Higher Education (Basic Amount) (England) Regulations 2010

Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of these regulations. I do so after spending 10 years validating the polytechnic sector on the Council for National Academic Awards. My experience is unusual; I am a non-academic who spent 10 years close to higher education. That experience leads me to suggest that if the Government's plans result in the closure of a large number of courses in the humanities departments of the former polytechnics—in particular teacher training courses—that would be a considerable achievement. It would save a lot of money that could be channelled to serious courses, and it would stop the short-changing of many thousands of students who attend humanities courses and find themselves ill equipped for the world of work, or indeed for making any useful contribution to wider society. The students themselves will be the best judges of the courses and will not enrol on those that they consider to be a waste of their time—indeed, perhaps even a waste of their lives.

I also congratulate the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, on his attempts substantially to raise the quality of teacher training. I believe that these regulations will do much to help him to achieve that.

Beyond that, and finally, I believe that these regulations will start to create something which has been sadly missing in our system of higher education—a system of quality control. I know that there is a system of quality assurance but that is not at all the same thing. The quality control brought in by these regulations will be manned by the students with the teeth to make it effective, and I cannot think of anyone better to do it. Therefore, I support the regulations.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

My Lords—

[Lord Broers]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Triesman]

I shall be brief. If I made points at length before, I apologise but I thought them important. I certainly do not apologise for the links that I have had with former Ministers responsible for education. That was always part of the consultative process. In those days I always thought that they were welcome, as I welcomed the opportunity as well. As a consequence they will make no difference at all to my Christmas card list. In those conversations we always agreed that one of the most cherished things about universities was their autonomy. It is certainly true that because some of the money that goes to universities flows through the Exchequer it was always the case that they were emanations in that sense, unless you can move it off the books, which is the cunning mechanism that is being described this time.

Of course they are fully and proudly autonomous organisations. Has there been change and reassessment on this side of the House? I hope so. There were always reasons for thinking about whether the proposals that we made were the right ones, and if you lose an election—and we did—it is essential that you think again about what you proposed, to consider whether it was most appropriate. I have no doubt that that has been the case for every party that has lost elections, including the previous one—including the Liberal Democrats, who lost that one as well.

I want to make only one or two specific comments. I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate, because it has been illuminating for me. I promise you, I could not do justice to what has been said; I would speak for too long and that would probably meet with your disapproval.

First, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that I am not chiding anyone about using the right. It was plain that the right to vote or speak against such a proposal was put into primary legislation for good reason. That is not chiding: I welcome it, I applaud it, and those who pushed it were right to push it.

Secondly, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, that I read documents and understand that students will not be repaying while they are at university. I hope that everyone in the House will do each other the credit of believing that they have read and understood the fundamental documents, without patronising one another.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

I should declare an interest as chancellor of the University of Essex, of which the noble Lord is a distinguished graduate. He says that he has read all the relevant documents. Has he read the document issued yesterday by Universities UK, which is the umbrella body for all the universities in the United Kingdom? It states that, the cuts having been decided on,

“we recognise that the government's proposals are the best option in the current circumstances, and in many respects are more progressive than the current arrangements … Universities UK urges the House of Lords to support the raising of the tuition fee cap”.

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, knows perfectly well that I have read it. Not only have I read it but I understand what motivates it. If the ship is going down, you get in the lifeboat. That is a simple matter. You do not quarrel about the painted colour of the lifeboat; you get in the lifeboat.