Government of Wales Act 2006 (Devolved Welsh Authorities) (Amendment) Order 2024

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I echo the Minister’s reference to yesterday’s train crash in Llanbrynmair and add my condolences to the family concerned.

This order removes the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales—HEFCW—from the list of devolved Welsh authorities in Schedule 9A to the Government of Wales Act 2006 and replaces it with the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research, or Comisiwn Addysg Drydyddol ac Ymchwil. However, this is much more than a change of name. The commission, which was set up by the Welsh Senedd in its Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022, operates at arm’s length from the Welsh Government but is answerable to them. Its board operates within a strategic planning and funding framework established by Welsh Ministers and is responsible for funding and regulating all areas of post-16 education in Wales, including further education, higher education, apprenticeships, school sixth forms, adult community learning, and government-funded research and innovation. It therefore takes over the responsibilities of HEFCW, but much more in addition, as that list shows.

HEFCW, as it is almost affectionately called, has been so much a part of the Welsh education system and our educational vocabulary since 1992, when it was established, that it will be strange to think of the sector without the name in future. I am pleased that the commission has been given a more user-friendly name than its official title and will be known as Medr, the Welsh word for skill or ability, which seems absolutely appropriate. The official title appears below the Medr heading on its website and letterheads, so it will not be lost.

The board, which provides the strategic leadership, consists of 17 members appointed by the Welsh Government and includes four non-voting associate members representing learners and the education workforce. They all have an important task ahead of them as they navigate the new tertiary landscape in Wales, and I wish them every success in the future. On behalf of the Lib Dem Benches, I support the aims of this statutory instrument.

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, I associate myself with the sentiments of the Minister regarding the dreadful accident in mid Wales. I also pay tribute to her in her new role and wish her well in it. It is quite an extensive role. It covers not just Wales but Northern Ireland, Scotland and lots of other things as well, but those are the three things that matter most.

I shall speak briefly about this order, which I support. It is a technical order in many ways, but it gives the Committee the opportunity to touch upon the points, as the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, just did. The commission is a brand-new body that takes into account further education and technical education. Before I entered the House of Commons in 1987, I spent 17 years teaching in Welsh further education in Ebbw Vale. I always thought that the distinction and differences between technical, further and higher education were very artificial. Eventually, as the years went on, that became quite obvious, so this is a natural progression in how the Welsh Government and the Senedd deal with post-16 education in Wales. I welcome that as well.

This order gives us an opportunity to mention briefly the issue that the Minister has been raising for some time: the importance of co-operation between the Government in Cardiff and the Government here in London. That is particularly significant on this issue because roughly 50% of students in Welsh universities come from outside Wales and roughly 50% of Welsh students go outside Wales to study, so there is a constant interchange between Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. and beyond, for example, in America, where it is important for good co-operation. I hope that our Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson, and the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle—she is my Member of the Senedd—will be in constant communication, talking to each other about the importance of higher education and further education in both countries. I also hope that the Minister will take that message back.

The other point that I want to touch on concerns something that I was involved in about 14 years ago. At that time, the Welsh Government asked me to look at opportunities for Welsh students to go to Oxford and Cambridge, Russell group universities and, beyond that, Harvard or Yale, as some have done from Welsh schools. Incidentally, some of those students were from very deprived Welsh schools. That project became known as Seren in Wales. It is a system by which students in Wales can get access to opportunities to learn about different universities. In my view, it has been a considerable success, but it is also a good example of how the English education system could learn from what we do in Wales with regard to ensuring that people whose backgrounds mean that they would not normally expect to go to our top universities in England, Wales and elsewhere can do so. There is an opportunity for co-operation there as well.

I wish the new body and the new Government here in Whitehall good luck. I also wish good luck to the co-operation between the Welsh Government and the United Kingdom.