Higher Education and Research Bill (Sixth sitting) Debate
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Gordon Marsden
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Higher Education and Research Bill (Sixth sitting)
Gordon Marsden ExcerptsTuesday 13th September 2016
(8 years, 3 months 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 September 2016 - (13 Sep 2016)
Dr Blackman-Woods
Thank you, Mr Hanson. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again.
The amendment seeks to include a specific duty on the office for students in the Bill, to make it clear that maintaining confidence in the sector must be high up the OFS agenda. The UK’s higher education sector has an extremely strong global reputation, and a degree from a university in the UK is generally of high value. The Bill must therefore protect the reputation of the sector, especially in the context of an increasingly competitive global market and the possible negative ramifications of Brexit for our universities. If we do not mandate a body to look after the health of the entire sector, we risk losing that hard-earned status. The amendment, which would insert that duty in the Bill, therefore seeks to reassure the sector that the Government have its interests at heart, that they are listening to it and that they understand the need to promote and maintain confidence in it.
Amendment 136 is also sensible because it seeks to ensure that student interests are protected by including the need for consultation with students when putting an access and participation plan together. That is sensible. I am not sure why someone would want to draw up a participation plan that is based on extending access to universities for additional students and then not to consult students. That would seem nonsensical. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that students will be put at the heart of such plans and will be consulted when they are being drawn up.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to return to serving under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. It is also a pleasure to speak in support of our amendments, and to back the amendment moved by my hon. Friend.
I will say no more on amendment 159—my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham has put our case strongly—but amendment 136 is in line with the gist of what we have been arguing throughout consideration of the Bill so far: if we are to have an office for students, we need to involve students as often as possible in all its vital aspects. We are genuinely disappointed that, despite their warm words about the role of students, the Government still seem determined not to put anything in the Bill about it. Their vote against our amendment the other day underlined that.
Amendment 140 is the other side of the coin. I shall not detain the Committee long with it, because in our extensive debate this morning the Minister took pains to make the point that he wanted to see collaboration and innovation. I do not want to suggest he should put his money where his mouth is; I merely invite him to insert a clause along the lines of our amendment. No doubt that would give some comfort to the groups that have been concerned about collaboration and innovation.
I have reserved most of my remarks on this group for amendment 141, which would ensure that the OFS takes on board
“the need to promote adult, part-time and lifelong learning”.
Again, many warm words have been said about such things during our consideration of the Bill, but we want to see specifics and so do people in the sector. The Open University has expressed its view:
“A prosperous part-time higher education market is essential, now more than ever, to address the challenges and opportunities which lie ahead to deliver economic growth and raise national productivity…and to increase social mobility.”
I see a strong argument for lifelong learning and part-time higher education based on their social value, but we also need to think hard about the economic and demographic circumstances. The figures are quite stark: only 13% of the 9.5 million in the UK who are considering higher education in the next five years are school leavers. The majority are working adults. That cannot be said too often, because the phraseology of the White Paper and the Bill has made it look as if we are in a ghetto that extends between the ages of 18 and 22, which is not the case.
I pursue the point that the Minister was keen to make this morning: over the next 10 years, there will be 13 million vacancies but only 7 million school leavers to fill them. This is bread-and-butter stuff; it is not an appeal to the Government’s better nature to give people second chances for the sake of it. If we do not empower people and we do not give those chances, the economy, our productivity and all sorts of other things will suffer.
There is a social dimension to the issue, underlined by the fact that one in five undergraduate entrants in England from low-participation neighbourhoods choose—or have no option, perhaps for financial reasons—to study part-time. Some 38% of all undergraduates from disadvantaged groups are mature students.
That is the need: what has the response been? Until relatively recently, I am afraid it has been what I can only describe as “poor”—I will not use the unfortunate alliterative word I was going to put in front of that. The situation that faces adult learners is bleak, both in further education and in higher education; lifelong learning in the UK has declined. I am sorry to take issue with the Minister’s statistics again, but the 24% cut to sections of the adult skills budget in 2015-16, along with the further 3.9% reduction, created a new large gap in college budgets.
As funding for non-apprenticeship skills has dropped, so has the number of learners. The latest data from the Skills Funding Agency show that 1.3 million learners have been lost from learning—excluding apprenticeships, which of course are the Government’s great get-out clause: they always say “Look at all the money we’ve lavished on apprenticeships”. They may have lavished money on apprenticeships—the end result is yet to be seen—but adult skills have been starved of funding in the process. That has not gone unnoticed by people in the sector. In its briefing to the Committee, Birkbeck said it was concerned that part-time students could be
“seen as an add-on rather than an integral part of the work of the OfS. Birkbeck would like to seek assurances that part-time students are an integral part of the Government’s thinking in the Bill.”
The Open University has made a number of similar points.
These issues do not affect only part-time and mature students; they affect the health of existing traditional universities that have found that by losing numbers of part-time and other students their funding and economic base has been chipped away at. They also, of course, affect some of the people in the workforces of those universities. That is why the trade union Unison, in submitting written evidence to the Committee, said:
“Opportunities for mature and non-traditional students should be increasing not decreasing.”
It points out that mature students accessing higher education via a part-time route, while often having caring responsibilities or employment issues, increases both their life chances and the life chances of their families. It is vital for workers who are retraining or reskilling themselves and the decline of this group is worrying for our future society when considering social mobility and providing access for those from social and economically deprived backgrounds.
Similar points have been made by the Workers Educational Association, union learning representatives and many in the trade union movement who are genuinely concerned about the impact of the dropping away of opportunities.
The Bill’s equality analysis claimed that there had been a dramatic improvement in the participation rate of disadvantaged young people. There has been an improvement, albeit from a low base, but I make the point again that that has not been seen for mature students where numbers have declined sharply. These huge challenges to social inequality and promoting social mobility in higher education were underlined by the survey of students by National Education Opportunities Network and University and College Union two months ago. It said:
“Over 40% may be choosing different courses and institutions than they would ideally like to because of cost and restricting the range of institutions they apply to by living at home or close to home.”
It added:
“The majority of students who are participating in post-16 courses which can lead to HE are not choosing to progress to HE because of cost.”
That is a real tragedy, not least because of the following. Here I would like to pay tribute to one of the Minister’s predecessors, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). When we had the big debate about advanced learning loans early in the life of the coalition Government, there were expressions of concern that it would put people off if they had to take out a loan for HE access. The then coalition Government specifically gave ground on that issue. We welcomed their response to that campaign on behalf of the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of students doing HE access courses who found they did not then have to take out two sets of loans.
The benefit of that concession and of looking more holistically at the process will be undermined if the Government do not address the issues of what happens to those part-time or mature students when they eventually get into HE education. According to the NEON/UCU survey,
“Nearly 50% of students think they will undertake part-time working to afford to eat and live.”
The removal of grants, which the Government pressed hard on at the beginning of the year,
“will increase term-time working, especially for those from non-white backgrounds and those in receipt of free school meals”.
