Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Addington]

39: After Clause 4, insert the following new Clause—
“Review of apprenticeship levy
The Secretary of State may request a review of the apprenticeship levy in respect of eligible costs definitions, in order to ensure that the funding required for the delivery of local skills improvement plans is optimised and reflects employers’ needs.”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to create flexibility in the eligible use of employers’ apprenticeship levy funds.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, in speaking on this bit of the Bill and this amendment, I feel like the reserve coming in to fill in for somebody else as my noble friend Lord Storey initially had his name down. When I see that the other co-signatories are here, I am reasonably sure that the team will do the job.

The apprenticeship levy sounds right. It is the idea that if you have a turnover of, I believe, more than £3 million, you will pay into a training levy—apprenticeships through a training levy might have been better in the first place—then you will get something out of it. However, it has never really taken off. We do not really know what it is for or what it is getting in. Of late, we have had a decline in the number of apprenticeships, yet you are still having to pay in. There have been lots of other issues here, such as— although the loophole has been filled—the fact that MBAs have been studied on the money from the apprenticeship levy. Can we have a look at what this is really for? Does it need redefining? Does it need a new level of focus? That is what is behind this amendment. How can we make sure that it is functional and does what we think it was supposed to do? If we actually know that, we will get more encouragement for it and will keep it going forward.

Before I go any further, I want to point out that the Treasury gets money that is not spent at the time. If it is training money, we should make sure that it goes somewhere that trains. Hopefully we will examine questions here, such as would level 1 and 2 activity be taken on here? Should it be for the under-25s if it is supposed to be about youth training? Can we get these things out? Can the Minister, in her reply, let us know exactly what the Government think the future of this institution is? At the moment, it is danger of becoming something faintly ridiculous that is not quite achieving what we think it should. The people are having to look for a way to get the best out of it and get a focus. We could actually use this money to support colleges and institutions in delivering the right type of structure, especially locally, under the course of this Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

I have received no requests to speak after the Minister so I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington, to conclude the debate on this amendment.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, wanted to come in.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

Forgive me.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I believe the Government are aiming for quality and quantity when it comes to apprenticeships. On the noble Baroness’s specific question about lower-level apprenticeships, I will ensure that I write to her with that specific information before Report.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this has been one of those slightly odd debates. One thing that we have established is that it is complicated—“We are not quite sure what it should do; we think it is quite a good thing, so please do not get rid of it now.” That certainly seemed to be the attitude of the Labour Party. They may be right about that, but at the moment there is a great deal of scepticism about whether this actually delivers. The intentions are good, but that is the thing that paves the way to hell. Can we please just make sure that we get a little more clarity on this? Whether it is worth returning to on Report, I will have to have a word with my noble friend Lord Storey after he has read this debate.

I felt, listening to the first part of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that with a bit of tweaking you would get to a classic sketch about bureaucracy in some lofty TV show of my youth when people were being clever. Because it is complicated, but there is an intention behind it. The noble Baroness replied, “Yes, but we are trying to do things.” There was a lack of clarity here and focus at the heart of this. We should keep an eye on this, because if it continues to bring itself into disrepute, it may well be doing more harm than good. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 39 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Addington]

41: Clause 5, page 5, line 33, leave out “from time to time” and insert “regularly”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is to make sure that the needs of students and potential students are regularly considered and reviewed in decision-making.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I almost feel that the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield—indeed, as we discovered in a debate in this House, my noble kinsman Lord Lingfield—should be the one opening this debate, because he has the more substantive amendment. Having said that, I think that I know better than to try to put words in his mouth.

My Amendment 41 concerns a part of the Bill that says, and I think it is best if I quote it, although I am beginning to wish I had put my glasses on:

“The governing body of an institution in England within the further education sector must … from time to time review how well the education or training provided by the institution meets local needs”.


I tabled the amendment because I do not know what “from time to time” means. I have absolutely no idea what “from time to time” means. Does it mean once a decade? Every six months? I have absolutely no idea.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. My probing amendment got the reply, “Yes, we actually know what it means: it’s in the guidance”. If it had been put on the face of the Bill, I would not have asked. So, there we are.

