Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the introduction of a separate office for students registration fee banding for stand alone further education colleges.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
All providers are being treated equitably.
We consulted with all providers, including further education (FE) colleges, twice, on the introduction of registration fees (from December 2016 until March 2017, and from October 2017 until December 2017). The Office for Students (OfS) separately consulted on the model for deciding how student numbers should be determined to inform the fee levels. It published the outcomes of this consultation in October 2018. Following the consultation processes, a number of additional bands were added for smaller providers compared with the original proposal. The costs for a very small provider have decreased from the second phase of the consultation, where a provider with 0-50 full-time equivalent student numbers, the lowest band, was proposed to pay £18,200. Providers with full-time equivalent student numbers of no more than 25 will now pay £12,300, and providers with more than 25 but no more than 50 (full time equivalent) will pay £15,350.
We also considered the impact of fees more widely and published an impact assessment in March 2019. The impact assessment considered higher education providers – including FE colleges – taxpayers, the government and students. The impact assessment report stated:
‘We have … analysed Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) college accounts data for 120 FE colleges with Higher Education Funding Council for England funded learners, that have applied to register and found that FE colleges would be paying on average 0.2% of their total income in registration fees. This ranges from 0.05% to 1.3% of total income but with just one provider paying more than 1%. … these proportions are very small and highly unlikely to impede competition in the higher education market.’
We have committed to a full review of registration fees after 2 years, when the impact of the fees on all providers will be clearer.
I meet regularly with the Chair and officials from the OfS to discuss a wide range of issues, including the financial health of all parts of the higher education sector, which is kept under constant review by the OfS.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the article in the Guardian entitled A demeaning environment: stories of racism in UK universities, published 5 July 2019, if he will hold discussions with the Office for Students on their assessment of the scale and nature of racism in UK universities.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
There is no place in our society, including within higher education (HE) for hatred or any form of harassment, discrimination or racism.
The government is working closely with the Universities UK (UUK) and the Office for Students (OfS) to support work to address racism and other forms of harassment in HE, including implementation of UUK’s Sexual Violence and Harassment Taskforce’s recommendations.
Ministers and officials in the department meet regularly with the OfS, stakeholders and representative bodies about a range of student experience issues including racism, hate crime and harassment in HE. This includes specific quarterly meetings with the OfS to discuss how to tackle harassment and hate crime, including racism within the sector.
In its ministerial guidance, the government has asked the OfS to support this work and to make campuses places of tolerance for all students, and over £2 million has been invested in projects addressing hatred and harassment in HE.
The government will continue to work closely with the OfS to prioritise tackling of all forms of harassment and hate crime in higher education.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of reports of racism against students and staff in UK universities in the last five years.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The government takes all forms of hate crime extremely seriously. There is no place in our society - including within higher education – for hatred or for any form of harassment, discrimination or racism.
The government is working closely with Universities UK (UUK) and the Office for Students (OfS) to support work to address racism and other forms of harassment in higher education, including the implementation of UUK’s Taskforce recommendations. The government has also tasked the OfS to support this work, and over £2 million has been invested in projects tackling hatred and harassment.
The department regularly meets stakeholders and representative bodies about student experience issues including racism, hate crime and harassment. Officials hold quarterly meetings with the OfS and UUK to discuss how to make progress on harassment and hate crime, including racism within the sector. In addition, I have recently held meetings with the Union of Jewish Students and Jewish student representatives about antisemitism on campus.
The government expects providers to keep records of incidents disclosed to them and to act swiftly to investigate and address them. It is important to recognise that under-reporting is common. Higher education providers should look at how they can continue to break down barriers to reporting, in spite of the potential for it to lead to spikes in disclosures, and to make sure that students and staff feel safe and able to disclose racist incidents.
Evaluation to date has shown that progress has been made but that there is still more to do. On 7 January 2019; I wrote to the Equality and Human Rights Commission to welcome their Inquiry into Racial Harassment in Higher Education Institutions. I look forward to the new evidence that this inquiry will bring and will review its findings carefully.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions (a) he and (b) Ministers in his Department have had with representatives from (i) Universities UK, (ii) other education sector bodies, (iii) trades unions representing staff, (iv) student unions and (v) NUS on the effect of incidences of racism directed at their members in the last 12 months.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The government takes all forms of hate crime extremely seriously. There is no place in our society - including within higher education – for hatred or for any form of harassment, discrimination or racism.
The government is working closely with Universities UK (UUK) and the Office for Students (OfS) to support work to address racism and other forms of harassment in higher education, including the implementation of UUK’s Taskforce recommendations. The government has also tasked the OfS to support this work, and over £2 million has been invested in projects tackling hatred and harassment.
The department regularly meets stakeholders and representative bodies about student experience issues including racism, hate crime and harassment. Officials hold quarterly meetings with the OfS and UUK to discuss how to make progress on harassment and hate crime, including racism within the sector. In addition, I have recently held meetings with the Union of Jewish Students and Jewish student representatives about antisemitism on campus.
The government expects providers to keep records of incidents disclosed to them and to act swiftly to investigate and address them. It is important to recognise that under-reporting is common. Higher education providers should look at how they can continue to break down barriers to reporting, in spite of the potential for it to lead to spikes in disclosures, and to make sure that students and staff feel safe and able to disclose racist incidents.
