Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

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

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make a short plea for something that has not been mentioned so far. Most people have spoken about part-time students as people who want a degree, a skill, a job and so on. I do not know where further education is in all this—perhaps it is not part of this debate. Many people go into further education not necessarily to get a diploma or a degree but to educate themselves. I had enough of primary, secondary and higher education to suit me for several lifetimes, but I did go to Morley College for a family French class with my children. Children and adults studied together and it was a very pleasurable experience—I even learned some French. So I think that there may be ways of learning without actually taking a degree.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a good debate focusing on three main strands. First, the dire state into which the current provision for mature and part-time students—particularly part-time students—has fallen as a consequence of the changes in the arrangements, was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. She is right: it is the fee structure and the underlying economic approach to the provision of part-time education that has caused the trouble, but I disagree with her that the Bill may not be the right place to deal with that. We might return to this at some future point in the discussions. We regret that the current situation is not satisfactory and we should look to the Bill to see changes.

A number of speakers have pointed out that the opportunity to engage with this issue, although it is present in the Bill, has been missed. The Bill always uses the phrase “and part-time” or “and mature students”. It could be rewritten and refocused to try to make sure that the inclusiveness of which it talks and the ability to reach out to all those who wish to participate in our presently excellent higher education system are made central to the activity. It is not sufficient simply to have it there; it must be there in a way that drives the initiative. That is why these amendments, which affect the central architecture of the Bill and the formation of a new body called the OfS, are so important.

If the OfS is not made accountable for, not directed towards and not doing the work day by day—putting this classification system into practice—we will never achieve what we are trying to achieve. It needs to be central. My noble friend Lord Blunkett is right. There are already good examples across the system of work that has been done and is currently going on but they are not being brought together in the mainstream. There is no sense in which the system is open to people who wish to come in at different points in their own personal lives. There is no sense in which the Bill tries to address the idea of flexibility; of dropping in or dropping out of the higher education system, which is such a feature of institutions in other countries such as the USA. There is no sense in which an appropriate way of studying is to do a bit of work, go back into college and then go out to work again, perhaps to try practise some of the things that one is learning.

When I studied part-time at an institution, I had to do so in the evening and in my own time. I had to struggle to make the resources available. It was a tough time—almost as tough as participating in your Lordships’ House on this Bill—but I benefited from it. There is, therefore, also a third strand in this: somehow we delude ourselves if we think everybody comes to the higher education system straight from school. People should be encouraged to go in at any point, from early years right through to the age of 92, and even while you are travelling, as is possible with the new technologies. We should support that. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say on this and I hope he will take up some of these points.

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[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I think I have done that. The whole point is I want to avoid placing undue restrictions on the OfS. I hope I have formed a strong argument that, in the way we have formed a new framework for the OfS and with the make-up of the new board, the skills and expertise on the board will give due reference to not just part-time workers but all the other groups caught and spoken about this afternoon. We do not feel it is right to place undue restrictions on the OfS. To that extent, I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

Is the noble Viscount aware that he is committing a bit of a solecism? The Bill centres on making sure that future structures and operations of higher education are inclusive, have a place for the social mobility agenda and bring forward as many of the skills and talents of the past that they can. As he has admitted, it is based on a lack of an analytical approach to the current problems, which he regards as complex, but he is not prepared even to share the broad areas of concern that it is about. I ask him at least to write to us one of his excellent letters, one of which arrived just as I was sitting down for the debate. Will he spend a bit more time giving us a bit more of the context to this, not taking up the time of the Committee, but at least informing those who wish to be? Also, it is very rare to have someone as distinguished as a former Minister of Higher Education and a master of Birkbeck College offering herself to be on the board of the OfS and to be so discourteously refused.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I do not know about that, my Lords, but I reiterate that I take all remarks made this afternoon extremely seriously, as I do in all aspects of Committee. I will want to look very carefully at all the remarks that have been made, not least on this subject. I absolutely have listened to what the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said. I will reflect on her remarks very carefully over the next few days.

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Moved by

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

14: Schedule 1, page 71, line 9, at end insert—
“( ) The Director for Fair Access and Participation is responsible for all of the access and participation functions of the OfS.”

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, this is day 2 of our Committee proceedings. It might be interesting to reflect for a second on how we are proceeding. It seems that the Minister’s game plan is to resist with a very straight bat—a Boycottian bat—the balls, googlies and other things that we throw at him. I am not very good at sporting metaphors, so I have probably lost the plot already, but I think that we get the sense of it: we are not getting anywhere with the amendments that we are putting forward.