It is astonishing that in such a large Bill, the Government have not so far put centrally the importance of adult and part-time learning towards improving social mobility.
However, I am glad to say that although the Government may have been reticent or deficient in that respect, members of the other place have not, where only yesterday, there was a very significant and fruitful debate on lifelong learning. The points the participants made, a couple of which I will quote, bear repeating.
Joseph Johnson
Monopolies and the absence of competition in almost any sector that the hon. Gentleman cares to examine have led to a decline in the standards of public services, a lack of choice and a lack of quality provision. Competition is generally recognised as one of the great drivers of the consumer interest and we want it to continue to be so.
I turn now to amendment 141. I have always been absolutely clear that fair and equal access to higher education is vital. Everyone with the potential to benefit from education in every form should be able to do so. Studying part time and later in life brings enormous benefits to individuals, the economy and employers. That is why we are introducing maintenance loans for part-time study and have enabled more people to re-study through the extension of the exemption for equivalent or lower qualifications.
We want to promote retraining and prepare people for the labour market of the future, which is why we are reviewing the gaps in support for lifetime learning, including flexible and part-time study. New providers can play an important role here: 59% of students at alternative providers are aged over 25, compared with just 23% of students at publicly funded institutions.
Gordon Marsden
Indeed. We might make a bit more progress if the Minister were able to answer the question that I put, or rather the question from my colleague in the House of Lords that I echoed, about the part-time maintenance consultation, which is highly welcome but which, as was said, could not come too soon. Do we have a date for this yet?
Joseph Johnson
I will happily come back to the Committee with an intended date of consultation. We are moving full speed ahead with the introduction of the part-time maintenance loans, which will be an important feature of the new system. We are transforming the funding environment for part-time students and the consultation will take us one step towards our objective.
It is essential that the OFS works collaboratively with the Institute for Apprenticeships, which will play a significant part in accomplishing the agenda. Although I support the principles behind amendment 141, the changes sought by the hon. Members are more than adequately achieved by the current text. We would do well to keep the OFS’s duties and responsibilities more open to future-proof the new body against unforeseeable economic challenges. For those reasons, the amendment is not necessary. We should avoid limiting flexibility. By doing so, we ensure that our education system remains responsive to change in the labour market and to the needs of our economy in the future. On that basis, although I understand the intentions of hon. Members, I respectfully ask that the amendment be withdrawn.
The Chair
Technically, the lead amendment has been withdrawn, but I will allow the hon. Gentleman to comment.
Gordon Marsden
Thank you, Mr Hanson. I would have indicated earlier had I realised that that would be the effect.
I thank the Minister for his rhetoric. I appreciate that it is not empty, but how he can say—when he reads Hansard he might reflect on his infelicity choice of words—that putting the issues of adult and part-time students on the face of the Bill would somehow limit flexibility for the future of the OFS, whereas apparently putting collaboration in the Bill does not limit flexibility, even though there have been recent circumstances in which competition turns into cartels, is absolutely beyond me.
The Minister might reflect on the fact that that dismissal hardly sends a positive message to the Open University, Birkbeck, the WEA and the hundreds of thousands of adults and part-time students who want to progress. I accept the Minister’s assurances that the issue will be more central to the work of the Government and the OFS, but we want progress on the consultation and we will continue to come back to the process and hold him to that.
The Chair
Order. I gave the hon. Gentleman some leeway because he wished to comment, but he should have done so before Dr Blackman-Woods asked leave to withdraw the amendment. If the Minister wishes to respond, he may. He does not wish to do so.
Gordon Marsden
I should have mentioned, although I am sure that members will have noticed it, that there is a typo in the explanatory statement, which says that the amendment “would allow” for course-specific guidance to be given, whereas, of course, we are arguing that it should not be. I am grateful to the Minister for making that very clear.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I thank the Minister for that full response. I am reassured by what he has said. Providing that clauses 4 and 5 are implemented in the way he suggests, they should give enough reassurance to the sector that its autonomy is being protected. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave withdrawn.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3
The register
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 143, in clause 3, page 3, line 6, leave out “may” and insert
“must, after a period of consultation”.
This amendment would help inform the nature of the choices made by the Secretary of State, and ensure that any changes must be set out to show that they benefit the sector.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 144, in clause 3, page 3, line 17, at end insert—
‘( ) The Secretary of State shall, on a quarterly basis, make that register available to Parliament and relevant Select Committees.”
This amendment would ensure the Register of Higher Education Providers is published to Parliament.
Gordon Marsden
These amendments are to seek some strong reassurance about what the role of the Secretary of State may be. I always feel—not absolutely as a principle—that in such Bills it is sometimes better to say “must” than “may” because “may”, with all due respect to our Prime Minister, is open to a number of interpretations, which lead us into judicial review and other such matters. The purpose of amendment 143 is to help to inform the choices made by the Secretary of State and to ensure that any changes must—not may—be set out to show that they benefit the sector.
Amendment 144 is simply to emphasise the fact that the register will be a rolling register that will be updated regularly. I assume I am correct on this; if I am not, the Minister is welcome to intervene. While not expecting Parliament or the relevant Select Committees to receive a running commentary, we do feel it would be helpful to ensure that the register of higher education providers is published regularly. We have suggested a quarterly basis and that the register should be made available to Parliament and the relevant Select Committees—“Committees” is deliberately in the plural, Mr Hanson, because of this morning’s discussions about the cross-over between the two Departments.
Joseph Johnson
The higher education sector in England has undergone significant change over the last 30 years. The regulatory architecture we have today is out of date. As we have discussed, it was designed in the early 1990s for an era of limited university competition, student number controls and majority grant funding. As the funding that providers receive has passed from Government to students, so the basis for regulation has widened from the protection of the public purse to the protection of the student. At its heart, the system needs to have informed choice and competition among high-quality institutions. Competition between providers in higher education—indeed competition in any market—incentivises them to raise their game, offering consumers a choice of more innovative and better-quality products and services at lower cost. In order to deliver that competitive market, we need a single, simple regulatory system appropriate for all providers. We need to stop treating institutions differently based on incumbency or corporate form and instead create a level playing field with a single route to entry and a risk-based approach to regulation. The Bill will create just such a single regulatory system, underpinned, for the first time, by a single, comprehensive register of English HE providers.
Amendment 143 is intended to place a clear duty on the Secretary of State to lay regulations—and consult before doing so—on the information that must be included in an institution’s entry on the register. I accept that the nature of the information on the register is vital. It is through establishing and publishing the register that we will, for the first time, be able to give students consistent and comparable assurances about all registered higher education providers. I also accept that there is a need to set out the information that must be included in a provider’s entry to the register in regulations that will be laid before Parliament and subject to scrutiny. Although the current draft of the Bill suggests that the Secretary of State may make regulations, that is standard legislative drafting and is not meant to imply that the Secretary of State will not usually make regulations. I can assure Members that they will be made, and that they will be subject to the usual scrutiny process. However, I believe that consulting on each and every case may be going too far if we are making only minor changes.
