Higher Education Regulatory Approach
Laura Trott Excerpts(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 was passed by Parliament prior to the election. By the end of the Act’s passage through both Houses, the Labour party had agreed in principle with the need for it; indeed, there are positive signals coming from those on the Front Bench today. However, immediately after the election, Government sources said the Act was a Tory “hate speech charter”, and paused its implementation. I ask the Secretary of State: what has changed? Does she still stand by her characterisation of the Act?
It should have been obvious straightaway to anyone with even a basic sympathy for the norms of liberal education that pausing the Act was a mistake. It should have been clear again, when more than 650 academics signed a letter to The Times decrying the decision, that pausing the Act was a mistake, but the Secretary of State still did not budge from her position. It should have been undeniable that the Government had made the wrong choice when, acting together, no less than seven Nobel prize winners and a Fields medallist later added their names to that letter, but still Labour was happy to roll out the old tropes about hate speech. Literary luminaries like Sir Stephen Fry, Tom Holland and Ian McEwan were forced to intervene. Those with natural sympathies for the Secretary of State’s own political positions were compelled to tell her that she was wrong. It is only now, after all that humiliation, that she has finally changed her footing. I pay tribute to the academics who led that fightback outside Parliament.
Much like they have done with academies in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, this Government take a wrecking ball to policy without a thought for the consequences. They are much more interested in virtue signalling than in what is right for the country, more interested in listening to student union advisers than to women hounded out of their jobs. Since the Secretary of State decided to pause the legislation, gender-critical women, among others, have, in the process of vindicating their rights, racked up enormous legal fees that have caused some to remortgage their houses. Professor Jo Phoenix said publicly that if the Act had been enforced, it would have saved her from that very ordeal. Will the Secretary of State now apologise to those who have suffered because of her inaction?
We have upcoming legal action in the judicial review brought by the Free Speech Union against the Government’s decision. Considering that a concern about expense was one of the reasons given by the Government to justify their decision, how much has that litigation cost to defend? What is the financial cost of the Secretary of State’s inaction? How much taxpayer money has been spent on a partisan play-up-to-your-own-gallery move that is about to fall flat of its face in the court? Did the Secretary of State receive legal advice before she made her decision to suspend the Act? Will she release it, so that Members can see the basis on which she acted? If she did not, how can she possibly claim to have acted responsibly in this matter?
Despite the Secretary of State’s statement, we now have confusion about what is actually happening. It seems that the Government cannot even do a much-needed U-turn properly. Without the tort, what consequences will universities face if they do not protect free speech? Why is the Secretary of State unable to set out a clear decision on overseas funding? Why is six months not enough time? Can she spell out the changes the Government are thinking about making to the overseas funding measure? Can she confirm that none of those were discussed during the Chancellor’s recent visit to China? Can she confirm that there were no deals done to amend that section? That is very important. It is extremely poor timing at best and invidious at worst to consider changes to the overseas funding element of the Act so soon after that trip to China.
It was always obvious that the Education Secretary made a mistake in pausing the Act, but rather than commencing a little more of the Act to try to cover up the mistaken delay, she needs to get up and perform the U-turn in full. The Act contains much-needed protections and she must not abolish them just because they came from the Conservative side of the House.
Finally, while we are at it, the Secretary of State should perform a U-turn on academy freedoms too. The Government must not take six months to realise their mistake on that one.
Bridget Phillipson
What we inherited from the previous Government was not a genuine attempt to solve a genuine problem; it was a mess designed to put party ahead of country. We saw a misplaced fascination with headlines for themselves, rather than a serious attempt to safeguard freedom of speech and academic freedom. It is precisely because this Government care about academic freedom and freedom of speech that we are determined to get this right, unlike the Conservative party. We are not content to leave it to vice-chancellors, who have done too little for too long. Universities must be places of robust discussion, where students’ views are challenged and academic freedom is central.
One of my many predecessors in the previous Government, the former Member for Chippenham, was unable to set out how the then Government’s proposals would prevent Holocaust deniers coming on to campus. Let me be clear: Holocaust denial has no place on campus or anywhere else in our society. The legislation would have emboldened Holocaust denial, and showed a shameful disregard for the welfare of Jewish students.
