Higher Education and Research Bill

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

We can certainly say that visa applications have risen by around 10% since 2011, although there might be fluctuations from year to year. That has been the case for many periods in the history of international students coming to study in this country. There has not been a story of continued growth; there have been ups and downs. Since 2010, which is a longer timeframe, we have seen applications up by around 10%.

Lords amendment 156 could do real damage. For example, it would prevent international students being treated as long-term migrants. The internationally recognised definition of a long-term migrant is anyone moving countries for a period of more than a year. If we were not able to apply to international students the key features of our work immigration regime, such as the need to obtain a time-limited visa that specifies the terms on which the migrant can come and a requirement to return home upon expiry of the visa, that could undermine our whole student migration system. I cannot advise the House to agree to that amendment.

Secondly, the Lords amendment would prohibit any change to the future student migration regime that could be interpreted as more restrictive than that in force when the Bill is passed. Any future changes—even minor technical changes—would require fresh primary legislation rather than being made by immigration rules laid before Parliament. I do not believe that that would be sensible or helpful, particularly given how crowded the forthcoming legislative programme is likely to be.

That said, I recognise the strength of feeling on the issue, so I am pleased to ask the House to support amendments (a) to (c) in lieu of Lords amendment 156. The Bill already creates for the first time a requirement for information on higher education providers to be published. It also puts in place a statutory duty to consider what would be helpful to students on higher education courses here, prospective students and higher education providers. Our amendments expressly extend that important new duty to cover what information would be useful to current or prospective international students in higher education and to the providers that recruit them or are thinking of doing so. They will also specifically require a consideration of the publication of international student numbers. All this is designed to help to ensure that as much information as possible is available about the UK’s offer to international students. We have a good story to tell and the Government are keen to ensure that it is told.

The Bill is long overdue. It will streamline the higher education system’s regulatory architecture. It will give students more choice and opportunity. It will strengthen our world-class research and innovation capabilities, and it will enhance the competitiveness and productivity of our economy. I thank all Members for their constructive engagement throughout the Bill’s passage.

[Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure and privilege to speak on these amendments this afternoon. I join the Minister in thanking the various teams of drafters and Clerks for all the work they have done. He and I have had some intense discussions in the past three to four days, and they must have put great pressure on the Clerks to produce the substantial amendments that are before us today. I want to give special thanks to the Public Bill Office. Most people who have been in opposition, of whatever party, know that it is very much, in terms of resources, a David and Goliath process and we are enormously grateful for the professional work of the Public Bill Office in assisting us.

I want to place on record, because we are talking about Lords amendments, my gratitude and that of many in the House for the robust exercise by the House of Lords of its historic privilege, which is to revise, to remind and to warn. It has done all three things with this raft of amendments, which, combined with the intense pressure that was applied across the sector by numerous groups, the work that we have put in and the Minister’s co-operation in recent days, has brought us to where we are today.

I am sorry that the Minister, in his measured presentation, did not find time to talk about the contribution of the people who work in universities. Their contribution is just as important as that of students and teachers, because without them we would not have universities or other higher education institutions. I place on the record also my thanks to the various sector groups who have assisted us: the National Union of Students, which delivered thoughtful and trenchant critiques that helped us get to where we are today, as did the other unions involved—the University and College Union and Unison—and the Council for British Universities, as well as the whole range of universities, modern and traditional. I must not forget the submissions from the further education sector and the Association of Colleges, because as I frequently remind the Minister, 12% and rising of higher education in this country is provided by further education colleges.

This process has been about the dialogue with university vice-chancellors and junior lecturers. We are in a much better place because of the specialist critique and the Lords amendments that the Minister has accepted on UK Research and Innovation, and on research. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) is in the Chamber, I pay tribute to her and her team for the points they made about the importance of the devolved Administrations.

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[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend is making a strong case. I agree that it is good that the Government have recognised the challenge to university reputation that could come from the extension of university title without safeguards in place. Does he agree that the Government’s proposals are a watering down of Lords amendment 1 and that it will be necessary to look carefully at the guidance in due course to ensure that it adequately protects university title?