As I have said, the more substantive amendment was from the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield. We should have a look at this. As we started speaking, we both went to different groups in that very big group that has special educational needs. As the Minister will accept, that means you have two different sets of needs, or different groups that have a variety of needs that interlock and overlap. It is a very difficult thing you are expecting an institution to do to meet all of those needs. It is not easy. If it was, we would not be banging on about it. It is difficult. The Minister said that they have to have a plan. I shudder every time I hear that, because most disabled youngsters do not have a plan. Most do not have parents who can fight to get one for them, or they have very severe needs, which are dealt with.

People who have a moderate difficulty and who may well, with a little bit of help, find a place in training, are the group we are worrying about here. Certainly, I am, and I think my noble kinsman is talking about the same thing as well. We need to have more clarity on this. It is a way in to giving a better description of what is supposed to be done, so that everybody knows. The Minister should listen to her noble friend; some colleges are not as good as the best. Aspiring to get there is what they should be doing. I agree that we should look at this again on Report, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 41 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those occasions where I thought I knew what I was going to say before the debate started, but I have changed my mind—or, at least, my words—considerably having listened. When the Minister replies to this, I feel that the audience behind her might be the most worrying. I suggest that when the noble Lords, Lord Willetts and Lord Baker, are saying “beware of this”, any sensible Minister would listen. I know the noble Baroness falls into that category.

The Minister has to pay attention to what has been said. Everybody here said, “We are not sure what you are doing yet”. T-levels may sound neat, but we do not quite know what they are. Are they doing something else? Are they a replacement? I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who asked if they are replacing BTECs, which are an established way forward and allow flexibility, university entrance and other qualifications. That is the sort of thing we want, especially as we are giving more power to level 4 and 5 qualifications, which is overly due. Can we have some assurance that there is no government thinking that T-levels will be used to replace all this? They will simply not lead to these places; they cannot.

Other institutions with qualifications which are understood and known, such as City & Guilds—if I do not mention City & Guilds, I fear that my noble friend might well have a few words with me afterwards—will be saying, “Everybody knows what these are.” If you are going to bring in T-levels, do it slowly and make sure that you are adapting them to take over these functions. A one-off exam at this age cannot do what these do because they do wonderful and flexible things. A few employers cannot find their way around them, but others can. You could simplify them a little and not sweep them away to do something else.

I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, into his very intellectual comments about the destruction of post-modernism because we have quite enough on our plates without thinking about the centre of Glasgow and its planning issues. But I hope that when the Minister answers she will say that we are not getting rid of all of these good and established things straightaway, just because we have a lovely new toy that sounded good when we first put it forward. T-levels, I am afraid, will have to earn their stripes. They may become something that replaces or works into the rest of it, but further education deals with a diverse range of subjects and paths. It will never be that straightforward. I look forward to the Minister’s response and do not envy her task.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments relate to the measures that support the implementation of the Government’s reforms to align the majority of technical qualifications to employer-led standards by 2030. To respond to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, we are aiming here for all qualifications for learners to be of high quality and connected to those employer-led standards.

I was disappointed that the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, was not down to speak in this debate, because we had a very interesting discussion today where, as the noble Lord, Lord Flight, outlined, the key to what we are trying to do is to clarify the roles of a number of the institutions involved—IfATE, the OfS, which is relevant to the next amendment, Ofqual, the department and Ofsted.

We believe that the technical qualifications should cover the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are essential to an occupation. But the heart of the matter here, and one cause of the problems, is that although Ofqual accredits general qualifications such as A-levels and GCSEs, which are developed by awarding organisations, usually of the exam boards, in line with content set by government, the content of the majority of publicly funded technical qualifications is not specified or scrutinised centrally before the qualifications can be taught. That really is the nub of the problem here: Ofqual is not performing that function.