Amendment 144 seeks to place a duty on the Secretary of State to make the register available on a quarterly basis to Parliament and Select Committees. Entry on the register is voluntary, but if the provider wishes to access the benefits of student support and official recognition as an HE provider, it must be registered. The OFS register is a single, comprehensive record of those English HE providers. It gives students consistent and comparable assurances about all registered HE providers. It will be updated in real time, as and when changes are made to it, so it will be live. The register and the information within it will be publicly available, and will be hosted on the OFS website. There would be little value in placing a duty on the Secretary of State to make available information that will already automatically be in the public domain. On that basis, although I understand the intentions here and fully agree with the need to promote these important issues, I do not believe that the amendment is necessary; the Bill already makes the relevant provisions. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider withdrawing the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I am grateful to the Minister for his thoughtful, succinct and indeed positive response to the intentions behind the two amendments. I am content with his explanation on amendment 143. I hear what he says about the information being available all the time, but one of the paradoxes of the digital age is that things that are there all the time for people to look at never get looked at because they are there all the time. I am not going to oppose this and I will withdraw the amendment, but I would ask the Minister and his officials to give proper thought as to how things are promoted online, rather than simply put online. I hope that the Department will take that on board. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Registration Procedure
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 145, in clause 4, page 3, line 32, leave out “28” and insert “40”
This amendment would increase the notification period from 28 days to 40 days.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 149, in clause 6, page 4, line 37, leave out “28” and insert “40”
This amendment would increase the notification period from 28 days to 40 days.
Amendment 173, in clause 17, page 10, line 25, leave out “28” and insert “40”
This amendment would extend the specified period from 28 days to 40 days.
Gordon Marsden
I rise to propose what appear to be slightly assorted amendments, but they have the common theme that has been raised during our consideration of the Bill. It is a purely pragmatic suggestion. There is no hidden agenda. We suggest that it would be more appropriate and reasonable to consider examining these matters on a 40-day basis, rather than a 28-day basis, given some of the issues that have to be discussed—notifications, registers, withdrawals and so on—and given the nature sometimes of higher education provider terms and other matters. We have taken that process through for the information of Members. Amendment 145 refers to the registration procedure. There we are saying that the specified period before refusing an application must be 40 days, rather than 28 days. In clause 6, on page 4, line 37, we suggest a similar period be made available for the specific ongoing registration conditions. The principle is well established and that is essentially what we are proposing to the Committee.
Joseph Johnson
I start by thanking the hon. Gentleman for his helpful and pragmatic suggestions. Before I turn to his amendments, it might be helpful if I explained how we expect the OFS to operate this risk-based approach to regulation in practice.
The OFS will consult on, and then publish, the initial registration conditions that all providers will be required to meet before they are granted entry to the register. The conditions will relate to important matters such as quality, financial sustainability and standards of management and governance. Providers that cannot demonstrate that they meet these standards will not be registered. Additionally, if the OFS considers that an institution or an element of an institution, such as its financial sustainability, poses a particularly high risk, the OFS can add, change or tailor specific registration conditions to the risks posed by the provider.
Amendment 145 seeks to increase from 28 to 40 days the minimum time the OFS must allow for a provider to make further representations in the event of the OFS proposing to refuse a provider’s application for entry on to the register. Amendment 149 has a similar theme: it would increase from 28 to 40 days the minimum time for a provider to make representation to the OFS if the OFS proposed introducing or varying a condition of registration. Finally, amendment 173 seeks to increase from 28 to 40 days the minimum period of time for a provider to make representations to the OFS if the OFS proposes to suspend the provider from the register.
Allowing providers an absolute minimum of 28 days to make additional representations to the OFS is not, in itself, ungenerous. The OFS is required to act in a transparent, accountable and proportionate manner. It is our firm expectation that if a provider has a good case for needing additional time to make a representation, the OFS would and will allow it. Members will note that the minimum period of 28 days has precedents. It is a frequently used time period for allowing appeals and representations, appearing, for example, in section 151A (5) and (6), “Power to impose monetary penalties”, in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009.
We could have chosen to follow much tighter timescales for making representations, such as the 14-day warning notice period for sanctions imposed under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. We think a starting point of 28 days achieves the right balance between procedural fairness for the provider and an efficient, speedy outcome for others affected by the decisions, such as students.
Gordon Marsden
Yes, I hear what the Minister has to say, and although I have spoken against the omnipotence of precedent on previous occasions, I am not against precedent, and in the case that he mentioned, 14 days was perfectly reasonable. Entering into the spirit of what the Minister said on new providers, some of them—we could refer to some of those who presented evidence to us—would probably start off in an entrepreneurial state, without the full administrative panoply to be able to respond practically in that period. The purpose of putting down 40 days was to recognise that under the Government’s proposals, a number of much smaller institutions than we have had so far will want to gain approval.
Joseph Johnson
I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s further clarification of his amendment, which we found helpful and constructive, as I said. I hope that the Government have explained their thinking. We feel we have a balanced and proportionate approach that gives providers a procedural chance to make representations, but that also takes into account the interests of other parties affected by such decisions.
For all three scenarios covered by the amendments, there is a clear process to follow: the OFS must notify providers of its intention. Furthermore, the particular characteristics of the higher education sector mean that proportionate regulation is needed to protect the interests of students, employers and taxpayers. Clause 2(1)(f) states that
“so far as relevant, the principles of best regulatory practice…should be…proportionate and…targeted only at cases in which action is needed.”
On that basis, although I understand that the hon. Gentleman means well, and although I fully agree on the need to promote these important issues, I do not believe that his amendments are necessary. The Bill already makes the necessary provisions, so I ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I am reassured by what the Minister says, not least because the provision is de minimis and the OFS will be able to vary the period. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
The initial and general ongoing registration conditions
Paul Blomfield
I beg to move amendment 165, in clause 5, page 4, line 8, at end insert—
“(2A) Subject to subsection (2C), initial registration conditions of all providers under paragraph (1)(a) must include a requirement that every provider—
(a) provides all eligible students with the opportunity to opt in to be added to the electoral register through the process of enrolling with that provider, and
(b) enter into a data sharing agreement with the local electoral registration officer to add those students to the electoral register.
(2B) For the purposes of subsection (2A)—
(a) a “data sharing agreement” is an agreement between the higher education provider and their local authority whereby the provider shares—
(i) the name,
(ii) address,
(iii) nationality,
(iv) date of birth, and
(v) national insurance data
of all eligible students enrolling and/or enrolled with the provider who opt in within the meaning of subsection (2A)(a);
(b) “eligible” means those persons who are—
(i) entitled to vote in accordance with section 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, and
(ii) a resident in the same local authority as the higher education provider.
(2C) Subsection (2A) does not apply to the Open University and other distance-learning institutions.”
This amendment would ensure that the OfS includes as a registration condition for higher education providers the integration of electoral registration into the student enrolment process. Distance-learning providers are exempt.
I am pleased to introduce amendment 165, because although it is in my name alone, I know it enjoys cross-party support. That is not surprising, because it seeks to introduce a requirement on universities in line with the Cabinet Office’s work on electoral registration. The Cabinet Office has endorsed my approach and has been encouraging.
