Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Smith of Finsbury Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

My Lords, your Lordships will be aware that in Amendment 509 the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, and I suggest that in the areas of research degree awarding powers and so on, the decision should be joint. I have no particular objection to the amendments because they are about co-operation rather more generally than what we are dealing with, but I want to make it clear that in due course we will be pressing for our amendment. As the noble Baroness has just said, these are vital parts of many universities, although of course not all universities have a research capability. From the point of view of teaching, if students know that they are being taught by a person who is at the forefront of research, that is thrilling and can have quite an encouraging effect on them. However, I have no objection whatever, and I do not imagine that the noble Lord, Lord Smith, has either, to co-operation of a lesser kind in relation to the ordinary business of these bodies.

[Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee of the interests I have previously declared. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, I support Amendments 508A and 509A in particular, and of course we have Amendment 509 coming down the track at a later stage in our discussions, which seeks to put in place a rather stronger element of co-operation. However, I think that these two amendments would take us helpfully some way in that direction.

The fundamental starting point for this issue is a recognition of the very close interrelationship between undergraduate teaching and postgraduate research in a university. The fact that there is a community not just of undergraduates being taught but of postgraduates who are in many cases conducting really ground-breaking research creates a synergy arising from that inter- relationship that is of fundamental importance. Therefore, with the OfS having responsibility for students and UKRI having responsibility for research, they should be co-operating with and working together as intensively as they can, especially in those areas where the OfS is given powers to determine issues in relation to university research matters. That relates, for example, to the awarding of research degree powers and the assessment of the quality and value of research teaching and supervision.

In these matters, the research expertise that will fundamentally reside in UKRI must be brought to bear on the assessments and judgments made by the OfS. These two proposals—to reinforce the duty to co-operate and to have an exchange of board members between the two organisations—will certainly help to remind us, universities, and, fundamentally, the OfS and UKRI of the need to work together. I support the amendments.

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[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I am grateful to those Members of your Lordships’ House who have participated in this short debate. It has raised a number of issues we will need to reflect on. I am comforted by many of the points made by the Minister when he responded, but I still think there are one or two issues. The problem lies with Clause 106, maybe inadvertently. Maybe we can be reassured by the words already given, but perhaps we can come back to that. If subsections (1) to (6) all said “must” not “may”, the issue would disappear because an unequivocal duty would be placed on the two bodies to work together. The fact that they say “may” but subsection (2) has “must, if required” is the problem. In other words, we would have to wait until it was clear, possibly from the publication of an annual report for the preceding year, that the two bodies were not working as efficiently and complaints were arising from that before the Secretary of State could exercise Clause 106(2) and issue a “must” instruction.

[Lord Smith of Finsbury]

Does this not identify one of the central problems we face with the Bill? We have very clear and honourable assurances from the Minister and from the Minister in another place, who I am delighted to see is here with us again. I have absolutely no doubt that it is their full and open intention that there should be close co-operation and joint working between the two bodies and joint decision-making in relation to degree-awarding powers. However, the Bill does not give us that explicit assurance. One of the things we are all trying to do is to make sure that the Bill accords with Ministers’ intentions.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I could not have put it better myself. I agree entirely. Having analysed it so successfully there, there is not a solution, if the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, is to be followed, by saying, “It is all very well having these aspirations and brilliant ideas, but it would be quite wrong to be overly bureaucratic, so we will just take a punt on it and hope for the best”. He did not say that, but that is not far from where we might be if the noble Lord, Lord Smith, is correct. I sympathise with the problem. I hope that this is not just listened to but taken account of, because a little more work on this might solve the problem and I think we are not very far apart in what we are trying to achieve here.

My issue, and the reason for Amendment 22 in my name—the noble Lord, Lord Smith, has made the point again—is that, whereas in the current structure it is relatively easy to see the differences, and where there are overlaps there are provisions that make it work, this is new and quite complicated. It is not Brexit, but it is close to those sort of issues, in that this is different from anything we have seen before in terms of what we are trying to do. We are talking about students, research activity, degrees and degree-awarding powers, all of which have to be calibrated between two new institutions that have been created ab initio. It may be that for the first couple of years it would be sensible to be more cognisant of the problems that might arise and therefore expect them to be working, rather than hoping that they will and then going back in afterwards. That is where the issue lies.

I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, that the amendment is too specific about what is required. In a sense, this is a probing amendment—it was not intended to be taken forward—and it should be left to the bodies concerned to find their own rhythms and abilities to respond, but I hope the Minister will take away this slight worry. Even the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, said that it would be quite good to see the evidence in practice of harmonious and effective working quite quickly so that we do not have to go to Clause 106(2) to implement. We will be able to come back to this on Amendment 509, which relates specifically to research degree arrangements, and have a broader look at it. I hope that between now and two weeks’ time, when we will probably get to that, it will be possible for the noble Viscount not only to have listened but to have taken account of what we have said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I also express my strong, unequivocal support for my noble friend Lord Lucas and his amendments. I declare an interest as a senior associate member of St Anthony’s College, Oxford, which is a wonderful example of an international college. Many of our students come from countries all over the world, and many of them go back to senior positions of authority in government, the civil service and the diplomatic service—to many positions of leadership—in their own countries. They always look back to their days at St Anthony’s with pleasure and pride. We have the good fortune at the moment to have, in her last year sadly, a wonderful international warden, Margaret MacMillan, one of the great historians, particularly of the First World War. To those of your Lordships who have not read Peacemakers, or The War that Ended Peace, I commend them most warmly— I digress just briefly to say that.