On the legal proceedings the right hon. Lady mentions, she was a member of the previous Government and knows very well that I am unable to comment on any aspect of that.
I said I would consider all options. I have done precisely that and have returned to the House, as I intended, to provide an update. If Conservative Members want to know what a U-turn on free speech looks like, I suggest they turn their attention to Liz Truss, who for so long extolled the virtues of free speech and is now on some bizarre quest to cancel the Prime Minister for saying that she and the Conservative party crashed the economy. Freedom of speech cuts both ways. What a bunch of snowflakes!
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Laura Trott Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House, while welcoming measures to improve child protection and safeguarding, declines to give a Second Reading to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill because it undermines the long-standing combination of school freedom and accountability that has led to educational standards rising in England, effectively abolishes academy freedoms which have been integral to that success and is regressive in approach, leading to worse outcomes for pupils; because it ends freedom over teacher pay and conditions, making it harder to attract and retain good teachers; because it ends freedom over Qualified Teacher Status, making teacher recruitment harder; because it removes school freedoms over the curriculum, leading to less innovation; because repealing the requirements for failing schools to become academies and for all new schools to be academies will undermine school improvement and remove the competition which has led to rising standards; because the Bill will make it harder for good schools to expand, reducing parental choice and access to a good education; and calls upon the Government to develop new legislative proposals for children’s wellbeing including establishing a national statutory inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation, focused on grooming gangs.”
The Bill in front of us today is a Bill of two halves, one of which seeks to protect children and improve safeguarding and support for children in care. While the Opposition will seek to amend various aspects of what is being put forward in Committee, we do see value in it. But the other half of the Bill is the policy equivalent of a wrecking ball. It is an all-out assault on teachers, the education system and standards. It is nothing less than education vandalism and we will oppose it with every fibre of our beings.
The House must be in no doubt that the Bill really matters. It destroys the consensus built over two decades in England on how to improve schools—a consensus that has led to English children being the best in the western world at reading and maths. I cannot understand why the Government would seek to reverse that progress. What are they hoping to achieve? It seems to be policy built purely on ideology. More than that, it is wrong. I desperately hope that Government Members will come to see that.
Madam Deputy Speaker, you would think that a Labour Government would feel proud of the record they had on education under Blair. It was that Labour Government who innovated and made way for academies. When Blair talks about academies, he says that an academy
“belongs not to some remote bureaucracy, not to the rulers of government, local or national, but to itself, for itself. The school is in charge of its own destiny.”
That Blairite principle—a school in charge of its own destiny—was built on and expanded by subsequent Conservative Governments. What has been the result of this largely cross-party consensus? A thriving education system in which English children have soared up the programme for international student assessment rankings.
I see before me a move away from all the things that have enabled that success. The Bill seeks to turn its back on Labour’s history and take back those academy freedoms on curriculum, on pay and on behaviour. You name it, they are reversing it—all the things that have done so much to improve our education system. Step by step, the very policies that saw our schools rise up the international league tables are being reversed. I guarantee that just as we went up, as a result of the Bill we will come down those very same rankings. And who will suffer? The poorest pupils in society.
Dame Meg Hillier
I have lived the dream of the academy programme from the very beginning under London Challenge, and I have seen Hackney children go to university—they did not when I was first elected. But the last Government brought in a wrecking ball. They made a smorgasbord of free schools, and offered an open chequebook to pay over the odds for inadequate sites that children were condemned to for years, with no accountability in the system as each bit fractured away. The reason why standards have notionally gone up is that some schools went 11 years without an inspection after they were rated were outstanding, but they were far from outstanding when they were next inspected. The right hon. Lady needs to take responsibility and accountability for what her Government did, and applaud the Secretary of State for what she is trying to do to put it right.
Laura Trott
I have a huge amount of respect for the hon. Lady, but she will know that the academy programme was expanded more than 50 times under the last Government, and we went up the education rankings, not down, under the previous Government.
