Post-18 Education and Funding Review

Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this debate and congratulate the Government on scheduling it. I also very much welcome what my noble friend Lord Younger said in opening about the funding of mental health services. I declare my interest as professor of government at the University of Hull and as chair of the Higher Education Commission, which draws together people from business, academia and Parliament. In commenting on what I see as the limitations of the Augar report, I do not wish to detract from its considerable strengths. Those derive from its breadth of coverage in addressing post-18 education.

As Disraeli put it:

“Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/6/1874; col. 1618.]


That quotation is especially relevant to today’s debate because the report is not confined to a specific—some would say privileged—group of people, the 18 to 21 cohort in or going into higher education, but looks more broadly at post-18 education. I welcome, as others have, its recognition of the importance of not only further education but lifelong learning and the need for flexibility. Further education has been neglected, to the detriment of society, as has the value of enabling people to learn at different points during their lives. I have taught mature students who realised their potential in middle age or even after retirement—the oldest student I have taught was a Member of this House, the late Baroness Miller of Hendon—and they tend to appreciate the value of education more than those who at 18 may take it for granted.

I therefore welcome the recommendations covering those subjects. I also welcome the acknowledgement of the crucial importance of career guidance, dealt with on pages 55 to 56. This might usefully have been expanded, given the difference guidance can make to one’s choice of education and career. It has a crucial bearing on many of the issues addressed in the report.

Like others, I welcome the recognition given to apprenticeships. The most recent report of the Higher Education Commission was on degree apprenticeships. The focus on apprenticeships in the Augar review is very welcome, but I stress the need to go further. As has been mentioned, SMEs represent the backbone of our economy—over 99% of businesses—but big businesses, levy payers, have made four times as many degree apprenticeship starts.

I was pleased to see the report echo the Higher Education Commission’s call for a body of work which examines the challenges preventing SMEs taking up the opportunities for degree apprenticeships. While a review will provide clarity, it has been abundantly clear for some time that the current funding system, which sees HEIs procure for non-levy funding, has resulted in a patchwork quilt of provision and frozen out many SMEs. The Higher Education Commission’s report notes that 63% of degree apprenticeship standards have no, or just one, provider that can deliver to non-levy payers. This needs to be corrected quickly to enable access for SMEs across the country. It is disappointing that the report does not call for the inclusion of all HE providers to deliver to non-levy payers, moving to bring non-levy payers into the digital service, as a means of mitigating some of the challenges facing small businesses.

The report makes it clear that degree apprenticeships are some way from achieving their potential. The Government’s ambition to improve productivity and social mobility is laudable, but they must ensure that degree apprenticeships sit within a co-ordinated strategic framework of education and skills that the country so vitally requires.

Although acknowledging the value of degree apprenticeships, there is no mention of the value to other degree courses of work-experience learning. I have spent the past 30 years organising placements in Parliament. When I started, such placements were a rarity. Today, their value is more widely recognised. Work-experience learning can produce graduates with enhanced confidence and skills appreciated by employers. The report, in the context of good information, advice and guidance, at page 55 mentions the positive impact of having contact with employers. Placements can be especially valuable for students drawn from disadvantaged backgrounds, broadening not only their skills but their awareness of what they can achieve. Given some of the pressures to reduce the length of degree courses, it is important to stress the value—to the student, to employers and to society—of gaining real experience in the workplace while also studying.

This brings me to the problems. Like others, my focus here is on higher education. I welcome several of the proposals, not least restoring maintenance grants and capping the rate of interest paid while students are still studying. However, as various responses to the review today have noted, the recommendations to reduce the fee and extend the repayment period are regressive. The proposals favour those able to repay quickly. Higher earners will pay back less than middle earners. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, emphasised, penalising those in lower-paid jobs will work against women and those in less prosperous towns and cities who decide to stay at home.

Universities will suffer from a reduction in fees if the Government do not fill the funding gap by increasing the teaching grant. Even if the Government meet the cost, in full or in part, there are dangers that the money may not be free of strings. Universities will still suffer in real terms, even if the gap is met.

The report recognises that the value of higher education extends beyond measurable economic benefits. As several noble Lords have stressed, there are benefits it is difficult, if not impossible, to measure in monetary terms. Even trying to measure it in terms of value for money, which the report does, has its limitations, given that many students today will go on to take up jobs that we cannot presently identify. I am also wary of government getting involved in subject choice. That is not the path we should be pursuing.

There is also the danger, as touched on by my noble friend Lord Patten of Barnes, of seeing HE in a domestic vacuum. Universities could face a triple whammy from cuts deriving from the recommendations of this report, from losses and uncertainty deriving from Brexit and from the threat to recruitment of overseas students because of aggressive marketing by our leading competitors. The position looks healthy in terms of current numbers but we are already losing market share. We are vulnerable in the light of what is happening elsewhere. My noble friend Lord Younger has said that we need to see the recommendations of the Augar review in the round. Would he acknowledge that we need to see the report itself in the round, taking into account these wider considerations?

The report is a serious contribution to addressing post-18 education and has a welcome breadth, with recommendations that, in the main, I very much support. However, there are qualifications. Would my noble friend agree that we need to be very wary of actions that may reduce student choice, increase state direction and disadvantage those on middle incomes? Would he care to comment on where the United Kingdom will rank in figure 3.2 of the report if the Government do not make up the funding gap if fees are reduced? Given that the report is, as my noble friend said in opening, part of a process and not an end point, could he give us some idea of the timescale for what happens next?