I put it to the Minister that there is a case for his giving us a little more to work on, otherwise I suspect that the frustration that I already sense around the Chamber about the inability even to engage with him in intellectual debate on some of these issues will cause him problems later on. I have worked with him before, and he knows that there is a way of working which allows a little more freedom than the Government are currently giving. I appeal to him to think hard about what happened on Monday and to reflect a little more on what may happen today before we get too far into the Bill, because otherwise I sense trouble.

There is of course another strategy in play, but I cannot think of a game that I would be able to use as a metaphor for it. This time, the Minister has got his retaliation in first. On the basis of a not very long but certainly important section of our debate at Second Reading, he has conceded on the powers of the Director of Fair Access. The Government have come forward with amendments, which are in this group, in relation to that. It is interesting that, although we have not had a chance to go into the detail of it, we have seen a shift of position on the part of the Minister. The Director of Fair Access is now to be given a designated space in the structure and certain powers and responsibilities are placed to him or her. I do not want to steal the noble Lord’s thunder—we all want to listen to him, do we not?—but in constructing our amendments around this we have taken into account the position now being adopted by the Government.

Although I have put my name to the amendments of a number of other noble Peers, including that of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton—whom I look forward to hearing, since she has great expertise and knowledge in this area—I draw the Committee’s attention to Amendments 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 225 and 234, which effectively provide an alternative model for how the Director of Fair Access could operate. In this set of amendments, which I will not go into in detail because it probably needs to be contrasted with the general approach taken by the Government, there is a specific duty placed on the Office for Students to create a post designated as the director, which is lacking in the Bill at the moment. There is a responsibility on the OfS to make sure that that person is well resourced and supported and has access to the material he needs.

It is given to the director to have direct responsibility for dealing with institutions; it is not filtered through another body or organisation or bureaucracy; it will make sure that the Secretary of State’s regulation powers apply directly to the director and do not get dissipated by general directions to the office. It would also allow for the director to appeal a decision, because there is no one at the moment if it is necessary to do so on an issue about widening access. I will not go into these in detail—they are there for anyone to see—but they offer an alternative approach, one which preserves the status quo ante of the existing arrangements, it could be argued. That approach will become increasingly prevalent as we go through the Bill, I think.

Some provisions in the existing procedures for the organisation and structure of higher education in this country will be lost in the move to a single body which is at the same time a regulator, a validator, an assessor of quality and a provider of access—a mixture and medley of activities which would not be found in any other sector and which I put it to the Minister should not be acceptable in this process. In approaching how higher education operates, it seems important that the elements that make up the supervision and control of one of our most important and very highly regarded assets are dealt with in a way that does not cause confusion and difficulty and is not, at the same time, capable of causing damage.

I look forward to the debate that these amendments should provoke, I hope that the Minister has listened a bit to what I was saying. I am not expecting him to concede, because these are not amendments that could be taken as they are. I accept that the drafting requires to be looked at, but we would be happy to discuss further with him or his officials the arrangements currently proposed, to contrast them with those proposed by others. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendments 14 and 16. I thank the Minister for the amendments tabled in his name. I have a couple of questions on them, but I reiterate the importance of the role of the Director for Fair Access and Participation. I think we can say that all parties and the Cross Benches in this Committee agree that widening access is a goal that we all want. In coalition we certainly pushed that quite heavily and there was some limited success—the bursaries, scholarships and supports for students from low socioeconomic background —which sadly now looks as if it is going downhill again. However, the figures on improving access for those least likely to apply to Oxbridge and to the Russell group universities had not significantly improved, and it must remain a priority for the Government and for the Office for Students to make sure that this changes as we move into the next phase of the Bill.

That is why when the White Paper came out I was really rather encouraged by the tone and the language, which talked about,

“an OfS executive board member with responsibility for fair access, the Director for Fair Access and Participation, whose role will be enshrined in law”.

It said that this person would take on responsibility and that it would be,

“a continuation of the current approach”.