The Bill would abolish academies in all but name, and for what? Because Education Ministers think that they know better than Katharine Birbalsingh and Sir Jon Coles. Blair said in 2005 that
“command public services today are no more acceptable than a command economy.”
Well, someone needs to tell the Education Secretary, because that is exactly what she is proposing in the Bill. It is anti-rigour, anti-choice and anti-accountability.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
One of the most impressive aspects of the previous Government was the work instituted by Michael Gove to build on the reforms of Tony Blair, and carried on by successive Secretaries of State, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). Will my right hon. Friend commit the next Conservative Government to reversing these changes and ensuring that we have more choice for headteachers on curriculum, hiring and firing and expulsions so that we bring competition to the schools sector, not the dead hand of a Whitehall bureaucrat?
Laura Trott
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. To be clear, the Bill proposes a pay cut for nearly 20,000 teachers in future years, because it imposes national terms and conditions on teachers in academies. I have to ask: what problem are the Government trying to solve? Teachers outside of national pay scales are paid more, not less. What have they got against highly paid teachers? Why on earth are the Government coming here today and telling tens of thousands of teachers that their pay is too high? It is absurd. Levelling down seems to be this Government’s priority. The flexibilities given on terms and conditions allow academies to offer things such as a longer school day. Are the Labour Government proposing to ban that?
The explanatory notes to the Bill set a new standard in double speak when they praise the
“positive innovation and good practice in teachers’ pay and conditions in some academies”
and say that the Government want to
“ensure that local authority-maintained schools also have the opportunity to implement this”.
So what are they doing? Are they giving these same pay flexibilities to local authority schools? They are doing opposite. They are taking pay flexibilities away from academies. Do not try and make any sense of this, because it is impossible. It is entirely contradictory.
The Government are also removing the requirement for failing schools to be taken over by an academy, despite recognising the
“strong track record of multi academy trusts…turning around failing schools”.
What are they replacing it with? They mention
“regional improvement for standards and excellence (‘RISE’) teams”—
officials sitting in the Department for Education—but in another breath they said that those teams will not be involved in failing schools.
The Government have clearly totally failed; they do not understand that the reason that failing schools became academies by default is that it is the most effective intervention. If it is not mandatory, there will be lots of massive rows about what will happen to failing schools, and inevitable delays and legal challenges. What is the upshot? More time with children in failing schools not being dealt with. What is their plan for failing schools? What is their plan to protect those children from falling behind? What is the evidence that this approach is better? Have they trialled it anywhere? Why on earth are they putting this into a Bill without a clear alternative failure regime in place that evidence shows is at least as good?
The Bill is totally unacceptable and misunderstands why the academy order has been so important. I cannot say this strongly enough to the Government Benches: it needs to change.
Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)
Will the right hon. Lady concede that the academisation process has meant that the off-rolling that we have seen up and down this country has led to the crisis in SEND? That is the whole point of how the academy system has, apparently, improved standards. It has not—it has decreased inclusion. Will she please show us how the academy system has helped our children who are now stuck at home because they have been off-rolled?
Laura Trott
I am glad that the hon. Lady has confirmed that the Labour party is, indeed, anti-academy.
The Bill goes on and on—rampant centralisation in search of a cause. Why are the Government making all schools follow the national curriculum? Where is the evidence that there is a problem? Why are they putting in place sweeping powers to direct academies on unspecified things? What possible justification do they have for that? The notes say that it is to prevent “unreasonable use of power”. I say, look in the mirror.
Graham Stuart
My right hon. Friend has mentioned pay and power. I think they lie behind the Bill, because the education unions opposed at every step under the last Labour Government and under the last Conservative Government. The dinosaur tendency, which we just heard from the hon. Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan), shows that the Government viscerally dislike the freedom of academies, and they turn their face against the transformation of educational outcomes—not least for the poorest—because of ideology rather than a genuine commitment to the child.
Laura Trott
Sadly, I think my right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I see no other reason for the academy provisions to be in the Bill. It actually says in the explanatory notes that the primary aim of this legislation is to make the education system “more consistent”. That is at the heart of the problem today, because more consistency does not a better education system make. It is a classic Labour argument: one size must fit all, lopping the tops off the tallest poppies.