For parity of esteem, these reforms will bring the treatment of technical qualifications more in line with general qualifications. We have already done that process with T-levels, which were developed along with 250 employers to ensure that they met that standard. The content and employer-led standard then delivered, which could be by an FE college, is inspected and overseen by Ofsted. This process will raise the quality bar and deal with the issue of why we have, at level 3 and below, more than 12,000 qualifications, of which only about 800 are GCSE and A-level. As the Sainsbury review identified, we have had a proliferation of qualifications at that level, and many of them are currently created by the awarding organisations.

On the question of no one overseeing the content and it not being connected to an employer standard, we would not tolerate that in relation to GCSEs and A-levels, and someone needs to do that function. I have outlined the process for academic qualifications; the question then is who does that function. The institute currently manages the system of employer-led standards, and we believe it has the expertise to ensure that qualifications genuinely meet the skills of the economy, and the needs of learners and employers, and that it is right for the institute to lead this reform.

I explained some of these issues to noble Lords in the letter on 1 July. It is quite helpful that at the moment the position of chief regulator is being sorted out. Dr Jo Saxton, the Government’s preferred candidate, appeared last week in front of the Education Select Committee for the approval hearing, and was approved for the role. She was specifically asked about Ofqual and IfATE. She outlined that Ofqual will continue to play a key role with regulatory oversight of the standards of technical qualifications in live delivery, as it does currently. Ofqual and the institute are both needed as they contribute different and complementary sets of function and expertise. The two bodies will work together to assure, on Ofqual’s side, the consistency and reliability of assessment and awarding, as it does over the exam boards, and on the institute’s side the relevance to employers of the content of technical qualifications. When asked by the chair, she said:

“At its simplest, the curriculum side of it sits with IfATE. Once the curriculum has been agreed and approved to go forward, Ofqual’s job will be to make sure that any endpoint assessments and examinations continue to assess the curriculum that has been determined by IfATE and the employers and that receivers of the endpoint assessments and qualifications know that the awards they end up with accurately reflect what they know and can do. The relationship should work well. At its heart, it is essentially a separation between curriculum and regulation”.


I find that really helpful. That was the core purpose—she outlines why Ofqual was set up to be the regulator while the content of the curriculum was set out by the department.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Addington]

62: Clause 16, page 19, line 9, at end insert—
“(2A) Regulations under subsection (1) must include provision to require ITT(FE) courses to include special educational needs awareness training relevant to the students of ITT(FE) courses within an institution.”

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the intention of this amendment is straightforward. It is to probe and clarify. When you are training teachers in this field, can they be sure of the 20% to 25% of their students who have been identified as having special educational needs? When you get to further education, the proportion of those with special educational needs often rises. Those who have passed all their exams are not doing level 1 and level 2 qualifications, so in that situation you have a higher density.

Anybody who ever doubts this just needs to look at the number of people who we know have a neurological condition that is passed on. The figures make it clear. You are going to have a higher number of people. If we look at the number of people who have been identified as having these needs in the school system, many more will be unidentified. The maths just tells you that from the genetic stock and the numbers we have got.

What I am trying to get out of this is whether people will be trained to identify and train those people in front of them correctly. People will have different learning pathways. If someone cannot take notes from a blackboard very easily, can we do something else? Does the teacher know how to spot these people? Remember these are not the people who have been identified and have the plan; it is those who are on the edges.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for this amendment. It highlights the importance of equipping teachers to identify and support learners with special educational needs. Further education teachers must be trained to identify and support the needs of all learners, enabling them to overcome barriers to their learning and allowing them to meet their full potential.

I concur with the noble Lord’s intention and I understand that he intends it as a probing amendment. He may be unsurprised to hear that I do not believe it is necessary to specify such a requirement in the Bill. Other mechanisms for achieving the same aim are more appropriate, and steps are already being taken.