There was real concern when the Bill was published to see that this role had been significantly downgraded. I am grateful that the omission has been rectified, but I just want to rehearse the reasons why it is so important that the Director for Fair Access and Participation is a senior role enshrined in law. This person must have the power to negotiate with institutions, which would undoubtedly be compromised if he or she could not approve or refuse access and participation plans. The person recruited needs to be someone with a high profile in the sector, who will have senior-level respect within our institutions. I know from working at a college for mature students—the previous debate was about distance learning, mature access and part-time—that all the institutions need to take this on board. It should not be the specific responsibility of one or two parts of the sector. The only way that the Director for Fair Access and Participation will be taken seriously is if he or she has credibility within the sector. That comes back, absolutely clearly, to the director having the power to approve or refuse access and participation plans. That is why our amendments refer to the director being “responsible”, echoing the language of the White Paper.

My questions for the Minister are as follows. What is the difference between being responsible for and the words used in the government amendments, which talk about “overseeing the performance”? For me, there is a distinction and I wish to understand exactly why that is there. In Amendment 27, it seems sensible that any OfS annual report should report on,

“the period or periods in that year during which those functions were not delegated to the Director, and … the reasons why they were not so delegated”,

but what might those reasons be? Clearly it could be if the director were away, off on sick leave or other things, but I want to be absolutely clear that this is not a backdoor power-snatching route by the Secretary of State or the director of the OfS.

With those details satisfied, I will stop carping on about the distinction between the two but we must make it clear that the role of the Office for Students is as important in widening participation because it remains a consistent priority. Anything less than that will tell the sector that access and participation is no longer a priority of the Government.

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[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

That was a very interesting short debate but perhaps I may reassure noble Lords that this issue has been raised before by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. I think we are talking about credit transfers and other means of ensuring that students who do not continue with their studies for whatever reason can be accepted at another university. The Government are looking at that very seriously and I believe that we will have a further debate on it during the course of the Bill.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I thank those who have participated in this debate and in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, whose comments were very helpful in getting us to the heart of the issue. I want to make two observations. First, I fully accept what the Minister has said about the willingness to engage with us. He said several times that he was taking note of what we were saying, but that was not quite what I had in mind. He also said at one point that he was taking account of the points. Perhaps he could write one of his wonderful letters to explain the nuances or the difference. It does not need to go to everybody and I will be happy to receive it at any point in the next few weeks.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Perhaps I may clarify that. It is simply that I am listening and reflecting at this stage, and I do not think we should get too involved in the semantics of particular words.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

They were the Minister’s words, not mine, but I hear what he says. I hope that he is taking account, rather than just listening, as that would give us a more satisfactory sense of what we are doing.

Secondly, I was struck by the thinking behind the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, and I will read Hansard very carefully. He is very wise and has thought about this issue. I came to it in a rather simplistic way, reading access and participation as effectively one word—that the participation was the access having been granted, which I think was the sense understood by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. However, in his explanation, whether wittingly or unwittingly—I am sure it was wittingly; I would never assume that he would act in any other way—he led a slightly different line of thought, which I think we may want to come back to at a later stage. Is this office about access and participation in the combined sense—following up those who have been given specific access because of a disability or a disadvantage, and making sure that they have the chance to benefit—or is it about the wider question of participation, which would be a completely different sense? I shall be happy if the noble Lord can help us on that point.

[Lord Willetts]

It is not simply about the participation of people who come from a disadvantaged background and benefit directly from an access agreement; getting into university is only the start of the journey. It is fair to say that Les Ebdon himself has sometimes felt constrained by operating within a framework which assumes that his job is to get the students in. Having got them in, we all know that there is another set of challenges, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said. My understanding is that the word “participation” is intended to give a wider set of responsibilities also covering the process of whomever it may be through university.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I thank the noble Lord. That is very helpful and extremely interesting if we are talking about giving somebody within the structure of the OfS the capacity to engender among people a much better sense of engagement with an institution once admitted, whatever their background—that is the point. The noble Lord knows what I am going to say next. Those are the ends of the policy, but where are the means by which it is going to happen? I am sure that it would involve cost because we are looking for a change from where we are, and there may be additional responsibilities. I do not see those mentioned anywhere in the Bill. We may want to come back to this point but I agree with the noble Lord that it changes the whole nature of what we are talking about, and we should reflect on that. In the interim, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 14 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

19: Schedule 1, page 71, line 43, leave out “considers appropriate” and insert “must specify”

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I think that I can be relatively brief in speaking to the amendments in this group. They are largely of a technical nature, relating to the administrative practices of the OfS. They are not unimportant: I hope that they will be not only listened to but taken account of. They concern the good administration of the body, which I am sure will be the case, but I will listen to what the Minister has to say about them.

