new providers requiring the backing of an incumbent institution to become eligible to award its own degrees. This Bill levels the playing field by laying the foundations for a new system where it will be simpler and quicker to establish high-quality new providers. I am pleased that in May the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) confirmed that the Opposition do not object to broadening choice for students by expanding the higher education sector.

These reforms, which are the first since the 1990s, enable us to maintain the world-class reputation of our higher education institutions, because quality will be built in at every stage—from the way we regulate new entrants to how we deal with poor-quality providers already in the system. I recognise that there have been concerns about the quality of new providers—that they cannot possibly be as good as what we already have. It is not the first time that such arguments have been made. The same arguments were made when the new red-brick universities were being established just before the first world war, but today Sheffield, Birmingham and Manchester—which I visited very recently in my previous role—are world-class universities. This “quality” argument was made about the 1960s expansion, but in four of the past 10 years the Sunday Times award for university of the year has gone to one founded in that very period—currently the University of Surrey. In 1992, it was a Conservative Government who had the vision to set free the polytechnics to enable them to become universities. Now we are making it possible for a whole new generation of universities to help us to extend access to higher education for young people across our country.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to her new position and look forward to working with her over, I hope, the next few years. Does she agree that one aspect of the post-war universities and the post-1992 polytechnics was that students were not asked to contribute fees in order to receive a university education?

[Justine Greening]

I acknowledge that the Scottish National party takes a very different view of this issue. The reality is that the choice that it has made has resulted in fewer students being able to go to university in Scotland. One in five students in Scotland who apply for, and who have the grades to get, a place cannot go because the funding is not available. The hon. Lady’s Government in Scotland have made that choice, but it is not a choice that this Government want to make. We have to make sure that places are available for students who have the potential and talent to make their way in life. Putting a cap on opportunity and potential is not just bad for students; it is bad for our country more broadly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

The SNP joins other parties in having concerns about the Bill. We do not dispute that some aspects of higher education need reviewing, and we welcome attempts to increase diversity and access to higher education. The Bill aims to transform the HE landscape, but it does not go far enough in terms of diversity, and it poses a serious threat to the international reputation of the UK HE sector. To press ahead with the Bill at a time when HE is already experiencing great uncertainty due to Brexit is reckless and will cause further damage.

There are significant differences between the higher education sector in Scotland and its counterparts in the rest of the UK. The SNP is supportive of the UK Government’s proposals to improve the standard of teaching through the teaching excellence framework, but it stresses the need to consider Scotland’s unique educational provision. Although Scottish HE providers will not be bound by the Bill, there are concerns that by not participating in the TEF, Scottish universities will be disadvantaged when attracting international students, who are a crucial source of funding for all HE institutions.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

I came to this place after working in an educational institution, and I echo my hon. Friend’s sentiments about the value of international students. Does she agree that that value is much more than just financial, and that all our students will lose out if attracting international students becomes a problem?

[Carol Monaghan]

I agree 100% with my hon. Friend. Diversity in our institutions and what we learn from overseas students enrich the experience for all students in higher education.

International students who are considering a move to a UK university could view an English university with a strong TEF rating as offering a better experience than a Scottish university with no TEF rating. Since the TEF will be grounded in quality assurance scores, and given that Scotland has a distinct quality assurance system, recognition of Scotland’s enhancement-led institutional reviews, and benchmarking those reviews against TEF ratings, would allow institutions in Scotland to continue to compete on a level playing field when attracting international students.

It is important to exercise caution around the use of metrics to judge quality of teaching. Certain metrics—graduate salary or student satisfaction, for example—can drive university behaviour in a negative way, as higher education institutions are incentivised to sacrifice certain subjects in favour of areas that produce more positive results in the criteria being measured. Courses that are more challenging and perhaps score lower in student satisfaction metrics—for example, vital STEM courses—could end up being dropped because they do not measure well on the TEF metrics. If metrics are to be used, it is important for our economy that they are carefully honed to ensure that the degrees being taken and the skills developed still meet the overall needs of society.