God forbid that schools might be able to innovate and learn from each other, and teachers might have freedoms in the classroom to try new things, backed up by a regulator that rigorously inspects and identifies failure. That is an excellent education system, but one that aims solely for consistency is not—a system of command and control, stifling teachers, supressing innovation, with everything decided in an office in Whitehall, far away from the classrooms. It is same old Labour: consistency for all, excellence for none.
Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady has referred repeatedly to command, control and consistency, as if the latter were a problem. Presumably, she was part of the Government that sought to use academies as a mechanism by which to control individual schools from Whitehall, rather than having the individual involvement of local authorities.
Laura Trott
The whole point of academies is to drive up standards by freeing them from state control. The Bill undermines all that, which is why it would abolish academies in all but name. I urge Government Members to look at what the education part of the Bill would do. Look at the Labour history under Education Secretaries such Lord Adonis. Do not destroy something that the Labour party helped to build.
The Government must get rid of the academy elements of the Bill. They will not improve the school system; they will make it worse. Do not destroy the work and policy of two decades at the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen. We must ask ourselves: who this is all about? Are we on the side of ideology, unions and bureaucrats, or are we on side of the children and teachers, and making sure that the most disadvantaged get the best possible education? If it is the latter, the education section of the Bill must go.
Let me come to the final part of our amendment, on a national grooming gang inquiry. This debate has been taken too far away from the victims and what is right for them. There are legitimate arguments to be had in this area, but the one I will not accept is that to call for an inquiry is to be far right. The Labour Government have to understand that they must explain their actions, not just call the Opposition names. Local inquiries, which the Labour Government say are the answer, do not have legal powers to summon witnesses, take evidence under oath, or requisition evidence. Some of the leaders of the Manchester inquiry resigned after they said that they were blocked from accessing information.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I commend the shadow Minister for this amendment, and for the last part in particular. As everybody in this Chamber probably knows, my politics are very much left of centre, but I fully support what the Conservative party is doing with this amendment, and my party will also be supporting the Conservatives on it. The reason is quite simple: the women and children who have faced injustice over the decades deserve to see the grossly perverted perpetrators who carried out unbelievable things against children over the years face justice. We seek justice for them. The Conservative party seeks justice for them. The amendment the Conservatives have put forward today encapsulates the feeling of not just this House, but this nation.
Laura Trott
I am enormously grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support, and I agree completely. This is an enormous scandal, and yet we do not fully know the number of victims or perpetrators, or where it has taken place.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I hope that the right hon. Lady and Opposition Members will reflect that what we have seen recently is a case study in disinformation turbocharged by social media, including personal smears. Today is the latest example of how those who flirt with populism misuse sensitive and important issues. It is exemplified by how the shadow Minister and other Conservative Members are willing to wreck a Bill that is actually about improving children’s wellbeing. She should reflect on how they chase headlines and jump on bandwagons, while my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench take action after years of inertia.
Laura Trott
I have been very clear today that the Bill will destroy the education system in this country and reverse the progress that we have made, and that is why we oppose it.
On the hon. Gentleman’s broader point, I condemn the language that has been used against hon. Members in this House. However, he will recall that the Labour party put out a social media graphic that greyed out the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), and claimed that he said that paedophiles should not go to prison. It is incumbent on all of us in this House to be moderate in our language.
This is an enormous scandal, and yet we do not fully know the number of victims or perpetrators, or where it has taken place. The previous Conservative Government set up the grooming gangs taskforce, which made more than 500 arrests in the first year. With 1,400 victims in Rotherham alone, this will potentially encompass tens of thousands of children. We therefore need a comprehensive national inquiry into grooming gangs to tell the truth.
Esther McVey
Just for clarification, should Government Members do the right thing tonight and vote for our amendment, there would be no wrecking of any Bill—they just need to vote the right way.
Laura Trott
As ever, my right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. There is no reason that action cannot be taken at the same time as a national inquiry—it is not an either/or. If the Government want to disagree with that, they will have to argue their case on the facts, and not simply smear any opposition to them as far right or say that parliamentary procedure means it cannot happen.