The amendment simply requires universities to make a minor change to their student enrolment systems to provide new students who enrol with the opportunity to have their names added to the electoral register in a seamless process. Like the Cabinet Office, Universities UK has endorsed the system and has been encouraging. The issue is certainly topical; today, to the comfort or discomfort of hon. Members, new boundaries have been published based on an electoral register that we all agree could have significantly more people registered on it.
Let me put the amendment in context. Members will recognise that when individual electoral registration was introduced in 2014, it created a substantial culture change, not least for universities. Before IER, universities used their role as head of household to block-register students who lived in their accommodation—a practice that was well established throughout the sector. When IER removed that opportunity for universities, there was a real concern that hundreds of thousands of eligible students would disappear from the electoral register, and that proved to be the case.
As the Member of Parliament who represents more students than any other, I have been keenly focused on the issue. In anticipation of the problem, I worked with the University of Sheffield and the Sheffield electoral registration officer. We looked into developing a seamless system at the point at which the university collected the data that the electoral registration officer needed to put people on the register. We piloted the system for the 2014 entry, and it was extremely successful. It turned a negative into a positive, reaching out not only to those students who might otherwise have been registered by virtue of living in university accommodation, but to all students. We managed to achieve a registration level of 65% of eligible students.
The success of the pilot led to its endorsement by Universities UK and the Cabinet Office. A number of other universities followed up on it in the 2015 intake, by changing their student enrolment systems, with even greater success than Sheffield. I think that Cardiff hit over 70% registration, De Montfort’s level was approaching 90%, and there have been one or two other examples. However, the sector has been slow to take the pilot up, and it seemed that this Bill, provided an opportunity to embed good practice across the sector, in terms of conditions for registration. That is what this amendment seeks to do.
Wes Streeting
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hanson. I will speak briefly in support of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central. There are genuine issues around the registration of students. As many hon. and right hon. Members will be aware, effectively students can choose to cast their vote in their traditional home constituency or in the constituency in which they are studying, if those two constituencies are different. There is a good reason for that rule. Students spend much of the year away from home, and often find themselves away from home during a general election, local election or indeed the occasional referendum.
There are real issues about the way that individual electoral registration has disfranchised significant numbers of students. It is regrettable that the principled motivations behind individual electoral registration got rid of common-sense measures, such as university vice-chancellors being able to block-register students in university-run accommodation. The vice-chancellors clearly know who the students are; they clearly know that the students are resident at the university; and with the law of unintended consequences being what it is, individual electoral registration has led to additional bureaucracy and people missing out on being able to make their voice heard.
The duty proposed by the amendment is common sense. It would be welcomed by the sector, including by students unions, and probably by lots of electoral registration officers in local authorities up and down the country, who could probably do with some assistance in getting people registered. In and of itself, it will not address the broader challenge, which is that once students are registered to vote, how on earth do we get them to turn out at the polling stations? It is a perennial frustration of mine, having run all sorts of student voter registration campaigns over the years, that students and young people generally do not cast their vote in the same numbers and proportions as older residents, which has an impact on public policy. This amendment would not solve that particular challenge, but it would at least help more people to engage in our democracy and to exercise their democratic right to vote. Surely that can only be a good thing. I hope that the Minister will give us a favourable response.
Gordon Marsden
I obviously rise to support strongly the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central. He had his mind concentrated on this issue by the circumstances in his constituency, but we should all have our minds concentrated on it, given the importance of students in national life.
What has happened over the years—it has sort of been potentiated by the introduction of IER—has meant that we have had a lottery regarding who gets on the register and their ability to know about it. The modest proposals, on which I hope there is consensus, arising from the excellent pilot that my hon. Friend took forward give the Government an opportunity, in this part of the Bill, to take the pilot forward in a relatively straightforward way. There will always be issues about the capacity of higher education providers to do that—and, in some cases, about their proactiveness—but earlier in consideration of the Bill, we talked about the public interest of universities, as did my hon. Friend this morning. Surely it should be part of universities’ public interest to ensure that their students, when at that university or higher education provider, participate in the electoral process. I strongly commend the amendment to the Government.
Paul Blomfield
On the basis that we can meet with the Cabinet Office Minister responsible, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 146, in clause 5, page 4, line 11, leave out
“if it appears to it appropriate to do so”
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 147, in clause 5, page 4, line 13, after “providers”, insert “, staff and students”
This amendment would ensure consultation with bodies representing higher education staff and students.
Amendment 148, in clause 5, page 4, line 17, after “institution”, insert
“and the students and/or student body of that institution”
This amendment would ensure students and their representatives are informed of changes to their institutions registration conditions.
Amendment 150, in clause 6, page 4, line 41, at end insert—
‘( ) The OfS may also consider other representations from relevant stakeholders as the OfS considers appropriate.”
This amendment would allow for relevant stakeholders to be consulted if the OfS deems it necessary.
Gordon Marsden
I rise to speak to this miscellany of amendments which has a common theme. Clauses 5 and 6 are about the registration conditions. The Minister has quite rightly put emphasis on the innovation of having a central register and everything that goes with it. It is therefore incumbent on us to consider that when registration conditions are made the OFS has considered the broadest range of recommendations about what will be very important decisions, either to allow a registration to go forward, or to revise it, sometimes in a minor way, but sometimes perhaps in a major way, or sometimes, of course, to refuse it. Because of that, the principle behind these amendments is that everybody who is involved in the life of that institution—insofar as practically possible—whether students, teachers, or the workforce that supports those institutions should have some input to that process.
Philosophically, that is a really important thing that the Bill and Ministers need to grasp. If we want to engage people more broadly in higher education, whether to work, to teach or to study in it, we have to give them a stake in the decisions that affect the institution where they are working. That is the principle behind the amendments.
Amendment 146 on the consultation of HE providers would omit, as far as the OFS is concerned, the phrase,
“if it appears to it appropriate to do so”.
This terminology is more redolent of an absolutist monarch such as Louis XIV, the Sun King, than of a new transparent organisation. The language is, to use the French, de haut en bas. The Minister has excellent French, so he will know what I mean. To be honest, it is daft to say
“if it appears to it appropriate to do so”.
Of course it is appropriate to consult higher education providers in such circumstances.
Amendment 147 is very specific, and it states that in clause 5, after the word “providers” we should insert for the avoidance of doubt, as the phrase has it, “staff and students”. The amendment would ensure that there is some consultation with bodies or informal groups representing higher education staff and students. I refer to informal groups because again I am conscious, not least because the Opposition do not want to be accused of stopping progress and innovation, that some of these new providers will be relatively small and may have relatively informal groupings. It is therefore not unimportant that the position of their staff and students is taken into account.
