Higher Education and Research Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, when the noble Lord describes how he has schoolchildren visit his fantastic facilities so that they can enjoy and appreciate them, I delight. What a fantastic experience for pupils to access such great equipment.

I also thank the Minister for helpfully introducing the Bill. I thank the Government for the welcome additional significant investment in research. I declare my interest as a trustee of the Brent Centre for Young People, a mental health service for adolescents—one of uniquely high quality. I am also a patron of the Who Cares? Trust, which works with universities to ensure that they sensitively deal with young people from care.

I join the Minister and other noble Lords in paying tribute to our research assets in this country, the treasure trove of our holy curiosity. Researchers have had a huge impact. Since becoming vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked after Children and Care Leavers, I have seen the huge impact of social research on improved outcomes for such children. Professor Sonia Jackson, Dr Cameron, Professor Petrie and the Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of Education played a huge role in such improvements. I pay particular tribute to the late Professor Meltzer of the University of Leicester, who led research in the early 2000s that was the first national assessment into the mental health needs of looked-after children. That informed the Office for National Statistics report in 2004 which identified 78% of children in children’s homes and 45% of those in foster care as having a mental disorder, compared with about 10% of the general population. That successfully highlighted the issues, which I am afraid we have been slow to address, but I am grateful for the work of the Minister’s colleague, the Minister of State, Edward Timpson, in really getting a grip on this issue now. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, for her campaigning on the mental health of looked-after children.

In Committee, I will look at access for disadvantaged and BME children, particularly care leavers. In the early 2000s, 2% of care leavers accessed university. About five years ago we reached a high of 8%. The latest information I have is that the figure is now 6%. I would be grateful if Minister could let me know the very latest information on care leavers’ access to higher education. He might care to write to me.

I pay tribute to the Frank Buttle trust, particularly the chief executive, Gerri McAndrew, who introduced a kitemark which identified the universities that were most successful at supporting care leavers and has proved to be a real trailblazer in improving the quality of care for care leavers. It has been an honour for me fairly frequently to meet care leavers in higher education or who are graduates. I hear about the challenges but also some of the excellent pastoral care that universities offer. I am grateful to have colleagues who are graduates; one of them has just received a doctorate for his work.

Returning to research, it demonstrates that the most effective intervention we can make is in the earliest years. The longitudinal research of Professor Melhuish of the University of Oxford and the University of London—the EPPE research into the impact of high-quality early-years education and care—demonstrates the huge benefits of that care, particularly for disadvantaged children, for their education but also their non-cognitive skills. That is an area that we really need to concentrate on. I know the Government are attending to it but I have a suggestion for the Minister and particularly for his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Nash. An inexpensive, effective way of ensuring that more disadvantaged and BME children get to university is to ensure that children who have not had preschool experience are identified as they come into primary school. Schools arrange a day or two before they start primary school and teachers spend time with those children and simply explain the rules, because often these children have had no rules explained to them. They have no idea how to behave and when they encounter other children who have been to preschool they simply do not know how to interact with them or their teachers. The risk is that their behaviour becomes bad and the further risk is that they may eventually be excluded. I ask the Minister to take that suggestion back to the noble Lord, Lord Nash. I look forward to working in Committee with your Lordships, particularly on this issue of access. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the amendments grouped here on access and participation, and follow the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, and the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, in thinking about how we support students from disadvantaged backgrounds to sustain and succeed in higher education. Meeting from time to time with care leavers, I hear about the excellent support that some get—meeting their need, for instance, for 12 months of accommodation because they have nowhere to return to in the school breaks. When we come to my amendments on care leavers later in the Bill, I should be grateful if the Minister could tell me the latest information he has on how successful universities are in helping care leavers to complete their university courses.

I ask the Minister about one other specific point now, and would be grateful if he would write to me on it. It is about bright children and young people from low-income backgrounds who might be great scientists, mathematicians, engineers or technicians we may just miss because we do not reach out to them enough to draw them in to science. I taught science in a primary school many years ago for a very brief period. What struck me was the enthusiasm of those primary school-aged children to learn about science. I remember from my experience as a primary school child that, when teachers talked about atoms and how matter worked, I was so enthusiastic for it. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, spoke recently about engaging not only secondary but primary school pupils in what universities do, particularly in science. That is so important.