Our reforms to teacher training are founded on a new occupational standard for FE teaching, which will specify the knowledge, skills and behaviours expected of FE teachers. This standard is being developed by a group of employers—colleges and other providers, so organisations which employ teachers—from across the sector, who bring a wealth of experience and expertise and are well placed to determine the right content for teacher training that will meet the needs of all their learners. We fully expect that the new standard will be explicit in its requirement for further education teachers to meet the needs of all learners, including those with a wide variety of special needs as well as learners from diverse backgrounds. We anticipate that the standard will be in place in time for the next academic year. It will form the basis of a new FE teaching apprenticeship, and we will support the reform of FE teaching qualifications so that they are also based on the standard. If, in future, the content of FE teacher training was considered of insufficient quality to meet the needs of all learners, this clause would give the Secretary of State the power to take appropriate steps.

To address the point I think I have understood from the noble Lord, Lord Watson: the reason we do not believe this amendment to be necessary is that we do not intend to use the powers in this Bill to take greater control or gain more centralisation of FE teacher training. We believe that the sector is doing the work needed to set out that standard and that steps will be taken within it to make the right provision for the training with regards to special educational needs. To allay his fears in relation to initial teacher training reforms for schools, I undertake to write to the noble Lord to further clarify that point.

I hope that with those brief remarks the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is assured that we are already taking steps to ensure that teaching in the FE sector meets the needs of all learners, including those with a wide range of special educational needs. On that basis, I hope he will be content to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is an odd one. Actually, I do not think that response really hit it, because there is supposed to be a report. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, pointed out that it is supposed to be out now. I cannot quite match the withering sarcasm he put into it: “Oh, autumn then, maybe.”

The entire education system is squaring up to the fact that special educational needs is not working in our schools at the moment. There is a series of cock-ups made by other bits of legislation, for which I have some of the blame for not spotting them coming down the line. Unless you are going to be specific about having somebody in there who can spot, transfer and change the way they are dealing with at least some of the most commonly occurring conditions, you are guaranteeing a degree of failure and underachievement. We might have a conversation about how this works, and there might be something behind this that I need to hear, but what I have heard today convinces me that this needs some more time.

I would have intervened on the noble Baroness if the process was going through, but I suspect we are going to have a more robust Report stage than normal because of this. It is not the noble Baroness’s fault, unless she wrote the brief herself. I think we have opened up something here. Teacher training is the best way of dealing with this so that you can deal with those who have moderate difficulties and certain patterns of behaviour. Small changes and a bit of reassurance—telling them they are not thick—are the best way to get a reaction out of many of the groups that I deal with. Saying “Hey, I think you’re dyslexic or dyspraxic or have ADHD; here are a few quiet, basic strategies; by the way, you’re not an idiot” dramatically improves the outcomes of that group, which is about 20% of the whole group we are dealing with. Dealing with that type of action enables them to start that process to take them on to somebody else, and that is so important.

The transition I am looking at is away from: “I have somebody in my classroom who is a pain, can’t concentrate and won’t spell. Oh, God, can we get rid of him?” And it is towards: “Oh, I think he needs a bit of help and support.” It is not about the dramatic ones who are easy to spot, who are going to get the plan. It is that level of expertise that we need.

Can we please engage so that we actually know what is coming? At the moment, there is a review going on. There should be more there. I hope that the next time we raise this, the noble Baroness, if she is still with us—I should not have opened that one up —or whoever answers this, provides better answers. Good intentions have always been there. The problem remains.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I will briefly respond to the noble Lord, because I do not think I will get the opportunity to take this conversation forward with him ahead of Report, although I am sure that others will be happy to continue that conversation.

The point of differentiation here is specifically about the approach to regulating teacher training in FE colleges versus the regulation of teacher training in schools. The latter is subject to a regulatory regime that allows the Secretary of State to set conditions for its content and delivery, but we do not have that equivalent provision for FE teacher training as the content is determined by the sector itself, working with organisations. Although this clause as drafted would enable the Secretary of State to prescribe course content if desired, with a view to improving the quality of FE initial teacher training courses, the initial intention is for the sector to do that work itself. The points that the noble Lord makes about how important it is that SEND is properly accounted for in this and the widest understanding—and not just those with education, health and care plans but the broadest spectrum, and those who may not have been identified before—are an integral part of that. With regard to specifying that as part of the reforms to the initial teacher training, we would hope not to use the powers of the Secretary of State to intervene in this area at the moment and would rather do it through collaboration with the sector.