We should view with caution the drive towards marketisation of the student experience. Giving the power to award degrees to new untested providers on day one is a concern if there is no clear mechanism to ensure that those providers have a track record of delivering quality courses to students. Plans that assist the entry of “for profit” providers and award them with the title of “university” will be damaging as the UK competes internationally for students. Perhaps most importantly, those new institutions, which often have no record, will compete for significant numbers of students while allowing them to cherry-pick profitable courses.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I am sure the hon. Lady knows that the National Union of Students is concerned about what we call the creeping privatisation of the university service. We could end up with a situation like the mess we have in the national health service through privatisation by the back door.

[Carol Monaghan]

All SNP Members share that concern, and we should be worried about the move towards privatisation of the university system.

Courses that are more expensive to deliver—again, I mention STEM courses—will be left to traditional higher education institutions that will either bear that financial burden alone or, worse still, will abandon some of the courses that have earned the UK its worldwide reputation for excellence in that field. New institutions will be allowed to operate without providing services such as libraries or student unions, which are a key part of the student experience at university. Indeed, the Bill permits competition not on equal terms with existing universities, but on substantially reduced terms. The only assumption one can make is that the new providers will put profit before students.

The Government have outlined two models, and with the “low” fee cap of £6,000 we will have universities that potentially offer lower quality provision. At the other end of the scale, the higher fee of £9,000 can further rise with inflation. Where teaching is high quality, that is recognised as a strength of an individual course, not of an institution, yet fees will be the same for all courses in an institution. Creating a system that assesses the quality of a whole institution and allows it to raise the fees for every course based on that assessment when the quality of teaching will vary across departments, is unrealistic. It will create a framework in which students could study courses of lower quality at an institution that was judged to provide “generally” high quality, yet they would, unfairly, be charged higher fees for poor-quality degrees.

[Michael Gove]

Like the hon. Lady I am a huge admirer of higher education in Scotland, not least because in the middle ages my home town of Aberdeen had as many universities as the whole of England. In its most recent report, the Sutton Trust revealed that Scotland has the worst record of any part of the United Kingdom in admitting students from poorer backgrounds to higher education. What is going on?

--- Later in debate ---

[Carol Monaghan]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a useful intervention because the metrics used by UCAS for higher education in Scotland consider only entries directly from school. In Scotland, however, a large number of students—particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds—take alternative routes in.

Tuition fees were trebled in 2012, but there is no evidence to suggest that there has been an improvement in teaching quality or in student satisfaction. The SNP strongly opposes any further increase in fees. We continue to support a system in which entry to university is based on the ability to learn and never on the ability to pay. We have a strong and principled record of opposing increases in tuition fees throughout the UK, and we will reject any Bill that seeks to increase the financial burden on students.

I am happy that the Secretary of State recognises that allowing the marketisation of higher education will increase the possibility of institutions exiting the market. The National Union of Students has raised concerns about the first responsibility of providers that collapse, and asks whether providers will place their responsibilities to their shareholders above their responsibilities to their students. Students might get monetary recompense when a provider collapses, but there is no recognition of the time wasted by students who start a course with an institution that subsequently fails. That time is indeed money for those students, whose careers and earning potential could be delayed while they seek an alternative provider. They are being asked to gamble with their fees and, more importantly, their time. The SNP has at its heart a commitment to higher education, and the idea of prioritising profit over education remains alien to us.

The new emphasis on participation, as well as access, is a positive measure. Plans to place a transparency duty on universities to publish data for students based on their gender, ethnicity and social background are a step in the right direction. I am also pleased that there will be scope to extend student financing to students who do not accept interest-incurring loans, thus creating a sharia-compliant manner of financing for students. But if the Government are going to meet their worthy targets of doubling the proportion of people from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university and of increasing the number of black and minority ethnic students going to university, the transparency revolution must also ensure meaningful outcomes and accountability.