Laura Trott
No, I am going to finish. This is an opportunity for MPs across the House to give victims the justice they deserve. Hon. Members have heard our arguments on the inquiry and on schools. I hope that today, when we vote on our reasoned amendment, the Government see sense on both.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Education Committee.
Children’s Social Care
Laura Trott Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. I welcome the Government’s focus today on children’s social care, and on the profiteering issues that we identified and set up the market intervention advisory group to look at when we were in government. However, at the heart of the problem is a lack of high-quality places for looked-after children. That is what is causing the high cost of placements, as demand is outstripping supply.
In its 2022 report, the Competition and Markets Authority did not recommend a profit cap, because
“the central problem facing the market…is…lack of…capacity.”
The CMA concluded that taking measures to limit the profitability of providers would
“risk increasing the capacity shortfall.”
While I share the Secretary of State’s desire to ensure that we are getting best value for the taxpayer in this sector, we need to solve the capacity issue first; otherwise, ironically, she risks driving up prices and exacerbating the shortage of places.
The last Government took steps at the Budget in April to address the capacity side, with £165 million allocated for building and maintaining placements for looked-after children. I note that in the most recent Budget, despite the welcome money for kinship care, there was no more money for increasing the number of places for looked-after children. That is essential; otherwise, the strategy on places set out today simply will not work. What plans has the Secretary of State made to increase the number of places for looked-after children? How much she will need to fund that? Did she ask the Treasury for the money at the most recent Budget? What is her assessment of the impact of the changes announced today on the number of places available for looked-after children?
The review carried out by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister), commissioned by the Conservatives in government, found that profit caps would not work as it would be
“relatively easy for providers to reallocate income and expenditure to maintain profit levels.”
Does the Secretary of State agree? Is the 8.8% level of profit that she referred to this morning the maximum level of profit that she is aiming for? If not, what will it be?
The capacity problem rests both on the availability of places and on the demand for those places. The Secretary of State has indicated that she would like to take steps on early intervention, which is obviously vital. Those were not specified in her statement, but I hope that she will bring them to the House at the earliest opportunity, as they are critical to solving the issue. She said that she wants to scrap payment by results. Given that that is an early intervention programme, on the basis of what evidence is she doing so? Does she have an evaluation of what scrapping payment by results will do?
We welcome much else in the statement, including the regional care co-operatives, multi-agency teams, and the enhanced role of Ofsted in the sector. On the latter, is the Secretary of State making any changes to the failure regime for children’s homes and the regularity of inspection? The Children’s Commissioner has done outstanding work on the increasing use of deprivation of liberty orders. Will the Secretary of State outline what action she is taking on that important issue? I am pleased to see the Labour Government take forward our proposal for a unique child identifier. When can we expect the Bill creating that to be introduced?
I want the Government to succeed in this area. Children’s social care is a hidden issue, and getting it right is at the heart of solving so many problems that this country faces. I hope the Secretary of State can reassure me and the House that she will do more to bring forward a greater supply of places for looked-after children, and that an early intervention system is forthcoming, because the futures of looked-after children rely on it.
Bridget Phillipson
I can say to the right hon. Lady that we will absolutely do more. We are doing more in four months than the Conservatives did in 14 years. They had 14 years, yet she has the temerity to stand there and carp about the changes that we are bringing in for some of the most vulnerable children in our country. Markets were left to fail, costs were left to soar and, worst of all, children were failed. We will ensure that there are high quality placements for our children who need that provision. That is why we set out £90 million to expand capacity and provision for children who need it.
We have to break this cycle of crisis intervention that is leading to spiralling costs and poor outcomes and bankrupting local councils. That is why we will have much more of a focus on kinship care, foster care and early intervention to support families. I know that where families are supported at the earliest possible moment, we can often prevent problems from escalating, and the right hon. Lady will know that, too. I am determined that we build a system that gives all our children the best possible start in life, and that is why I can confirm that we will give Ofsted the powers that it needs to tackle unregistered and illegal provision and to ensure that it is looking at patterns across providers. We will introduce legislation on everything we have set out today as soon as parliamentary time allows, but I can say to her that this is urgent and we will act as swiftly as we can.