I thought it might be useful to say just one or two words. That is not the end of the conversation, but someone else will take it forward with the noble Lord.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for bending the rules quite positively there. There will be a continuation of this discussion but I thank her for that and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 62 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

So all that I am asking is that, as well as the measures of absolute performance that Ministers want, they also expect information that shows how universities are doing relative to the characteristics of their students. It is how, for example, the TEF—the teaching excellence framework—is already done. We should leave it to individuals to compare the information collected in those two different ways. They are both of value—I think of equal value—and it is a pity that the current framework of legislation in the Bill goes out of its way to prioritise one sort of data over another sort of data that is equally important for all of us who wish to hold universities to account for their performances.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is an interesting group of amendments, because I think everybody would agree that universities as institutions have a duty of care to their students. They are adults, but most of them are only just adults. I must declare an interest here; I have an 18 year-old daughter who is expecting to go to university—and not only go to university, but a university in another country: Wales in this case, but there we are.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

It is another country.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

At least I have got that confirmed; I thank the noble Baroness for that aside.

The point here is about “Students like us, how do they do and what do they go through?” I have heard it from many people, and indeed from members of my own family. Two of my nephews are of mixed race and are wondering “Where do we go where people like us are?” We have to get this information out, because it is a perfectly normal thing. You are leaving the support structure of home and your parents, but there is some way of intervening.

The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, referred to special educational needs. We have a universal package there called the disabled students’ allowance. We have a structure within universities that means you actually have to give things. Members of the Front Bench have sparred with me on this—I think “sparred” is quite accurate—in the past. There is a structure of support and a standard, and you can take action if that standard is not fulfilled. That is difficult, but it is there. You have a support structure going through.

So having more information about what happens here and what goes on will not hurt. It is not that big an ask. People are posting about entrance requirements and groups are coming across—it is happening at the moment. I suggest that having more information gives a better guide to what can come out of the experience and what other people are experiencing on their way through. I think this information is being gathered in many places anyway, usually for internal commercial reasons by the institutions. It would not hurt to have it in there.

I do not know whether the Government are in the mood for accepting amendments at the moment. I always remember when it happened to me many years ago; it stunned me into silence for the rest of the evening. It may be a bit late in this day for doing that, but I just throw that out. It would be something that would be quite good to have. I would hope that the Government at least give us some idea that they are encouraging, if not requiring, people to do it.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a particularly important group of amendments and the debate on it has been very good. I support all the amendments in this group. They have been very well spoken to by the people who put them down. I really want to add support and try not to go over the same points again.

They fall, basically, into two groups: the first on mental health and well-being and the second on how we measure outcomes. I will briefly comment on both. I very much support the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the way in which he put them forward. I was going to say that I was not sure the amendment was the right way to solve the problem, but he said it beforehand, so I see the amendment as very much drawing the issue to the attention of the Government and wanting a response.

My experience really came from when I was chair of council at one of the London colleges. I had the honour of giving out degree awards at the ceremonies twice a year. There is nothing as heartbreaking as giving out a degree posthumously to the parents of a student who has passed away through suicide. It is absolutely heartbreaking, and it happened more than once. That was just my experience at a relatively small college, and it will be replicated throughout universities.

We think of those children as adults, and they are: they are legally adults and they do adult things. But to begin with they are only a year out of school. By the time they graduate, they are only three years out of school, and children—young people, adults—develop at different rates. Somehow, we put a whole chasm between the pastoral support they get by the end of school, and the lack of pastoral support they get at the start of university. Somehow, we have to build a bridge between the two, particularly with academic high-flyers. There is often an emotional inability to cope with failure. One university lecturer said to me once that they had had an overseas student who committed suicide. They had to greet her parents from China and go through what had happened. They did not know, but their view was that it was the first time the child—the young woman—had ever found it difficult to come top of the class. She has come top of the class right the way through everything; she gets to a Russell group university and she does not come top of the class. She did not have the resilience to know how to deal with that.