[Kirsten Oswald]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should look closely at the interaction between the further and higher education sectors in Scotland and take full account of the way in which they work to encourage participation by groups whose participation is currently limited?

[Carol Monaghan]

Absolutely. Those arrangements can benefit single parents and part-time students, who are often unable to access higher education in the same way that they could in the past.

Clear measures and pathways to enable disadvantaged students to progress have been steadily eroded. The removal of education maintenance allowance and maintenance grants for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, coupled with cuts to the disabled students allowance, do not match the Government’s ambitions in this area. Thankfully, the picture in Scotland continues to improve, and positive steps have been taken to ensure that access continues to increase. Young people from a disadvantaged background in Scotland are now more likely to participate in higher education than they have ever been in the past. In 2014, 41% of students from disadvantaged backgrounds were able to access higher education in Scotland.

Moving on to research, the commitment to a dual support system for research funding and to the Haldane principle have been widely welcomed by the research community. However, proposals in the Bill to reform the UK research councils could have implications for higher education institutions in Scotland, and we have concerns about the possible short and long-term consequences for Scotland’s research base. The retention of the seven disciplinary research councils is welcome, as mergers or changes to that structure could prove distracting to the research councils and could ultimately have a negative impact on the UK’s research capability. The Royal Society of Edinburgh has said:

“The RSE welcomes the statement that the individual research councils continue to hold their own budgets and provide the leadership for their own disciplines in an autonomous fashion.”

The creation of UK Research and Innovation in the context of a science and research budget will potentially give greater co-ordination across the research councils and we hope that it will offer a stronger voice to the research community in its interaction with the Government. Scotland currently performs well in attracting funding from research councils for grants, studentships and fellowships, with the latest recorded figures showing that Scotland attracted 13% of the UK total in 2012-13. However, research council spending on infrastructure in Scotland in that period amounted to only 5% of UK spending. Similarly, only 7% of Innovate UK funding is spent in Scotland.

We are concerned that the establishment of the UKRI could lead to a lack of consideration among the research councils and Innovate UK’s decision-making bodies of Government priorities and research needs in Scotland and the other devolved nations. Scotland’s research interests and priorities will be better served if the new UKRI board has experience and understanding of the research and innovation landscape and policy across Scotland—as well as the rest of the UK. We therefore ask that the devolved Administrations have representation on the board.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend—despite what the annunciator was saying, she is not the hon. Member for Angus—and I visited the University of Glasgow, which is in my constituency and close to hers, to meet the staff of the space research department. They spoke to us at some length about the importance of research mechanisms and the ability of research councils to join funding all the way up. Does she agree that it is important when given the opportunity in a Bill such as this to try to make some progress on those issues?

[Carol Monaghan]

Absolutely. One of the problems found by institutions such as the University of Glasgow is that there is a black hole between different areas of research, so let us hope that the proposals lead to greater collaboration.

Collaboration between research councils and Innovate UK is positive, but Innovate UK’s core mission is different and distinct from that of the research councils. Its bridging role between business and the research community is about stimulating and supporting business innovation, and that mission could be threatened if Innovate UK does not work collaboratively with the academic research community. SMEs currently account for 90% of Scotland’s business base, and we hope that Innovate UK will continue to work with them in its distinct role.

Finally, the impact of the EU referendum has serious implications for the university sector and, given that Scotland clearly voted to remain in the EU, the UK Government must work with the Scottish Government to ensure that Scottish higher education institutes are not adversely affected. In 2014-15, over 13,000 EU students were studying for undergraduate degrees at Scottish universities. At the Science and Technology Committee last week, I asked the Minister for Universities and Science about the status of those students over the next few years, but he was not able to offer a guarantee beyond 2017-18. I call again for an immediate guarantee from the UK Government that all EU students studying in Scotland, and across the rest of the UK, will be able to continue their studies without disruption.