Amendment 148 is probably the most vital of the three proposed amendments to clause 5. If there are to be changes to an institution’s registration conditions, its students and student body should be informed. Members of the Committee might think that is unnecessary, as the students and the student body are bound to be informed, but as I have said previously, we should legislate for the worst scenarios and the worst employers and not for the best. There are recent examples or allegations relating to major changes to London Metropolitan University’s terms and conditions. I once sat on a Committee down the corridor that was talking about providers, and people from London Metropolitan were eloquent on this issue. It is essential that the OFS has a proper information process—the OFS needs to take responsibility for this—that ensures that students and their representatives are properly informed of changes to their institution’s registration conditions. That is crucial.
Finally, clause 6 addresses the specific ongoing registration conditions. Subsection (6) currently states:
“The OfS must have regard to any representations made by the governing body of the institution…in deciding whether to take the step in question.”
It is important that the OFS may also consider representations from other relevant stakeholders it considers appropriate. I hope the Minister will note that we are not advocating an absolute duty on the OFS to consult such people, but we would ask it to do so on a case-by-case basis. It is important to establish the principle in the Bill that stakeholders other than the governing body should be able to make representations to the OFS. Those other stakeholders are people who have invested two or three years of their time and money in studying. They are people whose livelihoods depend on the institutions in question. It is surely not too much to ask that the OFS should be prepared, where appropriate, to consider their representations, too.
Joseph Johnson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful suggestions.
To ensure a level playing field, the Bill will require the OFS to determine and make public the conditions that institutions must meet to gain entry to the register and to remain on it. The conditions of registration, both initial and ongoing, will form the formal basis of the regulatory requirements on higher education providers under the new system. Those conditions include provisions relating to quality assurance, widening participation and data and information requirements. It is clearly the case that students, as well as providers, need clarity on the tests that the OFS will have required providers to pass in order to gain entry to the register, and the ongoing conditions that are in place, so that they can be confident about what it means for a provider to remain on the register.
Amendments 146 and 147 seek to make it mandatory for the OFS to consult each and every time it revises the general, initial and ongoing registration conditions, and to widen the base of those it should consult before doing so from higher education providers to also include staff employed by those providers, and students.
Gordon Marsden
I entirely accept what the Minister says about not wanting to have major consultations on minor changes. I do not want to prolong the exchange, but can I take it that he is going to place that in the guidance to the OFS, or possibly illustrate—although I know that illustrations can never be exhaustive—what sort of circumstances would require that sort of consultation?
Joseph Johnson
Yes, we expect to provide guidance to the OFS to give exactly those sorts of examples of the kinds of occasions on which it would be expected to consult widely on the changes to conditions required. In addition, more generally, the OFS will strongly encourage providers themselves to engage and consult with key stakeholders, including students, as a matter of good practice. Whether or not a general registration condition applies to a provider will be made clear on the OFS’s publicly available register.
Amendment 150 seeks to enable the OFS to take into account, when it thinks fit, representations from students and other stakeholders, as well as the provider itself, if the OFS decides to impose or vary a provider’s specific registration condition. The OFS does not need a power in the Bill to do this. It will always be able to listen to representations on various matters from various quarters if it thinks that doing so would add value. The effect of this amendment in reality is likely to be to give representations made by other stakeholders and students an elevated status above representations made by any other party that may have a legitimate interest. That is because students and staff representations would be the only ones mentioned in the clause.
I am clear that, in certain circumstances, it will be in students’ interests that they are informed of a particular change to a provider’s registration conditions, and why that change has happened. The OFS already has the power, when it is appropriate, to compel a provider’s governing body to make sure that students are promptly informed about changes to a provider’s registration conditions. It is my clear expectation that the OFS will act in the interests of students, and will use its powers under clause 6 to make it a specific condition of registration that significant changes to a provider’s registration conditions are communicated promptly and accurately to students. On this basis, while I understand the intentions here, and fully agree with the need to promote these important issues, I do not believe the amendments are necessary as the Bill already makes relevant provisions for them. I therefore ask hon. Members to consider withdrawing their amendments.
Gordon Marsden
I thank the Minister again for his constructive approach to outlining some of the circumstances in which access to broader areas would be made available. The truth of the matter is that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. The OFS is not yet constituted. In its first few months and years, people will watch carefully as to how things proceed. If the general duty proves not to be working as it should—there are sometimes high-profile cases that illustrate faults in legislation that no one had thought of—the Government of the time may wish to return to it, and there are mechanisms for doing that. For the moment, on the basis of what the Minister has said and based on the fact that clear guidance will be given to the OFS, I am content to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 7
Proportionate conditions
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 151, in clause 7, page 5, line 19, at end insert—
‘(4) The OfS must ensure that the conditions applicable to an institution regarding registration requirements, costs and penalties are proportionate to the size, history, track-record and structure of that particular institution.”
This amendment would ensure that the application of certain procedures (and consequent subscription charges) within the Bill are applied fairly and proportionally and accommodate smaller providers of higher education such as colleges.
The amendment is supported by the Association of Colleges, which the Minister was keen to pray in aid of his arguments this morning. I hope he will be equally ready to listen to what the association has to say on this matter. It is not only about the Association of Colleges, though; the amendment and the thoughts behind it strike at the heart of whether the Government are serious about using further and higher education as parts of their mechanism to develop the skills, possibilities and targets that were discussed this morning.
Clause 7 is on proportionate conditions. It stipulates that the OFS ensures that the conditions applicable to an institution regarding registration requirements, costs and penalties are proportionate to the size and structure of that particular institution. For the avoidance of doubt, I shall be talking specifically about further and higher education, but there are of course alternative providers that might also benefit from such a proportionate condition.
There are many references in the Bill to the penalties, conditions, requirements and costs with which an institution may have to comply. There is a need to ensure that the application of certain procedures and consequent subscription charges in the Bill are applied fairly and proportionately, and accommodate smaller higher education providers, such as colleges. The purpose of the amendment is to place a counterbalancing duty on the OFS to ensure that its activities are proportionate.
The clause provides an opportunity to ensure that the Government do not simply apply a proportional response on registration, conditions and compliance in relation to perceived regulatory risk. They should also take into account an institution’s size, structure and experience—its track record, one might say—and apply those requirements in a fair and proportionate manner in relation to the institution.
There are many issues at stake as to how the charges and compliance conditions affect smaller providers, such as colleges. If there is no mechanism in the Bill to ensure that an institution’s size and structure are taken into account under the various conditions, smaller providers, which have little experience of some of the compliance requirements and do not have the same financial means to pay the same rates as large universities, could be adversely affected by a one-size-fits-all approach.
If I may do so without departing from the structure of the amendment, Mr Hanson, I will give the Minister an analogy that I began to pursue with his colleague, the then Aviation Minister, when I was shadow Aviation Minister, in relation to the regulation of smaller airports. As some Members here might know, smaller airports, including my own airport in Blackpool, have had mixed fortunes in recent years. One point that has been made constantly is about the disproportionate effect when an airport serving 250,000 passengers and one that serves 3 million must both pay the same charges. In the same way, by analogy, there are concerns of the nature outlined by the AOC.
