Higher Education and Research Bill (Fourth sitting)

David Evennett Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 8th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Marsden]

I have listened carefully to the Minister and, again, I have no reason to doubt his bona fides. But what he has said and, particularly during the discussion of the last two amendments, the criteria on which he has based the Government’s unwillingness to take them on board underline our concern about the direction of the Bill.

I mentioned earlier the need to have a Bill that is fit for the challenges of the 21st century and does not simply reflect the issues of the 20th century. I do not want to sound like a sociologist, but I am disappointed that the assumptions in the definitions of what the Minister has said are so extraordinarily hierarchical. In the context of the Bill, none of the amendments are mandatory. We are not saying there must be a cleaner on the board of the office for students—perhaps that would be a good thing—or a junior lecturer or X or Y. We are saying that when thinking about such things we should think broadly and outside the hierarchical box that has occupied, perhaps for too long, the attention of civil servants and Ministers. We are talking about a revolution in higher education in the 21st century, yet the very modest issue of not putting in the Bill indicators that show that the Government are thinking in a new, rather more creative and profound way instead of going back to the hierarchical models that have obsessed higher education in the past is extraordinarily dispiriting and disappointing.

Another point should be made. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North talked about the impact of what we have had today, and I am sure debate on it will recur in other places at other times. We heard the Government using their majority on this Committee to slap down any suggestion of student representation in the office for students—[Hon. Members: “No!”] It is true.

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Mr David Evennett)]

That is rubbish.

[Mr Marsden]

No, it is not. The fact that you protest too much shows the weakness of your position.