[Patrick Grady]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way a second time. After the EU referendum, the University of Glasgow and many other Scottish universities were quick to state how welcome EU students were in their institutions. They went as far as they possibly could to assure students that they would continue welcome them and that they wanted students to complete their courses and remain valuable parts of their institutions. Does my hon. Friend welcome how quickly those institutions responded to the result? Will she press the Government for further reassurance?

[Carol Monaghan]

I agree 100%. The University of Aberdeen also took the bold step of saying that there would be no change in the status of any EU student—not just those currently studying, but future students looking to attend the university, a point which the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) might like to note.

The Bill does not reflect the impact of Brexit. Scottish institutions have not been offered any assurances that the €217 million of current EU funding will be made up by the UK Government. With the current instability in higher education, this is the wrong time to press ahead with Bill, so the SNP is not able to support it in its current form.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Carol Monaghan]

Does the hon. Lady agree that some of the funding for the excellent research that is taking place is coming from the European Union, and we need to be pressing the Government to replace that funding so that that research can continue?

[Jo Churchill]

I agree that some of it is coming from the European Union. I am not sure whether the Government need to, or will be able to, dip into their pocket to assure that. They must look at possibly more exciting ways of loaning between business and universities, and stimulating particular areas and sectors in order that they contribute to driving the skills base forward. As my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) said, we have many high-powered industries in this country—nuclear, pharmaceuticals, and so on—that are more than adept at this. Indeed, I have spoken to the Minister about our telecoms industry, which is more than adept at putting some of its own money into ensuring that skills come through. While I would agree that there needs to be some certainty, I would not necessarily say that it should come purely from Government.

Innovations in life sciences, pharmaceuticals and the 100,000 Genomes Project show that a strong university sector is key to both the health and the wealth of our nation. Organisations have a large part to play. Businesses want skills, but in order to build them up they must communicate more with the higher and further education sectors. They are playing an increasingly important part in our university institutions.

Last year, one of my daughters graduated across the river, and this week another graduated in Lancaster, which I consider to be truly northern. Another of my daughters is in Newcastle, and another is waiting to go—[Interruption.] I could go on for ages. I have a vast amount of experience visiting university campuses across the UK, although not so much those in Scotland. I am constantly amazed by, for example, Heston Blumenthal’s interaction with the University of Reading and Tata’s interaction with the University of Warwick, which underpin the importance of the relationship between business and universities. Such relationships are already in place and the Bill builds on them, makes them more transparent and develops the connection between further and higher education and business. Our focus on teaching and research allows us to provide opportunities for businesses with specific needs. In his review, Sir Paul Nurse asked for coherence, and I want the Minister to drive that into the Bill.

We have a chance to export education and improve research collaborations. We need to ensure that marketisation is monitored and that there is no oversupply. Although competition is good, oversupply can lead to the problems that have been mentioned. If there is too much freedom in a market, deliverers will always pick the easy route, so there must be an assurance that the low-hanging fruit will not be taken. I have spoken to vice-chancellors this week and our home universities are already looking for students with lower grades to fill the spaces left by EU students who have fallen away. We need to be aware of that and ensure that oversupply does not lead to a downgrade in quality.

Turning to social mobility, any graduate—my daughters, for example—will be in the marketplace for 50 years. That is an awfully long time and not one person who comes to this place will have had the same job for 50 years. We need to take a more flexible approach. We have spoken too much about the young—important though they are and mother of loads as I am—but mature students and part-time students also have needs. The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) mentioned the statistics for Oxford and Cambridge, but he failed to take account of the fact—this is the crux of the argument—that some of the young people to whom I speak in my constituency are looked-after children, family carers and mothers. They do not have the flexibility just to choose a university. That is why reputation, quality and availability are so important. This is not about being able to go to top-flight universities; it is about being enabled to rise.