I know from my experience as a trustee of a mental health charity for children that, in child developmental terms, it is the period between the ages of six and 12 when the child’s curiosity is really alight. Unfortunately, when they enter adolescence, it is often subdued. I was very pleased recently to meet a 10 year-old who had been to Sheffield University to attend a lecture on science and was really enthused by it, but his mother told me that funding for transport had to be paid by the school, so this was something that only the more well-heeled pupils could afford to do. I would be grateful if the Minister would take this point away and consider guidance to the director on encouraging universities to reach out to primary schools to support science teaching. There is real concern that primary school teachers are often not equipped to teach science in the way we really want. Universities might have a role in reaching out more to the most disadvantaged boys and girls in primary schools to get them engaged in science early on and spark their interest.

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I did not speak at Second Reading, so perhaps I should begin by declaring some non-financial interests. I was a university lecturer before entering full-time politics, I am a member of the Court of Newcastle University and am associated, through honorary fellowships, with the Universities of Durham and Sunderland.

This issue is dear to my heart. I certainly know through contact with the University of Sunderland, of which my noble friend Lord Puttnam was chancellor, that it has a good record on participation and access. What advice is the Minister taking from those institutions that already have a good record in this field? Their work should be associated with the development of the Bill’s provisions. Having said that, I endorse the point made by my noble friend Lady Blackstone: having a good system of participation and access across the board does not limit the choice for students and gives them the knowledge they need to find the most effective course and most appropriate institution to meet their needs. That is also very important. I also warmly endorse the opening remarks made about this amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico (Lab)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that I am chancellor of the biggest private for-profit university in the country. We gain high marks in student surveys and in terms of employability. However, we regard both these things as at best very partial measures—student surveys, for all the reasons adduced by other Members of the House, and employability because we teach subjects, mostly law, accountancy and nursing, in which employability is slightly easier to expect. However, as part of getting degree-awarding powers, which took us four long years, we were assessed by the QAA. One of the things that was assessed was teaching quality. People who knew what they were talking about in terms of teaching quality, including from the Law Society and the Bar Council, sat in on lessons to see how we taught. When our licence was renewed in 2013, the whole thing happened again: people sat in on lessons and lectures to decide how well we were teaching. We passed with a very high standard. That might be the ideal supplementary measure because it is objective and is done by people who know what they are looking for. With the best will in the world, I do not think one can suggest that students, with their somewhat partial attendance, know what they are looking for. We need people with experience of teaching who know what they are looking for.

That leads me to the observation that the figure of 400 new entrants strikes me as amazingly high. The QAA says that it has passed through somewhere between 60 and 70 of us for degree-awarding powers since 2005, not more than that. Some of us have the title of university, some do not. These figures suggest to me that a much smaller number of higher education providers are outside the university sector than I thought. I wonder whether teaching quality assessment might not turn up as part of the duties of the new quality assessment committee, which appears later in the Bill. Might that not be part of its task, so that you have one expert assessment as opposed to the various useful consumer-type assessments which come from students liking and understanding what they are doing and getting jobs? I do not suggest that we should avoid those elements—they are excellent measures—but we need something objective as well to be sure that we are being fair to all institutions and that teaching quality is assured. I would like to come back to this later in the Bill.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, which was echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick. These measures should not be used as a means to punish academics but should rather be used to support them in developing their game. As a trustee of a mental health charity that works with schools, I am well aware of the morale among teachers and head teachers and regret to say that it is very often extremely poor. They are of course at the opposite extreme. As a former Chief Inspector of Schools has said, we have the most measured pupils in the world, and we probably have the most measured teachers in the world. So many of them are worrying, “When is an Ofsted report going to come along to tell me how badly I’m doing?”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I reiterate that the main way forward is that we want to link the issues of fees and performance. The TEF is a manifesto commitment, and I know that we are all agreed on the importance of recognising excellent teaching. As I have said very clearly to the Committee today, the Government have consulted extensively on the form of the TEF, and we will continue to listen to and engage with the sector as the TEF evolves. I say again that it is an iterative process, and that is why we do not need in primary legislation the detailed provisions that we have been discussing, as we believe they would hinder the constructive development that is already taking place. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will agree to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, is there a risk with the direction the Government are taking that, in supporting the thriving, successful and very good teaching universities and, some might say, putting in a bad light the less well-performing universities, we will move to a culture of universities that is less rich and diverse, with fewer local universities and specialisms, and just a few thoroughbred universities that everyone will want to go to and a diaspora of rather struggling universities? Is the Minister prepared to go away and think about whether that is a consequence that might result from this and whether that would be helpful?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I thank the noble Earl for his point. However, I think it is right that we should be bold and look ahead to bring in the performance-related measures that we have been talking about—the sector has been waiting 20 years for this. We are bringing it in carefully, with some consideration, and I hope the Committee today recognises that there have been a lot of checks and controls in this. I do not think we should stick to the status quo, in which there is no consideration of assessing the performance of universities or teaching. It is very important to be sure that we raise the quality of teaching in this country.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Listowel]

122A: After Clause 10, insert the following new Clause—
“Fee limit condition: requirement for progressive reduction in fees for older care leavers
(1) A fee limit condition must include a requirement that any regulated course fees within the meaning of section 10 must, if payable by any person falling within subsection (2), reduce by 5% for each additional year of age, over the age of 21, of that person.(2) A person falls within this subsection if they are a care leaver, or an adult who has previously held care leaver status under the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000.”

