Further and Higher Education (Access) Bill

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Friday 4th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

Looking at the Bill, I do not see how that can be the case. I define merit in clause 2 as

“academic ability, potential and aptitude as assessed by the institution of further or higher education”,

thereby emphasising not just academic ability as reflected in exam results but potential and aptitude, to be assessed exclusively by the institution in receipt of an application. That emphasises the importance of giving institutions the freedom to make the judgment themselves.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain what would happen if, once the Bill had been passed, an institution did not admit students on the basis of merit?

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[Mr Chope]

Absolutely—I am not pouring cold water on that initiative. The Government have demonstrated over the past several months that they share many of our concerns about the failure of the education system to deliver.

The statistics show a desperately serious situation. In the last 15 years, the proportion of A-level students at comprehensive schools who achieve three A grades or more has increased from 4.2% to 8.2%, while the proportion at independent schools has increased from 15.1% to 32.3%. That is a commentary on the previous Administration’s lack of achievement. Anything that can be done to put that right would be a good thing.

[Ian Lucas]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but the statistics that he has presented are grossly misleading, because they take no account whatever of the restrictions on admission to many fee-paying schools, which do not apply to schools in the comprehensive sector. He should at least recognise that when he presents such figures.

[Mr Chope]

They are not my figures—they are from the Department for Education, but they speak for themselves. However, if the hon. Gentleman wants more figures to confirm what a miserable failure the previous Government were in that respect, I should tell him that 29.9% of all students who got three A or A* grades at A-level in 2009-10 were at comprehensive schools, which was 8.2% of the total taking A-levels at comprehensives, but that those comprehensives accounted for 46.7% of all A-level students. That shows that the comprehensive schools just did not deliver on the potential of the students whom they taught.

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[Mr Chope]

Absolutely, but the £150 million is going towards scholarship funds. At the moment, the Russell group, which represents only about 20 universities, is already investing more than £75 million a year. Pro rata, it is already investing more than the Government are promising to invest in the future, yet the Government are saying that if a university wants to raise its fees to anything beyond £6,000, the Government will, through the Office for Fair Access, interfere in its ability to do so and exercise their own judgment on the level of the fees because they are concerned about improving access. I am saying that these universities should be trusted. Many of them are international centres of excellence and should be trusted to make their own judgments. There is no reason to criticise anything that the Russell group universities have achieved, or indeed what some other universities have achieved.

I suspect that at the heart of all this is a feeling on the part of some elements of the coalition Government—I will not spell out, following the Barnsley by-election, which elements I have in mind. [Interruption.] As the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) says, it is the part of the coalition not represented in the House today.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

They came sixth.

[Mr Chope]

The hon. Gentleman obviously wants to put it on the record that they came sixth in the Barnsley by-election.

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[Mr Chope]

Exactly, but my right hon. Friend fails to appreciate the transparency of the measure. If an institution of higher or further education is going to give places on a particular course on criteria other than merit, it should make that clear when people are considering applying to that university. For example, if it offers a sports science course, and welcomes in particular people who are proficient at playing soccer, it should say so in the application so that people who cannot kick a ball at all will not apply, or understand that if they do so it is unlikely that they will be accepted. Clause 3 tries to make sure that where universities give places on criteria other than academic merit those criteria are spelt out openly and transparently. I am surprised that my right hon. Friend is concerned about that. Perhaps he will accept that his interpretation of the clause is incorrect.

[Ian Lucas]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way—he has been generous in accepting interventions. Does he believe that the current system of university admissions is transparent?

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I think the Bill should have said that in the first place. I am even more suspicious of the new Labour approach of a Bill that says one thing initially and then does something completely different.

[Ian Lucas]

The Liberal Democrat approach.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I stand corrected, but I am not quite sure that I can go along with that monstrous slur on our coalition partners.

We must have Bills that do what they say, not ones that set off in one direction, hare off in another in Committee, and then say something that was never intended or given a Second Reading by the House.

Let us consider the question of merit. My right hon. Friend for a Yorkshire constituency—I forget precisely which—talked about how clauses 1 and 3 operate.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I absolutely accept what the Minister says in his helpful intervention. I know how tall I am, or was, in terms of physics. Just as many people shrink as they get older, I feel that as I get older I begin to shrink in my ability to do physics, and cannot remember much of it. Universities need to take in people who can go further, and do better than the ability yet measured. To consider the Minister’s comparison and talk about how high people grow, we do not necessarily know how high a 16-year-old will be at 18. One has to make a judgment on it, and that judgment becomes subjective—it has to be, by its very nature.