[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend, the esteemed chair of the all-party parliamentary university group, is absolutely right. She makes precisely the same point that so many people want to make to the Government. Edmund Burke famously said that the price of liberty was eternal vigilance. Well, the price of extracting these concessions from the Government today—if, by any chance, they get back into office after 8 June—will be at least very severe, if not eternal, scrutiny. Whatever the situation is, not just in the House but outside it, that scrutiny has to happen.

The agreed process is not a tick-box one, but one where there must be a big conversation. My hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and all sorts of other people have made this point. I pay tribute to Baroness Brown for pursuing the matter. I hope that the penny has finally dropped for the Government. As MillionPlus said,

“strong safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that any body that is awarded degree awarding powers…has met the criteria to do so, and will not put student interest at risk, or potentially damage the hard earned reputation of the entire higher education sector in the UK.”

That is why it is so important that the Government commit to that full and wide-ranging consultation.

I am pleased that the Minister has confirmed, as we discussed, that the consultation will look at international examples, such as Australia, in granting university title. It is crucial that the Government look at the range the Minister talked about: excellent teaching, sustained scholarship, cohesive academic community, learning infrastructure, knowledge exchange and—often forgotten—pastoral care, with universities actually supporting students to learn and not simply be part of some vague online community. As Research Fortnight said last year,

“the title of university needs to be seen as a privilege…not an automatic entitlement”.

That is why this consultation and the subsequent guidance are so important, with the market being open to new entrants, and that is why we will continue to press Ministers on this issue.

Let me move on to the granting of degree-awarding powers. As we have said from the beginning of proceedings on the Bill, that is at its heart significantly about trust, or the lack of it, and that was nobly elaborated and strengthened by the amendment tabled in the other place by Baroness Wolf, who is a fantastic advocate for the HE and FE sectors and who knows of what she speaks, which is why the Government have had to move on this issue. We have said right from the beginning that the Government need to make things very clear to allay some of the concerns that we, along with a number of people across the sector and the noble Baroness and others in the other House, have had about the principle of independence. Giving providers the option from day one to build up degree-awarding powers is potentially dangerous, and we are potentially taking a gamble on probationary degrees from probationary providers.

I do not want to reopen the debate we had on this in Committee, and I want to say very strongly that we are not against private providers or new providers as such, but the premise must be to strengthen the public sector and to ensure that new providers can demonstrate that they provide high-quality education—including robust governance that maintains academic quality, protects the student interest and has a demonstrable track record of delivering higher-quality education—before they are granted degree-awarding powers.

We know only too well from the issues that have arisen in the United States with private providers, from the criticisms Baroness Wolf has levelled at a similar process in Australia and from the issues involving BPP and the Apollo group three or four years ago why the safeguards being put into the Bill are entirely necessary. The Council for the Defence of British Universities said exactly that in its submissions.

We are therefore pleased that a significant degree of scrutiny will now be put in place and that, when granting, varying or revoking degree-awarding powers, the OFS must be advised by the independent designated quality body—the Government have conceded that—on a provider’s ability to provide and maintain HE provision of an appropriate quality and standard. It is crucial that there is a traffic light, if I can dare to use that expression, saying “Caution” and providing a guarantee of the process. It is important that the OFS is advised in the way I have described; after all, in the first few years of its existence, it will—whether we take the term neutrally or not—be a creature of the Government, but one that is on probation and on trial.

There are known quantities in this process, which is why I was pleased to hear the Minister praise the QAA for what it has done, but, as he said, things change with time. That is why we had to press the Government so hard to come forward with a new mechanism if the QAA were no longer to be the appropriate body. That is reiterated in the concession of an automatic review by the designated quality body if there is a change of ownership or a merger at a university. We know what can happen, just as people in the sector know—the people employed there and the people being taught in inferior conditions because of what has happened in the past. We therefore need these steps, alongside a consultation and guidance on university title, to protect our brand of HE providers.