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 138A, 229A, 229B and 449A in my name in this group. All these amendments deal with access to higher education and further education for young people who have been in the care of local authorities.

I intend to be as brief as possible but, before I begin, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, for her kindness in making some comments on Monday despite my absence due to ill health. I appreciated what she said. I am grateful to learn that four-fifths of higher education institutions detail in their access policies particular measures for care leavers. Perhaps we might speak before Report about the other one-fifth that do not and what progress is being made in that area. The noble Baroness recognised in what she said that a low proportion of young people from care access university; in 2012 the figure was 5%, down from 8% a few years earlier. The figure in 2012 for all young people was 43% so clearly there is a disparity. She referred to problems about the data about care leavers attending university. I wonder whether it might be possible to anonymise it so that we understand how many care leavers are attending higher education without stigmatising them in doing so.

My amendments are probing. Amendment 122A would reduce annually by 5% fees paid by care leavers over the age of 21 so, for example, by the age of 41, a care leaver or care-experienced adult would no longer have to pay any fees. Amendment 449A would remove all fees for care-experienced adults. The purpose of both the amendments is to make it as easy as possible for older care leavers and care-experienced adults to access higher and further education.

The Government recognise in legislation that early trauma in childhood delays child development. That is why we have the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000, which provides support for care leavers up to the age of 25, and the Children and Social Work Bill, which extends further rights for young people up to the age of 25. We recognise that early trauma delays development. Foster carers and adoptive parents tell me that many of their young people struggle early on, but in their late twenties, they can be thriving, with a family, being in employment or studying. They just start later.

Dr Mark Kerr, a care leaver himself and an academic, performed a study a while ago of care leavers who were 25 year-olds and found that about 30% had attended higher education. It may not be a particularly robust study, but it indicates that many care leavers and care-experienced adults will return to higher education later, especially if we make it as attractive as possible for them.

Amendment 138A would prioritise care leavers in student protection plans, in particular recognising their vulnerability. The context for this is that young people being taken into the care of local authorities will often have from their early years profound trauma which is continued repetitively over time. They have often had a very difficult start in life. When they enter care, that can also be a traumatic experience. I fear that often, still, despite good work from all Governments to improve the situation, they experience instability in care itself. There is a lack of access to mental health services, which would be very helpful to them in recovering from past trauma. Most of them have been in foster care. Foster parents have often had a poor experience of education themselves, as the academic, Professor Sonia Jackson, has noted. That is another disadvantage for those young people, as what happens in the home is very important in their education.

For example, the mother of a young woman of my acquaintance was a crack addict. When she spoke to her children, she would say, “If you don’t come and see me, I will commit suicide”. She would also say: “Drugs are much more important to me than you are”. She liked this young woman, saying that her father had abandoned her at birth and had never shown any interest in her. Fortunately, thanks to the work of her foster parents, she was reunited at the age of 16 with her father, who disagreed with that view and they have had a good relationship since, which has been extremely important to her success. She went on to university. She made a friend or two at the start of her course but, when they discovered that she had grown up in care, they did not want to know her. She felt stigmatised. She was shunned by them. She was devastated at first by that experience but, fortunately, she met more sympathetic young women, with whom she came to share accommodation, who were immensely supportive, because she experienced bouts of depression during her degree course. She has now graduated; she provides services for care leavers; and she sits on two boards as a trustee. She has recently married an accountant, a professional. My reflection on that is that her experience at university raised her aspirations, introduced her to a whole network of friends whom she would not otherwise have met and has clearly made a huge difference to her life.

Amendment 229A would make it a priority for governing authorities to attract care-experienced young people and provide them with the right finances to be successful in their courses. Amendment 229B would ensure that such students were offered 12 months of accommodation.

These amendments are necessary because in so many ways the lives of young people in care are impoverished—often emotionally impoverished—and there may well be low expectations of what they can achieve. They lack positive role models; the milieu where they grew up may have seen a great deal of dependency on welfare, and drugs and alcohol may have been involved. We need to do all we can to give them positive role models to reach out to them at school, into children’s homes, or wherever, and show them that it is possible for them to go on to university.