Is it not always dangerous to put legislative constraints on subjective judgments? How does one then take them through the courts? How do they become justiciable? It is simply replacing one person’s judgment with another’s, and we cannot tell who was right until after the fact. I therefore have my doubts about the early definition of merit. Potential is even more subjective. We may think that the person whose height we are considering will grow to be a giant; we may be wrong. We cannot guess the qualities that we are talking about from an interview or a series of examinations.

We can, however, get a broad feeling or understanding, and a tutor can understand whether a person is someone whom they can teach. That is obviously important, because some dons at Oxford—I tend to stick to Oxford because I know it, but I am not speaking to the exclusion of all other universities—want to be able to get on with the people whom they are to teach. If a person comes for an interview and the tutor dislikes them at first sight, they may find that teaching them for three years would be neither to the pupil’s nor the tutor’s benefit, because it will be a constant battle of wills, with hostility and difficulty, without the tutor being able to express their knowledge to the pupil, or the pupil being able to learn from the tutor. The question of potential is even more deeply subjective than that of ability, and aptitude is, in a sense, the same.

[Ian Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting speech, and I speak as an Oxford graduate, so my experience is, in that respect, somewhat similar to his. He has touched on an interesting issue as far as the attitude of the tutor, and his resistance to someone different, is concerned. Does that not support a transparent admissions policy, in which the student, and the institution presenting the student to the university, are aware, before the student applies, of the criteria that will be used?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention. That is absolutely right. Transparency is, in a sense, everything. As long as people know where they stand, they will be able to see what they ought to do. It is a tremendously beneficial reform for the Russell group to have said which subjects it views as being proper subjects, because now pupils from across the country can say, “If I do history, classics and double maths, I have a really good chance of getting in, if I do well; but if I do knitting and photography, I won’t have a very good chance of getting into the top-rate universities. My chances and opportunities will be limited.” It is absolutely right to let people know at an early stage the way that they ought to be going. Understanding the interview process when one applies to a university is also extremely helpful. If one is going from a public school to Oxford, one will be very well trained in what to expect in the interview, and that should be made as widely available as possible to people from other schools and backgrounds. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on his point on transparency.

We have, I think, established that in terms of merit, the Bill has a lot of waffle in it. What it says is fundamentally subjective, cannot work in practice, and, if taken to the courts, would be impossible to adjudicate on. It is hard to see where the Bill is going, in that respect. The exemptions are glorious, because they are so splendidly old-fashioned. By and large, I rather like things being old-fashioned, and I do not normally use it as a term of disapprobation, but in this case it means that one could reintroduce the closed scholarships. At New college, Oxford, which has a close connection with Winchester, places could be reserved for Wykehamists. People may think that that is all fine and dandy, but as an Etonian, I would feel that I was being prejudiced against, and that it was wrong to give places to Wykehamists rather than Etonians—or, more seriously, to deny them to people from all over the country. Allowing the reintroduction of a system of closed scholarships cannot be what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is really trying to do. That cannot be an advance for universities, and it does not make this a sensible Bill to pass.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I thank the Minister for that intervention, although I must say it was rather depressingly negative and uncharacteristic of him. What we really want to be thinking about is lifting people’s spirits. In the middle ages, people saw the joy and virtue of learning.

[Ian Lucas]

Most people did not. Many people did not achieve, not because they were stupid but because there were not enough scholarships. I went to Oxford, but I did not have a scholarship and if I had not received a grant and had my fees paid I could not have gone to Oxford and I would not have achieved. That is progress, and although I am a great admirer of the past, I think the hon. Gentleman needs to see that sometimes progress can be made.

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[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

First, I commend the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for initiating this interesting and wide-ranging debate by introducing his Bill. I agreed with him at the beginning of his speech when he said that the Government’s higher education policy was mired in confusion and that the Government were at sixes and sevens. I also agreed with him at the end of his speech when he talked about the difficulties that the Government are having because of the decision by an increasing number of universities to charge £9,000 a year for fees under the rules passed before Christmas. That is causing the Government increasing financial difficulties, because their approach to higher education was predicated on the basis that the fees would be rather less than that. Perhaps that explains why, as we have heard, the higher education White Paper, which should be a framework for discussion, has been deferred again. The opportunity for us to discuss the matter has therefore been delayed. More importantly, those students who are in what I still call the lower sixth who are planning to go to university in 2012 will be looking at a menu with no price list, and no description of the dishes on offer, which is a great abdication of responsibility by the Government.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair. The previous Government, of whom he was a member, commissioned the Browne review, agreed its terms of reference and fixed the timetable. The hon. Gentleman could hardly have expected this Government to come to office when the Browne review was still considering its recommendations and immediately introduce a White Paper, still less legislation.

