Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Elton Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, will get up very briefly to support the amendment. I recognise it is a lot of work for parliamentary draftsman because “Office for Students” appears about 100 times or more in the Bill as it is currently drafted, but it would give a clearer indication as to what this body is about. It is not just an office for students, as if it were an ombudsman responding to students’ needs or problems or even dealing with student finance; it is a much broader institution, which will look at the way in which higher education should operate, both as a regulator and as an instigator of new ideas, in discussion with universities, not just with students. For all those reasons it would be very good if the Government could think again about this and come back with a better title.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive a single intervention in this whole long procedure, as I should not wish it to be thought that there were no friends of the amendment on this side of the House. The opening speech by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, about the direction in which this leads reminds me immediately of the two departments in the Government of Nineteen Eighty-Four: the Ministry of Truth and the Ministry of Peace. We do not want to start on that path.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, there are at least two Members on this side of the House who support the amendment and hope that the Minister will come back on it. There is a possibility of confusion with the National Union of Students, for instance. Let us get “students” out and “higher education” in.