Such young people also suffer because, as the Government have recognised, the system of personal advisers who hold the pathway plan for care leavers is faulty. There are no real professional standards about who personal advisers need to be; it is pretty much up to the local authority who they are. From my experience and knowledge, those advisers provide a very hit-and-miss service. Sometimes they are very good but they are the ones who help young people into employment, housing and education, so that is all the more reason why universities need to do as much as possible to reach out to them.

Accommodation is necessary, as often these young people have no family to turn to or their relationships may be destructive. Above all things in their lives, they need stability and a firm foundation. That is why having 12 months’ accommodation would be so important to them. There are all sorts of challenges for the future lives of these young people, having left care. They have no family, poor support, as I have mentioned, and they are often caught in the housing trap nowadays as more and more local authorities are without their own local council homes. They may be placing young people in private rented accommodation. Once those young people try to get a job they find that they are trapped because as soon as they start getting into employment, housing benefit reduces and they cannot afford to keep their home.

There are all sorts of challenges for these children. The advantage of access to higher and further education gives them a far better chance of succeeding into the future and avoiding the particular risk that they themselves will go on to be parents who have their own children removed into care and we just repeat the old system. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to this issue and I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for raising it. Everyone who wants to and has the ability should be able to go to university, including care leavers. We know that care leavers face specific difficulties accessing and succeeding in higher education; universities take their responsibilities in this area very seriously and progress has been made. Care leavers are recognised as a priority group by universities and a particular focus is placed on supporting them during the admissions process. It is not appropriate for government to interfere in providers’ admissions processes, as they are autonomous institutions. We are, however, introducing the care leaver covenant, so that organisations can set out the commitment that they make to care leavers. We see this as the main vehicle for engaging the higher education sector in the wider effort to improve care leavers’ outcomes. I will not have time to go into all the issues that arise under the covenant but we would like to see some more practical things being offered, such as providing dedicated contact time to support accessing and completing courses of study, and organising outreach activities, taster sessions and staff awareness sessions. We see this as primarily being the way forward.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, said, support for care leavers in access arrangements has grown considerably over the years. Around 80% of the access agreement actions that are agreed between the Director of Fair Access and a provider to widen participation as a condition of charging higher fees include activity to support access and success in higher education for care leavers. These include pre-entry visits to the institution, taster sessions—as I mentioned earlier—summer schools, and academic support to raise attainment. Universities frequently prioritise care leavers for financial and other support for students. Provision often includes substantial cash bursaries and fee waivers, and a named contact to assist care leavers.

As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, most higher education institutions offer year-round accommodation for care leavers, as stated by the Buttle Trust. For those institutions that do not offer year-round accommodation, local authorities are required, as corporate parents, to ensure that suitable accommodation is available during vacation periods, as set out in the Children Act 1989. Given that this duty already exists for local authorities, we should not duplicate it for higher education institutions.

I turn to Amendments 122A and 449A. In addition to support for accommodation outside term time, local authorities must provide financial assistance to the extent that the young person’s educational needs require it, as well as a £2,000 higher education bursary. Students defined as care leavers in the student support regulations are treated as independent students when their living costs support is assessed. This means that most care leavers qualify for the maximum living-costs support package for their higher education course. For 2016-17 this was around £8,200 and £10,702 in London. Given the nature and extent of support that is offered to care leavers to equalise support and opportunity, I do not therefore consider it necessary to provide tuition fee reductions or grants for care leavers. Like other eligible students in higher education, care leavers qualify for loans to meet the full costs of their tuition.

I will move on to Amendment 138A. Student protection plans should play an essential role in ensuring that institutions have made the necessary steps to protect all their students, by offering real protection to students should their provider or course close. The OfS will issue guidance on student protection plans, which is expected to include advice on what additional or alternative protective measures should be considered for particularly vulnerable groups of students or those from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as care leavers.

Given the existing measures to support care leavers, the focus on them as a priority group by the Government, universities and the Director of Fair Access, the financial and pastoral support provided by universities, the care leaver covenant, and the progressive and relatively advantageous student finance offering that we have in place, I hope that noble Lords are in no doubt about our aspirations for care leavers to go to and succeed at university. I am not therefore convinced that these amendments are necessary to deliver our goals and I ask the noble Earl to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, particularly to my noble friend Lady Brown, who highlighted the fact that more care leavers go to prison than into higher education. I imagine that is still the case and it should give us pause for thought. I very much welcome the detail of the Minister’s response. I will withdraw the amendment but may come back on Report with a couple more to press some of these issues a little further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 122A withdrawn.