Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the noble Baroness’s amendment. I have my own amendment in a similar vein in this group. It is probably about time that I reminded the Committee of my declared interests. I am chairman of Microlink PC Ltd, which supports those with disabilities, and president of the British Dyslexia Association.

The idea of reviewing legislation is sound, particularly so with this Bill because we all basically agree that it is the basis of a good idea; it is useful. It is fundamentally the fact that we are going to address skills in a more flexible manner. More importantly, the real revolution here is going down to level 4. This means that we are looking at a new structure for supporting people to get skills and make themselves more productive, blah blah blah. We have a structure going forward.

My amendment would add two big changes. One is on sharia law. We have spent a great deal of time talking about getting loans that conform to sharia law. We have a spent a great deal of time talking about it in Committee. A great many ideas have come up. There are people who have invested far more in it than me. I do not think that any of them are in the Room now; they are possibly sitting in a corner, quietly crying when it is brought up again. The fact of the matter is that we should have done something by now. It is not beyond the wit of man to do it, apparently, so why has it not happened?

On the second change, I have to apologise to the Committee because it has become one of the little bees in my bonnet: special educational needs. The Minister may have sneakily put in her previous response an answer to some of my concerns around whether the disabled students’ allowance will cover everything in the Bill. I take it that this Bill will expand the DSA down to cover all level 4 courses; if so, we will need a review to look at how it is helping and what it is covering. However, there are odd things about the DSA. A few years back, higher education institutions took over what had been the first tranche of it; that was providing information capture within all the institutions in which there was teaching.

I raised this issue at Second Reading. I understand that I did not get a response due to the scope of the Bill and the limits of time, but we will need to look at how that whole picture of support is worked in or, indeed, whether it does not need to go in. That would come as a surprise. Is it better to have individual support packages for those who have disabilities, for example, to capture what is said in lectures and transfer it to something that can be either read later on or played back? That is a pretty basic function of assistive tech. You get the information presented to you in a form in which you can absorb it.

I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm the comments that she made in her earlier answer and build on them here, as well as confirm that the structure—the institution itself—will bring this in. We are talking about a few microphones, digital recording and going back to platforms that are readily available now. They already exist. Half of these institutions, if they provide higher education, should be doing this anyway. The big difference is in whether they switch the machine on or off, depending on the course level. I cannot see why they would ever switch it off but, hey, I am here and they are there.

Could we have a few clarifications from the Minister about what we are doing and how we are going to observe information, store it and act upon it in the future? We need to do that in order to be sure of the areas that we are talking about. I do not think it would do any harm at all to take both lists and put them together. Please could we have answers?

With regard to both the amendments, mine and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, I would particularly like to know what we are going to do about sharia law, something to which we should have had an answer a long time ago. The cock-up school of history has probably been active here, but we can do something about it. Making sure that all the provisions of the DSA get in would put my mind at rest on this.

Having a very good system only for those at the top of the education tree by definition excludes quite a few. By bringing it slightly further down, you will expand the number of people who acquire qualifications, which means they will be financially independent and have a good standard of living. Surely that is not too much to ask of a piece of government legislation.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 7, looking to review how the Act is working. I regret that I was not able to speak at Second Reading.

I shall mention some specific issues that I hope such a review would include, reflecting some of the briefings that I and, no doubt, other noble Lords have received. The list of items to be covered mentions the provision of courses offered by higher education and further education providers, but nowhere in the amendment or indeed in the Bill is there any reference to independent training providers, one of my hot buttons. Yet ITPs are likely to play an important part in delivering LLE-funded courses and indeed modules.

There are two specific issues relating to ITPs. The first is that the process for applying for and gaining recognition as a provider in this field needs to be straightforward and efficient. It is good to see the idea of the third recognition route for providers via the Office for Students.

The second, which I suspect the Minister will have less flexibility in responding to, is that, for many of the courses they offer, independent providers have to charge VAT, even though FE colleges providing very similar courses do not, so there is a fundamental issue of fairness there. I know that VAT is largely untouchable, but the advantage of a review such as this is that it might highlight some of the impact of that competitive disadvantage.

The second concern that has been raised is the possible impact on creative subjects. They can be expensive to deliver, requiring extra resources and facilities, and are often seen as less valuable in the world of employment and work, although that is something I would strongly dispute. It would be welcome if the Minister could reassure us, or if the review could help to demonstrate, whether creative subjects are playing their fair part in terms of the courses being offered and taken up.

The third issue is a robust system of information, advice and guidance to support the LLE in general, both to ensure that young people—indeed, all people—considering taking up courses by using the LLE should be clear about what the opportunities, impact, risks and costs are, and to provide good information to potential providers. I am thinking specifically of SMEs, which, again, have an important role to play but may need lots of support and information in order to know how to play it.

That would all feed into the various uptake headings—the first three all relate to uptake by learners—so a review as proposed by the amendment would be really helpful in making sure that the aims of the Bill, and indeed of the lifelong learning entitlement as a whole, are being met. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us something about how the Government are planning to review these issues anyway with or without the amendment, but the amendment is a jolly good idea.

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, I shall indeed ask some further questions of the Minister arising from the proposal in this amendment, because I think that it is aimed at learning as much as possible about this very bold initiative. First, following on from some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, how will this scheme interact with employer spending? Clearly there are upsides and downsides. It is possible that the ability to spend some money from this loan alongside spending from an employer will make vocational courses and provision viable when they otherwise would not have been, and that is a good thing. On the other hand, there is the risk of some employers shedding their responsibilities and expecting an employee to use this loan scheme to finance training that they would otherwise have funded. It would help a lot of us if in her answers—they are always very helpful and informative—the Minister could explain exactly how the Government envisage they are going to monitor and manage that process so we know how we get the best possible outcome of the extra total spend on training and not the worst outcome, which would be the taxpayer simply picking up more of the bill with no increase in the total. Any indications on how employer spending might react would be very helpful.

Secondly, on the provision of courses offered by higher and further education providers, the Minister will know that I am interested in one possible use of this scheme being that at last we have a clear indication of public finance through loans for four years of higher education. Of course, that could be taken at different points over someone’s life in lots of different engagements with higher education, but equally, it could be four years in one go. If she could offer an indication of the Government’s support for that way in which students could benefit, it would be helpful.

I hesitate to add any suggestions of uncertainty when there is quite a lot of cross-party consensus on this issue, but it would be understandable if some people young thought “I don’t know how long this lifelong loan scheme is going to be around; if I’m currently eligible for it, I am going to take my chance now and get on with it rather than necessarily being confident it’s going to be around in 20 years’ time when I’m at a different stage of my career”. Being clear on the opportunity for people to take a four-year loan now would be helpful, and I hope the Minister can inform the Committee further on that.