The OFS will have far-reaching powers to collect data and place conditions on institutions. It will have the power to charge licence fees to cover its costs, which, according to the technical paper produced by the Government, are expected to be around £30 million a year. The impact assessment forecasts that around 500 providers will pay a flat rate of £60,000 a year.
There are multiple references to the compliance requirements and costs throughout the Bill. I will not go into the various clauses and what they include, but clause 13 in particular refers to the payment of a fee as a registration requirement. I have a couple of specific questions for the Minister. Is it to be a charge or a subscription? Will the price vary to take into account smaller providers of HE such as colleges, or will it be a blanket cost? If his officials are currently discussing those issues, it would be useful to have some sense of the direction of travel.
FE colleges that want to be HE providers believe at the moment that there are circumstances in which they are at a disadvantage compared with other providers. A university enrolling 10,000 students paying £9,000 a year, for example, will earn £90 million in teaching income, so a £60,000 licence fee would be less than 0.1% of its total teaching income. By comparison, a college that enrols 250 students paying £6,000 a year would earn only £500,000 in teaching income, and the £60,000 licence fee would be 4%, or one twenty-fifth, of its total teaching income. I do not intend to tax the Committee with lots of mathematical examples, but I want to give some sense of the level of concern.
Colleges are currently charged approximately 20% validation and awarding fees by partner HEIs, which leaves around £5,000 of the tuition fee for actual course delivery costs. The licence fee could leave them with tight margins, seriously hindering their ability to deliver a quality HE course and forcing many to increase their tuition fees against their access missions. In case the Minister is in any doubt about that direction of travel, I refer him to a piece that appeared last week in The Times Educational Supplement under the headline “Number of colleges with £9K tuition fees doubles”:
“The number of further education colleges charging the highest possible tuition fees for undergraduate degrees has doubled in a year…and more than a dozen institutions plan to raise their fees even higher next year.”
Various arguments are put forward by the various bodies concerned, and I will not veer off the subject by talking about them. I merely wanted to illustrate that this is not a hypothetical argument. The margins on which FE colleges act as HE providers, and perhaps their ability to continue to do so or that of new FE colleges to take on HE provision, can be affected by such financial burdens.
There is another aspect that we need to think about. The issue goes beyond licence fees. If the OFS is not careful, it could end up—I am not saying that this would be its intention—applying a risk-based approach that involves a light touch for large, well-established universities but a heavy hand for smaller colleges. Of course, in some cases, where there are problems or poor quality—in my view, that would have to be applied as rigorously to new providers delivering HE provision as to existing institutions such as FE colleges—a heavy hand is necessary from time to time. But there is a genuine risk that a regulator not observing that proportionality could drive high-quality niche providers out of the sector. Small providers and colleges that are not dedicated higher education providers might be penalised for not having the same structures as universities, which are more accustomed to the current set-up requirements, both financially and structurally.
Joseph Johnson
I again thank the hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful amendment on which we will reflect. I will begin start by saying that risk-based proportionate regulation is at the heart of how the OFS will operate. As I have said, we need a single regulatory system appropriate for all providers, and we must stop treating institutions differently based on incumbency and corporate form. Instead, we should ensure that regulation is tailored to fit their individual needs and demands.
Clause 7 specifies:
“The OfS must ensure that the initial registration conditions…and its ongoing registration conditions are proportionate to the OfS’s assessment of the regulatory risk posed by the institution.”
The OFS will also have a duty to keep the initial and ongoing conditions of registration that it applies to institutions under review. That means that, where and when the OFS considers it appropriate, it will adjust the level of regulation to which a provider is subject to reflect the level of risk it presents at a given time.
Accordingly, where the OFS considers that a provider is particularly low risk, the effect of the clause should be that the OFS will make appropriate changes to its conditions to reflect that and ease the burden of regulation. Similarly, where the OFS considers that a provider, through its performance and behaviour, starts to present a greater degree of risk, the clause should ensure that the OFS will increase the extent of regulation.
That approach will enable and incentivise high-performing, stable and reliable providers to start and grow, increasing student choice in high-quality higher education. It will mean that institutions that pose little risk to students or to the public purse can spend more time focusing on what they do best. Equally, institutions that present a higher risk will undergo more scrutiny and be subject to more measures to protect students, the public purse and English higher education.
Amendment 151 would place a duty on the OFS to take into account a provider’s size, structure, history and track record when determining registration conditions, costs and monetary penalties. It will certainly be the case that track record and perhaps size will be determining factors for the OFS to consider when it imposes registration conditions, but only insofar as those factors might help to determine the size of risk to the taxpayer and students.
The Bill is built on the principle of risk-based regulation in all its forms, and it is unhelpful to identify a list of factors that might substitute for risk in its wider sense. Over time, it is likely that the OFS will adapt and change its approach to identifying and controlling risk as the higher education market evolves. For example, the OFS may identify particular risks that relate to the delivery of particular qualifications and awarding bodies, or courses delivered in particular locations, as with the rapid expansion of higher national courses in business in 2013-14 from approximately 20 London-based providers, which caused real concern about quality and value for money. It is important not to constrain the OFS’s ability to react by weighing some risk factors above others.
On the subject of cost, it is worth noting that in the White Paper we committed to consulting the sector on the detail of the planned registration fees and charges. We will do that this autumn. Regulations will be laid before Parliament setting out the matters that the OFS must take into account when exercising its power to impose a monetary penalty.
Gordon Marsden
I hear what the Minister says, but I will make my response at the end of the debate. In connection with provision on “consulting the sector”, there is a sense, which might be entirely unreasonable, in the FE sector, in particular those supplying HE institutions, that they are often an afterthought in the consultation process, so I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that as a group they will be treated equally with the traditional university sector.
Joseph Johnson
I am happy to give that assurance. We value exceptionally highly the contribution that FE providers make to the HE sector, as we discussed in a previous sitting. There are 159,000 HE students in FE colleges, which do a terrific job.
The registration fees consultation will seek the views of the entire sector on what would be seen as a proportionate approach to the setting of fees. We want to hear from FE colleges as important institutions delivering HE. On that basis, while I understand the intentions in Committee and fully agree with the need to promote such important issues, I do not believe that the amendments are necessary, because what they propose is already covered by provisions in the Bill. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Blackpool South to consider withdrawing the amendment.
Gordon Marsden
I am grateful to the Minister, first, for all the detail and explanation of the consultation and, secondly, for his general mood music, if I may put it that way. We have had a tussle over some things, but to put something in the Bill does not automatically, even in law, mean that other factors will be excluded. However, as I said, I am content with the broad thrust of his assurances and, on that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I have a few questions for the Minister and am seeking some reassurances from him. One possible reading of the clause is that it could lead to dumbing down of the higher education sector by allowing a lesser form of regulation for colleges of a particular type, whether a small FE college, a private provider or a small university.
