Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th January 2017 Lords Chamber

As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, indicated, the wording of the amendment should be familiar to the Minister. It is drawn from a provision in the Technical and Further Education Bill. If such provision can be provided in that Bill, I see no reason why it should not, and every reason why it should, be included in this Bill. I regard it as the minimum necessary. We need to address more substantially the implications of possible market failure.

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, my colleague and right reverend friend the Bishop of Ely is unable to be in his place, but has asked me to bring before your Lordships Amendment 134A. I and he welcome the Minister’s assurances thus far for disabled students. It is very welcome that he intends to publish guidance to ensure that higher education institutions are best able to fulfil their duties to disabled students.

For any student to begin the undertaking of a university course is a large commitment. Students with disabilities may face additional challenges to those encountered by their peers, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, so eloquently expressed last week—hence the importance of ensuring that adequate provision is made to allow them fully to engage with their course of study and all the other dimensions of a university education on equal terms with their fellow students who do not have a disability. In the event of a closure of their course, or even of the whole institution, plainly all students affected would face significant upheaval. For students with disabilities or other learning needs, the stakes are understandably even higher. For example, they may have specific needs around transport, specialist support, or adapted accommodation.

The numbers involved are significant. About 86,000 students in the UK—5% of all students—claim disabled students’ allowance, which, as noble Lords will know, covers those with long-term health conditions, mental health conditions and specific learning difficulties. In addition, there will be other students who are not eligible to claim DSA but who will have support needs which institutions work hard to meet. I mention only one such group: those with mental health issues, for whom we were pleased to hear of plans further to improve support arrangements in conjunction with, for instance, UUK.

That is why I ask the Minister to consider giving specific priority, when student protection plans are being drawn up and approved, to those students with these specific needs. Especially in the light of sympathy expressed so far, will Ministers and officials consider looking afresh at the explicit inclusion of those with specific needs in criteria for approving and reviewing student protection plans, as the amendment would require?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support the right reverend Prelate’s amendment. We hear increasingly of mental ill-health and stress among students, so building in provision for them would be helpful.

On Amendment 138, as the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Norton, have said, it seems strange not to have such a provision in the Bill. I see in the guidance notes that the wording is not quite the same, but these same provisions have been put as “the measures for a protection plan could include”, so there seems no reason why there should not be the extra assurance of having these measures spelled out in the Bill.

Armed Forces: Capability

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, agree with it or not, Brexit was a decision to determine our own path. This debate requires us to consider critically whether we have the capacity to determine our own strategic path in the realm of defence and security. The extent of our global reach must reflect our economic and strategic interests as well as our security and military concerns in these changing times, which now make these considerations, as one analyst has put it, “supercharged”.

My anxiety is that there is a gap, if not sometimes a gulf, between rhetoric about our concerns and ambitions on the one hand and our constrained capability on the other. For example, not long ago the Foreign Secretary declared that we are “back east of Suez”. It is true that the Gulf and Asia are regions of growing global importance, and this country has new defence centres in Dubai and Singapore. We have some Army presence in Oman and joint training with Singapore after 70 years of this co-operation with only the US. A naval support facility has opened in Bahrain and the new aircraft carriers will have what is called “a presence” in the Pacific.

We may welcome and applaud the strategic intent but our capacity to sustain and resource effective presence and capacity remains limited. Our only garrison in Asia, in Brunei, is funded by the Sultan. We have small quantities of advanced, expensive equipment, of which the new carriers are the most obvious example, but sparse support capacity. In a navy of 19 surface vessels, an effective carrier group needs most of the deployable capacity. My spellchecker has substituted “deplorable capacity” for my intended words “deployable capacity”. The iPad technology seems to know a thing or two. We are talking not only about defence and security capacity. Intelligence, influence, diplomacy and trade considerations are part of our strategic reach and so affected by financial limitations.

This is surely the time to recognise the opportunities open to us, as well as the threats, and with realism to reconsider our ability to resource needs and ambitions. I, with others, including my colleague the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, who regrets the necessity for his late withdrawal from the debate, have already suggested a new SDSR that addresses a global situation so changed in a short time. Peace in Europe and US commitment to NATO are no longer reliable bases for our policy. We must surely conclude that, as we see a more assertive Russia to the east and a new American President questioning the orthodoxy we have long accepted.

I am not proposing a crude attempt at empire restoration, but rather a recognition of opportunity and the need for us to resource new partnership and leadership roles. I need hardly add, too, that increased defence spending would move us beyond the mere preservation of an industrial base by stimulating innovation, employment, morale and prosperity in regions that have suffered most from deindustrialisation. Our words, aspirations and actions must be much more consistent.

Brexit: Impact on Universities and Scientific Research

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, the range of risks faced by the HE sector covers student recruitment, staff recruitment, research funding and course portfolios, as we have already heard. The potential impact—positive from some perspectives, albeit limited and very provisional at this stage, and the range of likely negative impacts—varies between universities.

My background covers different sorts of universities: Hertfordshire and Portsmouth, Oxford and Cambridge, and Durham and Manchester. I studied in three, taught economics in two, was a chaplain in another and have been a governor in two. I draw your Lordships’ attention to my entries in the register of interests.