[Ian Lucas]

The Government told us initially that the White Paper would be published in March this year, but made the decision not to abide by their timetable—the timetable was theirs, not that of Her Majesty’s Opposition.

The Bill states that admissions to universities should be on the basis of merit, but frankly, that is a truism with which no hon. Member would disagree. The difficulty is that there is so little agreement on what constitutes merit in a student. That lack of agreement exists not only among hon. Members, but among universities, which use very different admissions criteria.

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) interestingly focused on A-level grades, which are an important reflection of the academic ability of those who are seeking to go to university. In very many cases, universities look at those to determine whether someone will be a successful applicant for a course, but they are not the only criterion that universities currently use. The advantage of the A-level is that it is transparent. The student is aware when he applies and is given an offer of what he needs to achieve to gain admission to a university course. However, the grades that are now expected of applicants are extremely high. For example, I am personally aware that the leading universities in the country offer mathematics applicants two A* grades and an A grade, or two A grades and a B grade or three A grades.

That is a transparent process, but some universities have a standard offer—an offer made to all applicants, no matter what school or further education college they come from or their background. The standard offers are also high. One university makes an offer of two A* grades and an A grade for the subject in which it has a very high reputation.

The sixth term examination paper exam, which is additional to A-levels, is increasingly being relied on by universities when they consider whether to admit candidates. I do not know whether hon. Members are aware of that, but the Minister should take note of it. STEP exams require a particular type of teaching, and commendably, some universities have recognised that and are providing support for students who come from institutions that do not provide such teaching, to give a fair chance to individuals who have the academic ability to achieve the results they need. Many schools, particularly those from the fee-paying sector, provide preparation for STEP exams that is not provided in many state schools, and that prejudice is, I am afraid, working against the chances of talented individuals—including today’s Cardinal Wolseys—achieving admission to universities on the basis of their A-level and STEP-level results.

The system as it stands disadvantages applicants from schools and institutions that do not have good provision for the teaching of STEP exams. STEP exams are a very recent innovation—I happen to know something of them because I have children at the age when these applications are made. I would like to hear whether any consideration has been given to introducing STEP exams into offers made to individuals, and whether the Minister has looked at the provision in place in institutions and schools for teaching in that area. It is an area of great concern to me.

[Philip Davies]

What puzzles me is that the hon. Gentleman seems to feel that after 13 years of a Labour Government pumping so much money into the state education system, people in the state system still cannot compete equally with people who go to private schools, and therefore an adjustment is needed. If what the previous Government did to the state education system was so marvellous and raised standards so high, why cannot we just have fair and free competition between the state and private sectors?

[Ian Lucas]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is bringing party politics into the debate, because I am trying to approach it in a measured way. I am talking about offers made by universities to talented students, including in his constituency, who happen not to have the provision in their own institution, whether in the private sector or public sector, to support their applications to university. I think that the Government should be looking at support for that.

This is relevant now, as opposed to when the Labour Government were in power, because back then the requirement for STEP exams when university offers were made had not been implemented. This year, there is a particular issue relating to university applications: an enormous number are being made to universities owing to the prospect of fee levels next year. There has been a huge rush of applications, but fewer offers are being made by universities. Furthermore, higher offers are being made this year than I think will be given next year, because so many more people are applying.

I also want to touch on issues of transparency and merit. I raised this point in interventions earlier. Transparency is a great quality, particularly when one is looking at the very complex process of applying to universities. There are lots of different universities and lots of different courses, and it is a big job for any individual student, or parent advising a student, to deal with the complexities of the university admissions system. It is particularly difficult when the admissions system is not transparent. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) at times suggested that the current system was transparent. In my view, it is not transparent when not based on admission by academic performance, and it is not based on academic performance when it is based not on A-level or STEP results, or any other exam results, but on an interview. The disadvantage of an interview process is that, if a student achieves the required grades, passes the exam and is called for an interview, but is then rejected, they do not find out why they have been rejected.

