Higher and Further Education

Debate between James Clappison and Brian Binley

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—I hope I will not take that long.

It is always a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), who is a great champion of the north-east. Both he and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), who spoke for the Opposition, made some perfectly proper points about tuition fees in principle. Her points were answered comprehensively from the Government Front Bench by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) when he took the Labour Government’s tuition fees Bill through the House in 2003. I had the pleasure of serving on that Bill Committee. The same points arose then, but with one significant distinction: the Labour Government’s increase in tuition fees was introduced at a time when the public finances were in a completely different position to the one they are in today.

Then as now, however, the issue of tuition fees was politically linked to what Ministers then and now have chosen to call “access to universities”. Then and now, my question, which arises naturally from the question of access, is about maintaining the highest possible academic standards in universities.

Like many others, I believe that the achievement of those high standards, which is in our national interest, depends on admissions to university being strictly on merit and admitting those whom the universities judge to be of the highest merit. The universities themselves are best placed to make that judgment. That the principle of university autonomy over admissions ought to be cherished is a clear conclusion to be drawn from a conservative view of the world. It would be anathema to somebody who really believed in a free society to contemplate with equanimity the prospect of state interference, whether directly or indirectly through a quango, in university admissions.

[Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Clappison]

I will give way to my hon. Friend, because I get an extra minute if I do so.

[Mr Binley]

Does my hon. Friend realise that the new director of OFFA reportedly said that he wants the Russell group universities to admit one student from a poor background for every student accepted from a wealthy background? Is means-testing becoming part of the admissions process, thus excluding some students for reasons other than academic ones, and does it suggest that our worst fears about this new appointment are coming to fruition?

[Mr Clappison]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I have written to the Minister about this, and I look forward to hearing his interpretation of the remarks of the distinguished gentlemen placed in charge of OFFA. I hope that the Minister will answer that in his winding-up speech.

Ministers claim to be interested in encouraging applications but not in interfering with or influencing admissions, yet Governments send out directives to OFFA telling them how to set access agreements and giving them clear political steers. How can we see it as anything other than political interference when Ministers send guidance to OFFA enjoining it to implement Ministers’ wishes, as happened under the previous Government and is happening under this one? In a directive last year, the Government told OFFA to send the following message to universities:

“Through this letter we want to encourage you and the higher education sector to focus more sharply on the outcomes of outreach and other access activities rather than the inputs and processes”.

To what, other than admissions, could “outcomes” possibly refer? They are the only way that outcomes can be defined and measured. How can that not affect universities, given that OFFA has swingeing powers to take away their income if they do not comply with its injunctions?

How can we say that universities have complete freedom over admissions when they have this apparatus hanging over them? How can they not be influenced, given that they face swingeing fines and their fee income being withheld if they do not comply with OFFA’s targets?