In such very varied universities, the present excruciating uncertainty following the Brexit vote is having a significant impact in a range of areas. The risks around recruiting future staff are hard to gauge accurately but it must be expected that it will become more difficult to recruit EU staff. Across the sector, 10.7% of academic staff are EU nationals, with a focus on research staff. They are much more likely to be on fixed-term rather than permanent contracts, so there will be an ongoing need for recruitment in what are now very uncertain, and likely to be changed, circumstances. It would be enormously helpful if the Minister and the Government could be more precise about the freedom of movement for all categories of workers that will be available post-Brexit.

A different problem will arise if, as is sometimes rumoured, the UK Government make recruiting all international staff more difficult. This issue is immediate and particularly pressing because, although no changes to EU staff recruitment can, as I understand it, be made until the UK leaves the EU, changes to UK visa rules can be made with immediate effect. Can the Minister say what is intended?

Our universities are attractive for many reasons. The sector has a high world reputation—we might call it a golden reputation—and I fear that the intention of ranking UK universities as meeting gold, silver or bronze standard in the future risks diluting the prized brand in a period when our international reputation is inevitably under scrutiny. I hope that the Minister and the Government can consider ways to enhance the position of the sector rather than use language and terms that might diminish our international reputation.

As I acknowledge the strength of the various financial risks already identified, I draw the House’s attention to the importance to this nation and society of the openness of our hearts and minds to what is new, different and challenging. The world of learning depends not only on accessibility to ideas and thinking but, as we have already heard, on the people of the world meeting each other, learning together, and sharing their exploration and their understanding. It is that which we must ensure we continue. Insularity in our approach, perceived or actual, will relegate us in the perspective of the world and risk not only the financial stability of our outstanding universities but their educational standards too, to the detriment of the nation.

At Portsmouth, where I am presently a governor, of those who teach or research in the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, which is research intensive, one-third are British and two-thirds are non-British, of whom 45% are from the EU. Is it intended that cutting-edge research such as this will be imperilled? Only yesterday, the astronaut Major Tim Peake, who studied flight dynamics and evaluation at the university, visited for a conference of schoolchildren, widening the scope of those children’s thinking. The risks are clear: uncertainty is debilitating. Economically, educationally, culturally and ethically, universities are pivotal.

Social Mobility

Lord Bishop of Portsmouth Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth]

My Lords, in these few minutes I should like to set the concern and aspirations for social mobility—already so well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and other noble Lords—in the context of the challenges faced by many people, some in my own diocese, who face the daily grind and trial of simply getting by for the day or, at best, the week. The Prime Minister has referred to the need to focus on “just managing” families, and I agree with her, but surely the task is to help make it possible for them to do better than just manage, enabling their energy to be taken up not just in dealing with the everyday challenges but in improving life chances for themselves and their families, including social mobility.

The policies inherited by this Prime Minister and her new Government can be expected to have a significant impact on those towards the bottom of the income and privilege ladders, whom we surely want and ought—if I may introduce a note of morality—most to support and encourage. Those who are on benefits, and whom none of us wishes to keep reliant on them, will see income reductions in the years ahead. I am thinking most of those in work and on benefits. There will indeed be some modest compensation for cuts in working-age benefits from income tax changes and the introduction of what the last Chancellor styled the “national living wage”; nevertheless, the bottom 30% will see a reduction. The same suite of policies is expected to raise incomes for those of us in the top half of the distribution. If there is higher inflation, and even if just a temporary contraction of the economy follows Brexit, the poorest will be likely to be hit the hardest. All this has an impact by retarding social mobility. These people will need extra support to manage, not less.

It is against that background of existing policy that we engage in a debate about doing more than managing—that is, improving opportunity for social mobility. It is hard, and sometimes impossible, to seek a new or better job or to support your children in their education if your daily preoccupation has to be with getting by. As we enter a period when there will be difficulties for those on the lowest incomes, we need to ensure that economic inequality does not worsen the base from which mobility can come. Trapping people on a lower income undermines social mobility, making it more difficult to access other welcome initiatives to address intergenerational mobility.

I accept that social mobility is not only about income, but it is a major factor in, and influence on, people’s ability to access other opportunities. Having to struggle to get by and, for instance, working very long hours on low pay, reduce time and energy for parental engagement in their children’s development. An advantageous home environment is very important in a child’s early years development. Enough parental and adult time, energy and money are essential for children to access sport, non-statutory educational opportunities and community engagement, all of which should begin at an early age if mobility is to be possible.

A key finding from the Social Mobility Commission highlights areas of the country that have become social mobility cold spots, particularly coastal areas. Some are in the diocese that I serve, covering the mainland coastal areas of Gosport and Portsmouth, along with the Isle of Wight. Many of these areas perform badly on both educational measures and adulthood outcomes, giving people from less advantaged backgrounds limited opportunities to get on. Regional disparities require focused attention, and I trust that our grand aspirations lead to resourcing for hard-to-reach regions and communities and the people who live there.

I draw my comments to an end, delighted to make way for the much-anticipated maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Couttie. In our ambition to enhance social mobility, we must recognise the reality—that those just managing are those who ought to be our special focus.