What I want to do is to make plain my strong support and my, to be frank, incomprehension at the Government’s policy. This morning I sat on the Home Affairs Sub-Committee of the EU Select Committee of your Lordships’ House, which received evidence from the Immigration Minister, Mr Robert Goodwill, and the Minister of State for the Brexit department, Mr Jones. Admirable people both, and in due course your Lordships will have a chance to read the evidence and to reflect on the report, but what I found completely difficult to accept was the fundamental contradiction in the arguments being put forward on the student front. My noble friend Lord Waldegrave, in his very brief but admirable speech, talked about the bogus colleges. If there was a justification for separating this, it was that, but even though others will crop up from time to time, the bogus colleges have gone, and we are now dealing with legitimate institutions of higher education, our universities in particular, to which students should be attracted from all over the world.

We were told this morning, and it has been said many times, that the Government place no limit on the students who come in. That is fine and good—we all agree with that—but if that is the case, why create a deterrent to those very students by lumping them in with those who seek to come as immigrants into this county? They have every right to seek to come, and I am deeply disturbed about all the aspects of Brexit, but that is another story entirely, and the fact is that students are different. They come not to stay but to study, and they go back to enrich their own economies and countries. Occasionally some do want to stay on for further education and some want to stay and work here, but what is wrong with that? What is the damage to our vibrant economy—which we were told about this morning by the two Ministers who came before us —in that?

My noble friend Lord Lucas has performed a signal service to your Lordships’ House in introducing his amendments as he did. It is quite clear from all those who have spoken so far that there is enormous sympathy for them. I do not want any votes tonight—I do not suppose any of your Lordships do—but I hope that if the Government cannot come up with a sensible way to accept the theme of the arguments we are putting forward tonight, your Lordships’ House will pass a suitable amendment on Report. We have not only a right but a duty to do that.

What the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, said, struck many a chord. This country, particularly after Brexit, is going to depend more than ever on its reputation as a centre of civilisation, a country to which all are welcome to come to contribute and learn and then go back to their countries. The respectable part of the imperial legacy is something in which we can all take pride. I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to give us an encouraging response today even though, clearly, we accept that he cannot give a commitment.

[Lord Smith of Finsbury]

My Lords, in supporting the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, I cannot hope to match the eloquence of many of the contributions that we have already heard, especially those from the noble Lords, Lord Bilimoria and Lord Puttnam.

I shall focus on two brief points relating to the enrichment of the overall student experience that foreign students bring to our universities. First, we surely want, especially in our leading universities, to attract the very best students doing the very best work, challenging each other and their teachers in the most formidable way. If we put obstacles in the way of attracting those best students coming from overseas, we are going to be the poorer for it. Secondly, students learn not just from their teachers but from each other. They learn from discussion, debate, association, collaboration and taking part in all sorts of activities with their student colleagues. Having overseas students as part of that mix enormously enriches their experience, opens their eyes, widens their horizons and makes the experience of being at a university much more powerful than it would otherwise be. So not only do we as a country lose out in terms of our soft power and our influence, standing and reputation around the world if we make it difficult for overseas students to come, but we also diminish the possibilities and the experience for our own indigenous students by so doing.

I know the Minister for Higher Education knows all that; he is on our side in this. By passing this amendment or something like it in due course in our discussions in this place, we will strengthen his hand in the battles he faces with the Home Office and the rest of the Government. I suspect that we will be united across all parts of this House in seeking to do this, as we try to ensure that this country lifts its head just a little higher in its relationships with the rest of the world.

[Lord Broers (CB)]

My Lords, many noble Lords have spoken very eloquently about this matter. I add my support to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and those that go with it. There is a simple pragmatic fact that we seem to have got wrong here: many of the brightest students are actually of huge immediate financial benefit to this country. In Cambridge we have raised vast sums of money from overseas. Very famous people overseas like to see students come to this country. We look ridiculous in this extraordinary situation, which has gone on for years.

To bring up an anecdote, I was vice-chancellor at Cambridge at the time of 9/11. After that event the Americans threw up barriers against students by placing immigration restrictions on them. The silver lining was ours; all of a sudden, the students we would normally have lost to some of the great American universities were all flooding to our door. It was a very fast process. The American universities reacted to it very fast and cured that problem—rather too quickly for us, in fact—but it was a good example of how rapidly you can create damage in this field. I hope the Government come to their senses on this issue.