This is about not just the letter but the spirit of these proposals, and that is reiterated by the automatic review, which will prevent university title and degree-awarding powers being purchased without the protections of quality assurance. We remain concerned that, should no independent designated quality body exist, the OFS must set up an independent specific committee. We were determined to encourage the Government to take that fall-back position. Their concession of an independent specific committee with a majority of members with no previous involvement with the OFS is crucial. It is also crucial that this body remains independent of Government and of the OFS, for the reasons that I have described.

I want to move on to the teaching excellence framework, and Lords amendment 23 and the amendments that the Government have tabled in lieu. The Minister said that the importance of teaching excellence was accepted across the House. Indeed, who would be against teaching excellence? However, the devil is always in the detail. In this case, the detail is that it took nearly six years to take through the research excellence framework process. We are therefore wise to think and to pause, particularly on the potential to differentiate fee levels at higher education institutions, which has been a major concern for many across the sector. We have expressed serious fears from the start, not least in the context of the ridiculously titled “gold, silver and bronze” scheme, which was no doubt dreamed up in the Minister’s office by someone in a post-Olympics euphoria back in the autumn.

People are concerned that any sort of link is bound to affect student decision making adversely, particularly in deterring students from low-income families from applying. Those concerns have been expressed right across the sector, from unions such as the UCU and Unison to a number of other groups. The Minister quotes somewhat selectively on occasion the groups that he wishes to quote, but I can assure him that a number of universities and university groups, including some of our most revered and aged, remain concerned about this. That is why it is crucial that the Government put in place a legislative commitment to a full independent review before the TEF could be used to differentiate fees and why it is right that that has been accepted and aided by the work that the Lords has put in. It gives us a different direction of travel from the rubber-stamping technocracy the Government previously had in mind for us.

The Government’s agenda on higher education has consistently hit students hard, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. As we have always said, we will do everything in our power to resist the TEF being used as a Trojan horse for the escalation of fees. We know from the Sutton Trust and from the various surveys about the daunting mountain of debt that is being imposed on students as a result of how this Government and their predecessor have gone forward on this: what an impediment to their hopes and dreams. Now that inflation is leaping, post-Brexit, to the sorts of levels that will bring in increases in future, we are right to be concerned that there should be a proper process in how we take this forward.

Along with the unions involved and many others in the sector, we feel very strongly about any sort of link that affects student decision making adversely—particularly, as I say, with regard to low-income families. The NUS and the UCU have strong concerns that the TEF would create a high-stakes, multi-tiered system and increase pressures on teachers, as well as incentivising universities to cut teaching in subjects that score less well. Sally Hunt, the general secretary of UCU, said last December:

“If the Government really wants to improve teaching quality, it”

also

“needs to think…about whether staff are supported”

enough

“to deliver their best teaching.”

It is therefore vital that the Government have now finally, on the back of the strength of the concerns of our colleagues and the people who really know what is going on in the sector, found the courage to put in place a legislative commitment to a full independent review before the TEF could be used for differentiating fees.

I was grateful to the Minister for spelling out so clearly the chronology of that process, because it is not simply about the extra year, but about the process itself. We would have preferred—and we will still campaign for—the link between the TEF and the fees to be removed altogether, but we know that we have entered a process where we have to do the best we can with this Bill.

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[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the review is welcome but that it would have been really good to hear the Minister say this afternoon that he would definitely want to act on its outcome, not simply ignore it, which could happen in the future?

[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend knows that I cannot be responsible for the Minister’s mood music. I can only respond to what he has committed to do in the Bill, and its commitment to an independent review is very important. A whole raft of people, not just the Lords, are concerned. The combined efforts of an outside challenge, the wisdom of the Lords, who constrained the Minister by inserting the original amendment, and our determination have resulted in welcome concessions.

[Joseph Johnson]

To reiterate what I said in my speech, I am happy to confirm that the Secretary of State will take account of the review and, if he or she considers it appropriate, will provide guidance to the OFS accordingly, including on any changes to the scheme that the review suggests are needed, whether they be in relation to the metrics or any of the other items that the review will look at.