[Mr Hayes]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. What is emerging is a certain unity of view between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope). He seems to be saying that he wants to curtail universities’ freedom to take into account other circumstances that might prevail in precisely the same way as my hon. Friend. The freedom of universities, which we cherish, is under assault.

[Ian Lucas]

How profoundly ironic that the Minister, who has proposed the restrictions to which the hon. Member for Christchurch vociferously objects, should suggest that I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I agree that admission to university should be made on the basis of merit, but I disagree with the assumption that the system is currently based on merit. In fact, the system discriminates against students from non-fee-paying schools.

The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) made an interesting aside in his very interesting speech. He raised the subject of individuals at, for example, Oxford university, who conduct the interviews that I have just discussed, and who meet applicants who challenge them. They may feel uncomfortable with discussions at interview, and they may not like the prospect of teaching them, not because of their academic potential or achievement but because of their own preconceptions. The disadvantage of the interview process is that it allows that to happen.

It is therefore important that we have a transparent admissions process. It is very important indeed that we have independent universities and that we use all the potential that we have in our schools, whether fee paying or in the state sector. What is the best thing for Britain is that everyone with potential should realise their potential through school and bring it to fruition at university. The tragedy is that, for too long, too many people with the ability and the potential have not been taken through university because of the ivory towers and walls that exist.

[Mr Hayes]

I should like to elicit from the hon. Gentleman his precise position. On the one hand, he says that he believes that universities should be “independent” and that people should be able to fulfil their potential but, on the other, he seemed to suggest—and we need this on the record—that he was against universities interviewing candidates. Would he make it illegal? Is he suggesting that it would be entirely forbidden were he ever to hold the position held by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science?

[Ian Lucas]

The Minister, having given his personal views on grammar schools at the Dispatch Box, even though he speaks as a Minister, could not possibly tempt me to make binding commitments from the Front Bench in a way that I might have done had I been on the Back Benches.

There was a great expansion of the university system under the Labour Government, and there was great investment in it. The continued independence of the university system was cherished under the previous Government, and that sat alongside the fact that there was increased state investment in the system. I am afraid that as fond as I am becoming of the hon. Member for North East Somerset, we part company on the important role that the state plays in our university system. I think that it is a good thing that more people go to university. It is a good thing that people who have the potential to go to university should realise that potential. I do not believe that if the state stood aside entirely and did not provide support, either through a grant system or another form of system, that would be a good thing for the United Kingdom, because fewer people with the potential to go to university would do so. That is why the grant system was originally introduced, and that is why I went to university. I went to Oxford university—and my father left school at 14, as did my mother. If I had been limited, as Cardinal Wolsey was, to securing a scholarship, I am afraid that my intellectual capability would not have enabled me to go to Magdalen college, and indeed to found my own college. That may be something for the future.

The issue that sits between those who support the Bill and myself is merit. No one disagrees on what constitutes merit. Our difficulties lie in how we define the procedure by which that is identified in applicants. The hon. Member for Shipley talked solely about A-levels. Some universities are currently choosing systems that are not transparent, and which do not disclose the criteria that apply. When one couples that with the fact that the price list on the menu is very unclear for students who want to go to university, particularly for the year after next, it is virtually impossible for students to make sensible, informed choices about their future.

When I speak to business people in my role as shadow industry Minister, they often tell me that they want more engineering graduates. They also want apprentices, and I defer to no one in my admiration for apprenticeships and foundation degrees, but they do want graduates of the highest quality, in science, maths and engineering. We need a system that ensures that everyone who has the potential to secure a future—to expand and extend their skills as far as possible—achieves that potential. That clearly requires a role for the universities, who have their own skills in identifying those candidates, but it also requires a role for Government, because the Government invest in the university sector, and it is important that public money is used in a positive way and for the benefit of the country as a whole.

It is at that stage that I disagree with the hon. Members for North East Somerset and for Christchurch, because I believe that means we have a responsibility in the House to hold the Government to account on the use of public money. I want as many young people and students as possible from my constituency to go to the best universities. I happen not to have a private school in my constituency, so if a young person living in my constituency wants to attend some of the best universities in the country, the facts and figures show that they are less likely to be admitted to those universities than if they went to a fee-paying school. I regret that. The current system is not fair. We need to devise a system that takes into account and re-establishes the position of the universities as independent institutions, but also recognises the legitimate role of Government in ensuring fair access to them.