Given what the Minister said earlier, I am sure that he wants to uphold the excellent reputation of the sector, so he will not want to put in place a regulatory system that could expose the sector to accusations of the quality not being uniform across all the players. I cannot see anything in the clause as drafted that will guarantee an equally rigorous approach across all the different types of institution, regardless of their track record. For example, a college might be good for a couple of years, but then have a poor principal or adverse market conditions, resulting in it being not such a good provider. I am not exactly sure how, if we are going on a particular track record in a particular period of time in terms of the regulatory system, that is going to be captured. These are really a series of questions that I am posing to the Minister. Perhaps some of the detail in the regulations will help us to understand better what the clause will do in practice, but I have huge anxieties about it as drafted. I hope that the Minister is able to address those and help me to feel better.
Wes Streeting
I am reassured by the Minister. He is right that I favour the co-regulatory approach he has set out and I am reassured by the mechanisms. Though it would be great fun to insert these amendments, which would have a detrimental impact on Scotland, and then inform the people of Scotland that that happened because their representatives were not here, I am not sure that that is necessarily the best use of our time and so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Gordon Marsden
I beg to move amendment 166, in clause 8, page 5, line 34, at end insert
“and
(d) an access and participation plan condition, as defined in section 12.”
This amendment would make access and participation plans mandatory for all higher education providers.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 167, in clause 12, page 7, leave out lines 23 to 33.
This amendment is consequential on amendment 166.
Gordon Marsden
I rise to discuss what I think is an important issue of principle. The Minister mentioned equal treatment of different institutions, whether they are new providers or long-established institutions.
Before I do so, I want to put this in the context of clause 8, which touches on the issues of mandatory ongoing registration conditions. The University and College Union has drawn attention to the fact that the Bill seeks to “subsume” the Office for Fair Access into the OFS. I hope that that will not be the process. The Office for Fair Access should play an equal part in widening participation access and social mobility. We have discussed that already and I have no doubt we will return to it in some shape or form later.
The reality is that
“The current access agreements will be replaced by access and participation plans as a condition of registration for providers wishing to charge tuition fees higher than the basic cap.”
The Government are consulting on accelerated courses and enabling switching between different courses and degrees. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham has tabled amendment 177 on that matter, although we may not reach it today.
In principle—and it is in principle—this is a straightforward proposal. If the sector is to expand significantly, whether via existing institutions—I have talked a lot about FE colleges and HE this afternoon—or via new providers, in principle, all those providers should produce an access and participation plan condition, as defined in clause 12.
We cannot have it both ways. On the one hand, we want to have two sorts of institutions, one being the long-established institutions, which are nice and big and crusty, if I can put it that way, and obviously have to be stimulated to activate their access and participation plans—that may be a distortion of that sector, but nevertheless that is the view that is sometimes expressed by bold free marketeers. On the other hand, as the Minister has been saying, we want everybody to operate on a relatively level playing field. I and I think most rational people, if we stopped them on the street and managed to engage them in some of the complexities of the issue, would say that everyone should be treated the same. Therefore, it is important to include in the Bill the principle that an access and participation plan will be mandatory for all higher education providers. If we do not do that, we will be providing discriminatory conditions for different providers. We will be offering a free hit to a minority—I stress that it might be a minority—of would-be new providers that thought that they could enter the system without having to deal with issues such as access and participation plans. Of course, that would undermine much of the Government’s thrust in the Bill.
The Government have lots of angles on the Bill, but two that are continually repeated are about competition and consumer rights. Competition has to go hand in hand with consumer rights. If a competitive market is going to be set up, with different groups jostling for HE status, they should all be judged by the same mechanism. I am anxious to increase the pool of new providers, but I am also anxious to ensure that, as we do so, providers bring to the table a proper sense of the responsibilities that they will have to meet. It is important that that is at the heart of the mission of the OFS.
There is the possibility of expansion and of acquiring degree status at different parts of the process. We will have some interesting conversations during later scrutiny of the Bill about the protections—or otherwise—that the Government have built into the new provider process in terms of degree awarding powers, so I am not going to touch on that now, but if the Government really want new providers to have some fairly radical abilities to operate in a quasi-university set-up from day one, it is important that they take on board some of the responsibilities in respect of access and participation.
This is not a non-binary option, to use a fashionable phrase. Providers need to accept responsibilities along with the new challenges and opportunities. That is why we are strongly proposing this amendment, which would ensure that all higher education providers have to engage with access and participation plans.
Joseph Johnson
Amendments 166 and 167 seek to require all providers on the register to have an access and participation plan, as the hon. Gentleman has said. It may be helpful if I set out our thinking and policy in this area. Our clear intention is that fee-capped providers on the OFS register that are able to charge above the basic level of fees should be required to agree an access and participation plan with the director for fair access and participation, as he will be in the new world. That must be in place before they can charge fees at the higher level. It is consistent with the current approach to access plans, which has worked well since 2004.
In 2017-18, through access plans, universities expect to spend £833.5 million on measures to improve access and success for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. That is up significantly from £404 million in 2009. It is an increase of more than 10% in cash terms, compared with 2016-17 access agreements.
The amendments seek to require all providers, whether or not their students are accessing student support funding or they are charging fees at the higher level, to produce access and participation plans. That does not seem appropriate. We are introducing a regulatory framework that will ask providers to meet certain requirements based on how they participate in the HE system. It is right that the burden we place on providers should be proportionate. This would go too far, given that not all these providers want—or would be able—to charge fees at the higher level. We expect providers to devote a proportion of the higher-level fees towards access and participation in their plans.
Gordon Marsden
As always, the Minister is giving an accurate description of the situation. The point is that we are supposed to be entering a new era. We are supposed to be entering a settlement that is going to last 20 to 25 years, I would think. That is how long it is since the last major HE Bill. It is useful to explore the fundamental underlying principles. Does he assume that, simply because an organisation is small—there was some discussion of this with the new providers that came before the Committee and I am not sure we took the same view of their answers—a small provider should be able to duck out of access and participation?
Joseph Johnson
Let me develop our thinking a bit further. I have not quite reached the end of the explanation of how the system will work with respect to all providers. As I was saying, we expect providers to devote a proportion of the higher-level fees towards access and participation in their plans. It is worth noting that currently designated alternative providers whose students qualify for student support funding but that do not themselves receive HEFCE grant funding, on the whole have a good record in attracting students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
On the hon. Gentleman’s point that this is not a binary situation, we intend to go further than the current arrangements in our reforms. For the first time, we are proposing that those providers that want their students to be able to access tuition fee loans up to the basic level of £6,000 should have to set out how they intend to promote widening access and participation in a public statement.
Our plans stop short of there being a requirement for these providers to agree a plan with the director for fair access and participation. That is entirely sensible in my view. We think there should be light-touch arrangements for these providers. Their students will only be eligible for student support at the basic fee limit.
Gordon Marsden
It is important to get some clarification. Essentially, the Minister is proposing—forgive me if I have missed this, but this is news to me today—a compromise between the status quo and the full-fat version that we suggest in our amendment. He mentioned that the director of OFFA would not be involved in that. Has there been consultation with the director and what is his view on that?