Evaluation to date has shown that progress has been made but that there is still more to do. On 7 January 2019; I wrote to the Equality and Human Rights Commission to welcome their Inquiry into Racial Harassment in Higher Education Institutions. I look forward to the new evidence that this inquiry will bring and will review its findings carefully.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of equality and diversity training provided by higher education institutions; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of making that training mandatory.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The government is committed to tackling inequalities. That is why, in October 2018, my right. hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, launched measures to tackle barriers facing ethnic minorities in the workplace, including a new Race at Work Charter and a consultation on ethnicity pay reporting.
Like all employers, higher education providers have responsibilities under the Equality Act (2010) in relation to their staff. The government expects providers to comply fully with their obligations. As autonomous and independent institutions, it is for individual providers to ensure that the training they provide is appropriate.
The Equality Challenge Unit (part of Advance HE) has published guidance for higher education providers on embedding equality and diversity into HR policies. The Race Equality Charter also helps higher education providers to identify and address institutional and cultural barriers standing in the way of minority ethnic staff and students. The Athena SWAN Charter recognises work undertaken to address gender equality.
The regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), and its predecessor, have provided over £4.7 million in funding for projects tackling sexual harassment, online harassment and hate-based harassment. This includes projects with a focus on developing and providing training for both staff and students on matters such as bystander intervention and handling of reports and disclosures.
In guidance to the OfS, the government has asked the regulator to positively engage with work to counter harassment and hate-crime and to make campuses places of tolerance for all students, and work with providers on equalities issues.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the (a) terms and conditions for, (b) recruitment and (c) career advancement of BAME members of staff at UK universities.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Despite recent progress in staff representation and progression, for example improvements in the number of women in leadership positions in higher education (HE), there is more to be done to create a HE workforce that is representative of British society.
On 1 February 2019, the government announced measures to tackle inequalities and improve outcomes for underrepresented groups in HE. These measures include asking the HE sector to take action to eliminate ethnic disparities in their workforce and support better outcomes for ethnic minority staff. UK Research and Innovation will also be commissioning a review to understand and address equality and diversity disparities in research and innovation funding.
HE providers are independent, autonomous bodies and are responsible for decisions about who they employ and the terms and conditions of employment they offer. Like every employer they must meet their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and give due consideration to the way their recruitment, retention and promotion practises affect different sections of their communities and staff at different stages of their career.
The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers states that ‘diversity and equality must be promoted in all aspects of the recruitment and career management of researchers’. We expect to see this commitment reinforced as a revised Concordat is published in Autumn 2019.
The Race Equality Charter also helps HE providers to identify and address institutional and cultural barriers that may be impacting on minority ethnic staff and students. By improving the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff within HE we can ensure that everyone who has the potential to thrive at university, both as a student and as a member of staff, does so.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Government plans to redraft the Higher Education Prevent Duty Guidance following the Court of Appeal’s verdict that paragraph 11 is unlawful; and if he will consult with organisations from the higher education sector on that redraft.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The Court of Appeal’s judgment that one paragraph in the Prevent Duty Guidance for Higher Education Institutions in England and Wales is unlawful (which applies correspondingly to the same or similar paragraphs in the Prevent Duty Guidance documents for higher education in Scotland, and for further education institutions in England and Wales, and in Scotland) does not affect the rest of the guidance documents, which should continue to be read as before.
The Government continues to consider its position regarding its next steps in relation to this judgment. Any redraft of the guidance documents will be made in consultation with the higher education sector, and in the meantime higher and further education institutions affected by the Prevent duty should refer to the court’s judgment, in particular paragraphs 158 to 177.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when he plans to publish the timetable for the independent review of the Prevent programme.
Answered by Ben Wallace
Work is underway to appoint the Independent Reviewer of the Prevent Strategy, define the Terms of Reference for the Review, and to recruit a secretariat to support this work. The House will be informed of the arrangements for the Review, including the Reviewer and the Terms of Reference, by 12 August 2019, as required by the Counter Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019. The final report, recommendations and the Government response are due by August 2020.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the effect on the economy of the number of people undertaking doctoral training.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Government’s target to reach a total of 2.4% of GDP invested in R&D by 2027 will mean increasing the numbers of highly trained people working in research and innovation including those undertaking doctoral training.
Business-academia collaborations, decisions by internationally mobile companies to locate their R&D functions in the UK and the development of industrial clusters of companies all rely on access to pools of talented researchers. In addition, industrial clusters, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry, are often co-located in regions where there are also high quality research intensive universities. This co-location enables the flow of graduates and post-graduates between institutions and companies.
More broadly, a 2015 review on the impacts of doctoral training found that the overwhelming majority of doctoral graduates continued to be involved in the creation of new knowledge, innovation and development of new products and processes, both in the academic and business sectors. Employers highly valued the specialists knowledge and problem-solving skills possessed by doctoral graduates. https://www.ukri.org/files/skills/full-report-idc-pdf/
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he plans to establish an ad hoc compensation scheme for people affected by the collapse of London Capital and Finance.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The administrators for London Capital & Finance (LCF) are currently estimating recoveries for investors affected by LCF’s failure.
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), as the compensation scheme of last resort, can only provide compensation for claims connected with certain types of regulated activities. They are working closely with LCF’s administrators and the Financial Conduct Authority to understand more about LCF’s activities and whether there are grounds for compensation.
If there are circumstances that give rise to potentially valid claims, the FSCS will communicate this on their website. They have invited LCF investors to register for updates on their website. More information on this can be found at https://www.fscs.org.uk/failed-firms/lcf/.