[Gordon Marsden]

I am grateful to the Minister for that important clarification. It is also important that all fee regulations under the Bill that were previously subject to negative procedure will now be subject to affirmative procedure. That puts daylight on issues related to rocketing fees, and I believe that it will be entirely possible that the Secretary of State, whoever it will be, will have to listen to a dogged independent statutory review that says, “This ain’t working. Either it won’t ever work, or it certainly won’t work for the time being.” It is in all of our interests to make sure that that statutory review is as potent as we wish it to be.

I welcome the Government’s electoral registration amendment, which strengthens the current position to some extent. We would have preferred a full commitment to ensuring block registration, but nevertheless we wholeheartedly welcome anything that will facilitate greater student interest in and awareness of political affairs. I pay tribute to the fantastic work of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central and to the pilot work undertaken at the University of Sheffield and the University of Bath. I also praise my fellow member of the Bill Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North, and my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), all of whom have concerns about students and feel very strongly about the matter. It is important to note that we are not just relying on nudges. The Minister was kind enough to refer to the involvement of the Cabinet Office in this regard, and there will be specific powers to impose an electoral registration commitment to deal with HE providers not doing enough.

Finally, let me turn to the amendments on international students. I praise and welcome the doggedness with which Lord Hannay pursued this matter with the coalition that worked across Parliament to insert the original amendment. I hoped and thought that the strength of that coalition might have moved the Government, but unfortunately it is not a question of the warm words, values and welcomes which the Minister talked about and to which, I am sure, he signs up—he was a dedicated remainer before the election. Unfortunately, he has a Prime Minister who has been at best curmudgeonly and at worst obstructive on this issue. The sharp questions from the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) and the contribution of the Chair of the Select Committee on Education, the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), show where we are on this matter.

At a time when Brexit is throwing up fresh problems for the higher education sector, the Government’s stance is threatening both the sector and our reputation worldwide. Those new issues are about whether we will be able to stay in Erasmus or get funding for beyond Horizon 2020, and about European structural funding, but the university and HE sector has enough to contend with without having a Prime Minister who appears to wrinkle her nose and, sometimes, attach manacles to her colleagues in Cabinet every time they suggest a different path.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

My hon. Friend is making compelling points. In Northern Ireland there are two universities, Queen’s University, Belfast and the Ulster University. They both rely on Erasmus and European social funds to develop cross-border educational research programmes with higher education institutions in the Republic of Ireland. The impact of Brexit in the context of this debate is therefore particularly important to us; does he agree with me on that?

[Gordon Marsden]

I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend makes a further point about the Government’s still having a long way to go in understanding and realising what that international sector is all about. That is why it is so disappointing that the Minister will not go further—in fact, the truth is that he cannot go further. He and his colleagues have been sat on from a great height by No. 10 and by the Home Office. That is the reality. The Tory party and its members are split down the middle on this issue. It is an unedifying shambles that the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), who is retiring, presciently commented on in The Times today. It is a shambles that Labour, in government, would have no part in.

During this election campaign, we will continue to press for the removal of students from net migration statistics for public policy purposes, and although I genuinely welcome the new designated body that the Minister has talked about, the truth is exactly as the hon. Member for Bedford said: it leaves the Minister without a visible means of support in delivering the objective that he will no doubt fervently wish could be delivered under that process.

The problems and weaknesses of the Bill have been substantial, not least as regards the wilful obtuseness of the Government to do anything to make a pre-Brexit Bill—conceived when the Minister and the Government at the time assumed that Brexit would fall—fit for a post-Brexit world. They could have put it out to pre-legislative scrutiny, but they did not. They could have paused it. That was quite rightly argued for by the University and College Union, the Council for the Defence of British Universities and others, including distinguished figures across the sector and in this House, not least the Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright)—but they did not.

