Higher Education and Research Bill (Eighth sitting)

David Evennett Excerpts

Committee Debate: 8th Sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 15th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Gordon Marsden]

I beg to move amendment 169, in clause 14, page 8, line 34, leave out “English higher education providers” and insert “Higher education providers in England”.

This amendment would ensure higher education providers which operate in other UK nations are not excluded.

The Whip returns just as I am moving an amendment that, if he did not look at it carefully, he might think was a piece of pure pedantry—

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

Perish the thought.

[Gordon Marsden]

But it is not, and I will explain why. Clause 14 deals with a public interest governance condition. The need, or concern, for the amendment has been brought to my attention, and possibly to the attention of other members of the Committee, by the Open University because it is alert—as the Minister and I always are— to the unintended consequences of legislation. I am also alert to the fact—as I hope the Minister will be, because he will want the successful completion of the Bill, if not on his tombstone, on his CV—that Bills like this one do not come along that often. Therefore, we need to try, without having a crystal ball, to look at where higher education is going in the next 20 years. The Open University, of course, is particularly concerned because it also operates, as the explanatory notes say, in other UK nations. It is therefore important that the Open University is not unintentionally removed from those provisions.

The Open University has been going for more than 40 years, but other potential providers, groups and conglomerates will increasingly want to operate across other UK nations through different mechanisms and in different media. We therefore have to try to future-proof the Bill for the development of online and other sorts of learning, as well as for the traditional campus-based learning that we all know and love—that is true in your case, Sir Edward, and possibly in other people’s cases, too.

I do not want to labour the point, but new forms of teaching are rapidly developing, such as massive open online courses. The Open University has come together with a number of other organisations on the FutureLearn programme. Groups of organisations that have not historically put their material out for formal or informal learning, particularly in the arts and cultural sector, might see the potential to do so and to produce largely online degrees that are quite specific to the stuff they put out, which is welcome. I do not know whether we will quite reach the nirvana on which the Minister mused. If he has been misquoted, I will let him correct me, but I think at one stage he speculated as to whether Google or Facebook might want to enter from the wings.

As for today, this is principally and specifically something about which the Open University is concerned. I am sure that the devolved Administrations will also be concerned, because they do not want to have different levels of regulation for institutions that operate across the United Kingdom, let alone across other jurisdictions outside the United Kingdom.

This is a probing amendment in the sense that I am presenting the Minister with a difficulty. If, by any chance, what I have suggested is technically inadequate, I would be more than happy for him to propose an alternative.