[Rehman Chishti]

In terms of the responsibility to ensure that those from different backgrounds can go to university, the role of OFFA and the criteria that it applies to ensure that those universities—the top end, the Russell group—can get people from less privileged backgrounds have to be right. The hon. Gentleman said that some people from schools in tough catchment areas may not have the right experience for the interview process at Oxford, but in the OFFA criteria,

“the scale and nature of outreach activity to be undertaken (singly or in partnership) with local schools and colleges—such as mentoring,”

will be taken into account, as will targeting schools in tough catchments. Therefore, what the Government have put forward in the wider package for higher education, along with the role of OFFA, which will certainly help to ensure that people from less privileged backgrounds get that assistance to go to some of the high-performing universities, have to be right.

[Ian Lucas]

I am very confused about the Government’s rules that will allow a university to charge £9,000 rather than £6,000. The criteria for universities are extremely unclear.

[Rehman Chishti]

The hon. Gentleman refers to the figure of £9,000, but he needs to consider the overall package. He must accept that it is right and proper that there are no up-front fees, which would have deterred a lot of people from less privileged backgrounds—I put myself in that category. It must also be right to increase the threshold from £15,000 to £21,000.

[Ian Lucas]

There have not been any up-front fees since the Higher Education Act 2004 was passed under the previous Labour Government, so that is a complete red herring. The existing system is being continued, but the difference is that this Government are tripling the debt that students will take on, with which I profoundly disagree. I voted against the 2004 Act—I was a Labour Back Bencher at the time, and I continued to be a Back Bencher as a result—because I disagreed with the concept of fees.

[Rehman Chishti]

The hon. Gentleman talks about finance, but he must accept that we are in a difficult financial situation. The Government have inherited one of the worst financial situations in the G20 and one of the worst structural deficits in the G7. He responded to my point about up-front fees. The fact is that the Government could have considered introducing up-front fees, but they ruled them out categorically. The overall package is good for part-time students and helps mature students. He must accept that there is a real problem with discrimination against children with disabilities and learning difficulties who wish to go into higher education, and the package will improve their situation, too.

[Ian Lucas]

The Government are tripling student debt in the years ahead, but that is profoundly wrong. Their policy will deter individuals from poorer backgrounds from going to university, so I shall continue to disagree with it.

I am with the hon. Member for Christchurch on the question of merit, but I am against him on exemptions, so I will not be able to support his Bill. The existing situation is unsatisfactory because insufficient students are admitted to university on the grounds of merit. Many people are frustrated because some universities are sending them the message that if they do not go to the right schools, it is not worth their applying, so as a consequence they do not apply. That is why there has not been the progress that should have been made. Young people should be able to achieve their potential, but they need support. We need a fair system that supports individuals who want to go to university and, above all, ensures that every individual achieves their full potential.

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[Mr Hayes]

Now my hon. Friend encourages me to go down a classical road, which might be of interest to the House but certainly would not necessarily be relevant to the Bill, and I will not be encouraged to do that.

A consideration of potential has always been at the heart of the relationship between the teacher and the taught in the business of deciding where a person might go, having been admitted to an institution. I will not say that I was shocked—it is hard to be shocked in the House—but I was surprised by what the shadow Minister said. He might want to correct this—I do not want to damage his career unreasonably, although it will be in opposition of course—but he at least appeared to suggest that the Opposition’s policy was hostile to the very business of universities interviewing students. That would require unprecedented prescription over independent universities. It would be a curious Government and a curious Minister who told universities that they were forbidden to use what they had used successfully, perhaps for generations, as a means of choosing who was best suited to their institutions.

[Ian Lucas]

That is exactly why I did not say it.

[Mr Hayes]

I am pleased to hear that helpful correction.

[Ian Lucas]

I would be grateful to the Minister if he did not misrepresent what I said to the House.

[Mr Hayes]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that correction. I will not say that it was a U-turn—that would be too strong—but he seemed to clarify his remarks in a way that is helpful to us all in considering these matters in a balanced and measured manner.

The principle that I have described in respect of merit linked to a consideration of potential is time honoured. The other things that OFFA suggests that universities should take into account are no more frightening than those that I have already identified:

“progress towards benchmarks…published by HESA and others more immediate targets and measures agreed”

in respect of those less well represented groups. Targets agreed and measures suggested and agreed do not form the frightening perspective that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch described in his opening remarks, although, of course, I celebrate the fact that he has given us the chance to explore these matters because I want to put on the record what I have told him previously: I agree with him about merit.