It has been left to us—by us, I mean not just the Labour party, but the other opposition parties in this House and in the House of Lords—to make the arguments in this place. A concerted effort has been made by cross-Benchers, Lib Dem peers, the noble Lord Hannay and the small but important group of Conservative peers, including Lord Patten, who have wrinkled their noses at, and fought ferociously against, the technocratic complexities and central dictation in the Bill. Those things risk blunting the creativity and dynamism of our HE sector, whether delivered at an old university such as Oxford or Cambridge, at the many dynamic new universities which MillionPlus celebrated at its 25th anniversary last night, or in the further education sector. I pay tribute to the Government for extending HE awarding powers to the FE sector, not least because my college, Blackpool Fylde College, will be one of the first to benefit.

The Americans have a saying that goes something like, “When you get lemons, you have to try to make lemonade,” and that is what we have all tried to do. We have tried to make a flawed Bill better fit for purpose, and to help, not hinder, the dynamism that I have talked about. We have had a decent thrash at it; without that decent thrash and the work of the House of Lords, I think it would have been a very poor Bill indeed.

[Ben Howlett]

You will be pleased to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my remarks in this debate will be short. I think all hon. Members have something else to do right now.

I have championed universities for the last six years, and I have debated with many different Members from across the House. In the last two years, it has been a great privilege to be vice-chair of the all-party group on students, together with my friend the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). I wish him every success, and I hope to be able to join him in continuing to represent students in Parliament after 8 June. I have 23,000 students in my constituency, spread across two universities: Bath Spa University and the University of Bath. Both universities have a large complement of international students, who are absolutely vital. We have had debates in this place for years about how much they contribute to our local and national economies.

I am pleased that the Bill has been introduced. The student community and the higher education sector as a whole have called for such legislation since 2011, when Lord Willetts introduced new law in this area, and I hope that this Bill will receive Royal Assent later today. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for all his work on the Bill. He has been a great champion of the higher education sector and international students, and the Bill is testament to all his work.

I turn quickly to Lords amendment 156 and Government amendments (a), (b) and (c) in lieu. As has been said, it is incredibly welcome that the Minister and the Department for Education have listened to a campaign group of MPs and placed on the Higher Education Statistics Agency, or the designated body, a duty to report on the number of international students. That makes a massive difference, and it represents a significant change in the Government’s tone. I thank the Minister for listening to us and delivering that amendment.

I want to give a bit of a shout-out to Members who have made a big contribution to the campaign, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Twickenham (Dr Mathias), for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell), for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond), for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) and for Bedford (Richard Fuller), and my right hon. Friends the Members for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). They are great champions for their student communities and for international students. I pay tribute to Opposition colleagues who have also championed that case.

I am delighted that the Department for Education has produced the amendment. If the outcome of the election on 8 June is favourable, I guarantee not only to the Government but to my constituents that I will continue—in collaboration with Universities UK, the Russell Group and MillionPlus—to make the case for taking international students out of the overall immigration figures. It is very peculiar that they are still included. If I am around after 8 June, as I hope to be, I will make such representations along with colleagues. I hope that they will all be re-elected, too, so that we can make this final carve-out in the interests of my constituents, students, international students and the UK’s reputation overseas. I wish everybody a huge amount of luck in the forthcoming general election.

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[Joseph Johnson]

With the leave of the House, I wish to say a few words of thanks to Members and others for their contribution to the development of the Bill and, most pertinently for this afternoon’s purposes, for the insightful points made during this debate. We have heard agreement that the Bill is an important one that has been carefully developed through dialogue on the Floor of the House, in Committee and in the other place, as well as through the extensive consultations dating back to the initial Green Paper in November 2015. It has benefited tremendously from thoughtful input from experts, reviews and independent reports. It was introduced right at the beginning of this parliamentary Session—perhaps even on its very first day—and it will still be going strong on its last day, so it is fair to say that no opportunity to scrutinise it has been missed. I am pleased that both sides of the House recognise that today’s amendments will strengthen the legislation still further.