We could spend a week discussing this, but the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, got this absolutely right. Universities hitherto have been slow to see this as an issue that they have a role to play in addressing. I should give credit to the Government, because I think I am right that they did something recently that means universities can tell parents if they feel their child is at risk. Certainly, in my day, when I was chair of council, legally a university could not phone up the parents without the young person’s permission, to say they were at risk.

The only way in which I would disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is that I am not sure they need to be “watched”—I think that was the phrase he used. Universities need to be worked with to make them realise that this is a core part of their job. Once they can see that, they will extend their considerable prowess and commitment and care for their students into pastoral health, mental health and well-being, as much as they offer academic support. But they are at the beginning of that journey and anything the Minister can offer in this Bill, to give them the powers or the freedom, or just the direction, to do this, I certainly think would be a step worth taking.

I also want to say a little bit about the other amendments to which the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, spoke. This is also exceptionally important, because I absolutely agree with the premise that universities ought to be measured by student outcomes. It would be silly not to take into account student outcomes. We take them into account in schools. Why we would stop doing it when we get to universities, I am not quite sure.

I do not think we have a great record so far in deciding what outcomes universities should be measured by. I will not go into it, but I am a bit critical of some of the teaching excellence framework, the TEF criteria for success. One measure is whether their students are in employment 12 months after they finish their degree. For some subjects, they are not likely to be in employment in a degree-level subject. People in the creative arts very often make do for a year while they are finding their feet. They very often work in a pub or a restaurant while they are doing the creative work. Measure them in five years’ time and they will be flying, and that is a credit to their university, but it will not get the credit if they are not in a degree-level job after 12 months.

One measurement that is not used by the teaching excellence framework but is regularly used by the newspapers that publish the tables is the A-level mark needed to get into a university. If universities want to take risks and bring on young people who got Ds and Es at A-level and say, “We believe in them and want to give them a chance; they come from an area of disadvantage”, they get marked down in the league table. Why on earth would they do that? I thought that was what we wanted to do.

I do not think there is a very good record of getting the outcome measurement right. Universities are partly at fault because they did not want this and did not engage in the discussion. I think they left others to decide what the measurement outcome should be and are paying the price.

I have a couple of specific points. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Willetts—why would we not want this extra information? Why would we not want to know what universities have achieved, in terms of outcomes, with specific groups of students? It adds to what we know about universities and it means that when we are developing policy, we can do so with more knowledge about how existing policy affects different groups of students and different institutions than we would have without this information. I cannot see one good reason for not requiring that information at this level should be collected. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Clause 17(7) says:

“The OfS is not required”


to collect this information. I think it should be required, but will the Minister confirm that neither is it banned and that it could collect it if it wanted to? The noble Baroness is nodding, so I take it that it is allowed to collect it. That leads us to the question of whether it should be up to the Office for Students to decide whether this information is collected. It should not be up to the OfS, because it is useful to other people as well. I want to know it, as somebody who is involved in education and interested in policy-making. The Government should want to know it; the universities should want to know it; employers should want to know it. Why should the Office for Students not collect it so that others can have that information? Whether the OfS or the Government do anything with it is a different discussion, but not to collect it means that no one else can do anything with it.

My last point is that the world of schools is far more advanced in collecting data about pupil progress: it is 20 or 30 years more advanced. It has been through a lot of pain and made a lot of mistakes, but it is in a better state now than the universities. I just hope that the Office for Students learns lessons from those decades of trying to get the collection of data improved in schools.

One thing that ties into the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, is that, to begin with and for many years, Ofsted and the examiners did not discuss with schools what the outcome measurements would be. All it created was a very poor relationship that has not done well for children, teachers or schools. We are still trying to get over it, so I very much support the amendments proposing that the Office for Students, in developing these measures, should discuss them with universities and all higher education providers. We are setting the framework now for the next stage of using measurements of outcome for university; it is really important that we get it right and I very much hope that the Government’s response to these amendments will give us greater clarity and perhaps highlight areas where further attention is needed.