Joseph Johnson
This should not be news to the hon. Gentleman; it featured prominently in our White Paper and has been a central feature of our approach to widening participation in the system. We have discussed the entirety of our widening participation and access reforms with the director of fair access, Leslie Ebdon.
Joseph Johnson
No, the intention is that these are statements that the providers accessing the basic amount of fee loans support for their students put up on their own initiative. They will be required to have them, but they will not be signed off by the director for fair access and participation. We do not think that that would be a proportionate requirement.
Through our planned transparency duty, we intend that these providers will, through these statements, be required to publish data on student application, offer and drop-out rates. These statements are to be broken down by the ethnicity, gender and socio-economic background of the student bodies. The publication of more data will help the sector to support everybody in fulfilling their potential, regardless of their background. It is our intention that the OFS will look at requiring this access and participation statement as part of the conditions of registration.
I expect the OFS to consult when it determines for the first time what the initial and ongoing conditions should be, and a wide range of interested parties representing the interests of students and providers is to have the opportunity to feed in their views through this consultation. This would include details of the various conditions that providers would have to meet, including on access and participation. Widening access and participation are central to our reforms, and I believe that the requirements we are laying on providers in that respect, including the innovation of access and participation statements, are balanced and fair. I ask the hon. Member for Blackpool South to consider withdrawing amendment 166.
Gordon Marsden
I have listened carefully and some of what the Minister said is very welcome, but it still does not address the fundamental question that I put at the beginning. We are entering a new era, and signalling that some people do not have the same responsibilities as others is not a satisfactory outcome. For those reasons, I will press the amendment to a vote.
Question put, that the amendment be made.
Wes Streeting
Mindful of time, I will introduce the amendments by simply pointing out that they reinforce one of the goals of the Bill by bringing some welcome transparency in a number of key areas.
First, there is the proposed requirement for the governing body of a registered higher education provider to publish its policy in relation to contextual admissions, including school performance data, socio-economic markers and care background, on its website and in its prospectus, so that applicants can be aware of how they will be judged and the measures that any institution is taking to ensure that it is giving appropriate regard to ensuring fair access to students from all backgrounds on the basis of talent, and recognising the particular hurdles that talented students may have had to overcome to reach the point of accessing higher education.
The amendments would also extend the transparency condition to include retention rates, standards obtained and graduate destinations, and require that the information is published for each academic department. One of my key frustrations is that some universities that have further to go in ensuring fair access to higher education are sometimes reluctant to go the extra mile to ensure that their doors are truly open on the basis of merit. Another group of institutions is equally frustrating: those which claim to be widening participation success stories because, to put it crudely, they get bums on seats from under-represented backgrounds, but which, when their retention and graduate destination data are examined, fall significantly short of what students, families and those who care about them would expect when they enter a higher education course.
Institutions cannot keep on claiming to be adding value if all they are doing is adding debt to students from under-represented, often indebted and impoverished backgrounds, leaving them with only a partial experience of higher education or work in a job that they would not have imagined when embarking and choosing to get themselves into tens of thousands of pounds of debt. We need greater transparency of information for students and applicants and greater accountability for institutions. I hope these amendments will help to serve that purpose.
Gordon Marsden
I support the amendment. I will also speak to amendments 153, 155, 154 and 152, which stand in my name. These amendments are supported and promoted by the National Education Opportunities Network, whose research in this area, published jointly with UCU under the aegis of their highly effective chief executive Graeme Atherton, I referred to earlier. What they say on this area is important and mirrors what my hon. Friend has just said.
The transparency duty is to be welcomed but there is a serious oversight in restricting the categories that HEIs have to publish information on participation to the ones in subsection (2)(b)(i) to (iii). There is no valid reason why data on students with disabilities and the age profile of students should not also be included. That is reflected specifically in amendment 155, where we ask for the insertion of data on students with disabilities, the age profile and care leavers. The issue of care leavers has recently come up in other aspects of Government policy. Ministers in the Department for Education have been strong on supporting care leavers and we think that category would be an important addition to the list, even though it is a relatively small and modest group.
If the transparency duty is to have any impact, it needs to include as many different dimensions of participation by social background as possible. The Sutton Trust, too, believes that the Bill does not go far enough in that area. It says that transparency is fundamental, but continues:
“evidence suggests many universities are favouring more privileged candidates even when levels of attainment are taken into account... The Bill should be amended to require universities to publish their contextual admission policies clearly on their websites to encourage applications from students from disadvantaged backgrounds.”
It is in that context that we tabled amendment 155. We urge the Minister not just to consider the addition of those categories, but also the arguments that NEON, the Sutton Trust and others have put forward for greater disclosure and greater requirement to disclose from HE providers.
Dr Blackman-Woods
I support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friends and my own amendment 164. This is a straightforward amendment to clause 9 which, in the first instance, seeks clarity from the Minister. I am not sure whether under subsection (2) the OFS will have to publish the information provided to it by higher education providers, or whether it is simply the institutions themselves that will have to do so. If it is the institutions themselves, it would be helpful if all the information was collated in one place. UCAS seems to be the obvious place to do that, if it is not the OFS. The point of the amendment is to ensure that somewhere, either through the OFS or UCAS, all the information is provided in one place. That would be much easier for the sector at large and for prospective students, rather than people having to trawl through every higher education provider’s publication.
Joseph Johnson
Students at the Open University have, over time, made the choice to form a students union that represents their interests, but it is horses for courses. We want the current system, which is liberal and permissive, to continue because it is working well. Where students unions can organise themselves and demonstrate that they are adding value to student body, by all means they should come into existence. The current legal framework allows them easily to do so.
Gordon Marsden
I do not think that all Opposition members of the Committee would accept the Minister’s claim that it is usually working well. There are lots of smaller institutions where students feel very excluded from the policies and practices of the providers.
Joseph Johnson
For that reason, where there are issues, students will welcome the provisions in the Bill which put their interests at the heart of the system and make sure that their voices are better represented in all the system’s structures.
Although these representative structures often do not mean or necessarily entail a formally constituted union, they reflect the different culture and constituents in different student bodies. For example, it may be a group of representatives from across different classes and courses led or chaired by a student president.
The “Higher Education Review (Alternative Providers)” is the QAA’s principal review method for alternative providers. As part of the higher education review, an independent provider must provide evidence of how it is meeting the QAA’s expectations on student engagement. The UK quality code focuses specifically on student engagement, so the provider must evidence how it is meeting the QAA’s expectations in that respect. The code states that through the “Higher Education Review (Alternative Providers)” process, higher education providers must demonstrate how they
“take deliberate steps to engage all students, individually and collectively, as partners in the assurance and enhancement of their educational experience.”
Providers must also work with students to produce an action plan on how to respond to HER recommendations. QAA-reviewed independent providers will have student representatives on their various committees, including some, but not all, at board level.
The amendment would impose a mandatory condition on private providers. The Bill does not impose a similar mandatory registration condition on institutions receiving public funding. The amendment would not only impose a new regulatory burden on alternative providers but would run contrary to our aim of levelling the playing field between traditional institutions and alternative providers.