I shall address briefly some of the questions asked during the debate. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) asked about the role of the independent review with respect to the TEF. The independent reviewer will consider the devolved Administration providers as part of the review. The Bill will allow the devolved Administrations to continue to decide whether they wish to allow their providers to participate. She also asked about UKRI’s executive committee. As UKRI is established, we will work closely with the devolved Administrations to ensure that the UK’s research and innovation base remains one of the most productive in the world. I can confirm that we amended the Bill on Report to require the Secretary of State to have regard to experience of working in the devolved Administrations when appointing the UKRI board. The executive committee is, though, an internal management committee for UKRI.

The hon. Lady also asked about post-study work for international students, a subject on which many Members focused. I reiterate that there is no limit to the number of international students graduating from UK universities who can move into skilled jobs in the UK. They do not count against the tier-2 limit and, actually, numbers have been rising year on year for the past three years.

The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) asked about the transfer of ownership of degree-awarding powers. The answer is that, yes, should a provider with no track record buy a provider with degree-awarding powers, a full review of the provider’s continuing eligibility for degree-awarding powers would be undertaken.

I thank the Members who have given such time and so much energy during the many hours of debate we have had. I particularly thank the members of the public Bill Committee, which sat in the autumn, and pay tribute to the Opposition Members involved, especially the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden).

[Gordon Marsden]

The Minister will recognise that on such occasions certain things have to be said, and said forcefully, but I put on record how courteous he has been to me and the rest of our team.

[Joseph Johnson]

I am grateful for that. It has been a pleasure to work with the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, including the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner). I also pay tribute to the devolved Administrations who have played a full part in the scrutiny of this Bill, especially the members of the Scottish National party, including the hon. Member for Glasgow North West who has been tireless in her scrutiny of the measures.

The other place has excelled itself, with extensive and very thoughtful debate on this legislation. I thank all those who have given their time and energy to this Bill, including the very large number of highly distinguished academics, former Ministers and those who have extensive experience of the university and research sectors in the other place. Their passion for the sector has been clear to all those who have followed these proceedings.

I also add my thanks to those more widely in the sector, including the two main representative bodies, Universities UK and GuildHE, which have given their time in abundance to ensure that the sector’s views have been fully heard and understood and reflected in this legislation. That explains why they have repeatedly expressed their support for passing this Bill into legislation.

There is absolute agreement on the importance of our world class HE sector and our globally leading research. I am pleased that we in this House have agreed a Bill that finally fits this important sector for the 21st century, putting students, choice, value for money and global competitiveness centre stage.

Lords amendment 1 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) to (d) made in lieu of Lords amendment 1.

Lords amendments 2 to 11 agreed to.

Lords amendments 12, 209 and 210 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) to (g) made in lieu of Lords amendments 12, 209 and 210.

Lords amendments 13 and 14 agreed to.

Lords amendment 15 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) and (b) made in lieu of Lords amendment 15.

Lords amendments 16 to 22 agreed to.

Lords amendment 23 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) to (c) made in lieu of Lords amendment 23.

Lords amendments 24 to 70 agreed to.

Lords amendment 71 disagreed to.

Government amendment (a) made in lieu of Lords amendment 71.

Lords amendments 72 to 77 agreed to.

Lords amendments 78 and 106 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) to (h) made in lieu of Lords amendments 78 and 106.

Lords amendments 79 to 105 and 107 to 155 agreed to, with Commons financial privilege waived in respect of Lords amendments 138 and 139.

Lords amendment 156 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) to (c) made in lieu of Lords amendment 156.

Lords amendments 157 to 182 agreed to.

Lords amendments 183 to 185 disagreed to.

Lords amendments 186 to 208 and 211 to 244 agreed to.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83H(2)), That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to their amendments 183 to 185.

That Jo Churchill, Chris Heaton-Harris, Joseph Johnson, Gordon Marsden, Carol Monaghan, Wendy Morton and Karl Turner be members of the Committee.

That Joseph Johnson be the Chair of the Committee.

That three be the quorum of the Committee.

That the Committee do withdraw immediately.—(Andrew Griffiths.)

Question agreed to.

Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.