On the right hon. Lady’s question about the Children’s Commissioner, I welcome the work of the commissioner in this important area. As on many other issues, she has cast a light on an important area of policy where we have not acted swiftly and her party failed to act. I would gently point out to her that the Children’s Commissioner carried out that work on behalf of the Department for Education. The Conservatives had 14 years to tackle these issues. I note that the right hon. Lady welcomed some of the measures that we have set out today, but when we set out legislation before this House to tackle the shameful failure that we have inherited, I hope that Conservative Members will back us and, more importantly, back the vulnerable children in our country.
Higher Education Reform
Laura Trott Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement.
The Budget last week declared war on business and private sector workers, and on farmers, as we have just heard. It seems that today the Secretary of State wants to add students to that list. Not content with pushing up the cost of living for everyone with an inflationary Budget, and pushing down wages with a national insurance increase, we are now in a situation whereby students will suffer from the first inflationary increase in a number of years, at a time when they can least afford it.
Yet again, there was no sign of that in the Labour manifesto. Indeed, in only 2020, the Prime Minister made scrapping university tuition fees a centrepiece of his leadership campaign—perhaps we should start putting sell-by dates on his statements. But it is not just the Prime Minister: in July this year, at the time of the King’s Speech, the Secretary of State said that she had “no plans” to increase tuition fees, and yesterday the Chancellor said that there was
“no need to increase taxes further.”
Yet what is happening today apart from a hike in the effective tax that graduates have to pay? Students have not had a chance to prepare for that rise. They will have fairly expected, based on all the statements that I have mentioned, that the last thing a Labour Government would do in office is put up tuition fees.
We have some of the best universities in the world here in the UK, but we need to do much more to reform the system and make it better and fairer for students and universities by ensuring that courses provide students with an economic return, helping universities to harness the growth potential of the innovations that they foster, and ensuring that students and lecturers are free to express and debate their views. We are willing to work with the Government on all those things. It is also right that we consider university funding, but pushing up costs for students at short notice in an unreformed system will lead to students up and down the country feeling betrayed.
How much of the increase will be absorbed by the national insurance increase for employees at universities? Does the Secretary of State intend to increase fees every year, or should students expect this to be the only increase? What is the impact of the change on public finances, and has the Office for Budget Responsibility been consulted? Why was the change not announced in the Budget? How much longer will it take the average borrower to repay their tuition fees as a result of the change? And why was Labour not up front about the measure in its manifesto?
In June 2023, the title of an article written by the now Secretary of State proclaimed:
“Graduates, you will pay less under a Labour government”.
Well, it turns out they will pay more—more broken promises.
Bridget Phillipson
Amid the faux outrage that we just heard from the shadow Education Secretary, I did not hear whether she will support the measure. She, like her party for many months during the election campaign, had nothing to say other than doing down the ambition and aspiration of young people and their families who want the opportunity to go on to university. The Conservatives went into the last election determined to ensure that fewer young people had the chance to go to university. That is shameful, and it is something that Labour will never back. Young people with talent and ambition, and their families, want a Government who recognise it.
It is little wonder that, at the ballot box on 4 July, the right hon. Lady’s party got a clear message. It is just a shame that in the time since, there has been no reflection on why that was. The Conservatives have learned nothing from their years of failure. They ducked the tough decisions for years. I make it absolutely clear to the House that I do not take any pleasure in this decision—it is not one that I want to take—but I am determined to secure the long-term financial sustainability of our world-leading universities. She is right to recognise their success. They are beacons around the world, and that necessitates tough decisions—decisions that she and her colleagues in the Treasury ducked year after year. They put a Conservative peer in to chair what should have been an independent regulator. They picked fights with the sector time and again, and over the course of 10 years, the Conservative party never had a serious plan to reform the higher education sector. I am determined to bring that reform, and in the months to come we will set out further plans to reform efficiency, access and participation for our young people.
To answer the precise questions that the right hon. Lady asked, as we lay legislation before the House, we will publish an impact assessment alongside it.