However, Amendment 23 seeks to safeguard the independence of the Office for Students, and indeed of any of its committees and all of its structures, by making sure that there is no attempt by the Secretary of State to infiltrate and be part of that process. There is nothing specific in the Bill and we may be grasping at straws, but I worry that, given the responsibilities allocated to the OfS, which are substantial in relation to all aspects of higher education, there will be a loss of confidence in the structure if it is not absolutely clear that the OfS is independent and that the Secretary of State may make representations to it but does not participate. If accepted, the amendment would make it very clear that in this case the Secretary of State’s representative does not take part and therefore cannot influence directly the work of the OfS and its ancillary bodies. I beg to move.

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[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I thank the noble Viscount for his response. I have one quick question about the costs of members that he referred to, with regard to Amendments 20 and 21. I had not picked up the link between the officials, presumably members of the board, in relation to salaries. Can he confirm or deny whether any such salaries will be subject to the current caps on salaries paid to public officials? If he does not have the information to hand, he can certainly write to me. I think there is a fairly broad limit above which people cannot be paid in the public sector and I am interested to know whether these fall within that or not.

On the matters relating to the Secretary of State’s representative, I have heard what the Minister said and will study it carefully. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

22: Schedule 1, page 73, line 11, at end insert—
“( ) A joint committee shall be established by UKRI and OfS, which must—(a) consist of representatives of both UKRI and OfS, and(b) produce an annual report containing details on—(i) the health of the higher education sector,(ii) work relating to equality of opportunity,(iii) the health of different academic disciplines,(iv) research funding,(v) the awarding of research degrees,(vi) post-graduate training,(vii) shared facilities,(viii) knowledge exchange,(ix) skills development, and(x) maintaining the public interest.( ) The report must be sent to the Secretary of State who must lay it before each House of Parliament.”

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, this group has one amendment in my name and two in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown. We should focus on Amendments 508A and 509A. My Amendment 22 has been grouped with them although they come late in the operations because we are talking about the OfS and its responsibilities in general terms. It is therefore appropriate that we have some focus on that, but I am sure we will return to some of these issues when we get to that part of the Bill later on.

In relation to Amendment 22, the request here is simply for better communication and better identification. Jointly or severally, the OfS and the UKRI, in whatever form they finally come to us as part of the Bill, will be required to take responsibility—at least in the public view and within the sensibility of the sector—as the custodians of higher education in this country in its full range, from undergraduate foundation degrees right through to postgraduate work and of course the full panoply of research funding that goes through UKRI and its bodies.

It is important, and will become increasingly important, that these bodies communicate well. I am sure there will be an opportunity later on to discuss that, not just on these amendments as I said. But this particular amendment, which we will not spend time talking about, suggests that as part of that process there should be a mechanism under which the two bodies get together to produce an annual report in the hope that that will allow a growing understanding of the work between the two institutions. It will make how they work together more transparent and will be more informative to the general public about how the system, which looks a bit disjointed, has the capacity to develop and produce the efficiencies and effectiveness that are hoped for in the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

My Lords, I support this amendment and will speak to Amendments 508A and 509A in my name. The Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation will need to work closely together on many important issues for the higher education sector. Particular examples that come to mind are: the granting of research degree awarding powers, in which many of us feel very strongly that the research community should be involved; the quality and access issues that were spoken about earlier in higher and research degrees; issues to do with the higher education innovation fund, HEIF, which I understand from discussions with the Minister’s team will be delivered through Research England and therefore under UKRI, which covers undergraduate enterprise and innovation as well as postgraduate and research issues; and the really key area of reporting on the health of the sector across the closely interrelated areas of teaching, scholarship, research, enterprise and innovation. These links are extremely important and I would urge the noble Viscount that the OfS and UKRI should have a duty to co-operate and that, indeed, there should be an element of cross-membership of each other’s boards, which is what these two amendments would deliver.

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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.

Amendment 22 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

29: Clause 2, page 1, line 9, after “have” insert “equal”

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I explain that the scurrying around here is intended to provide a reassurance that this extremely long-looking group will not be taken in one bite, as it were; there will be an opportunity for other bites—ho, ho!—because we will stop at about 7.30pm when those assembled here to conduct the dinner break business commence. That makes my speech rather complicated and I hope that noble Lords will bear with me. Since we have been going since just after 3.30pm, I think it is reasonable to expect that we might stop at the appropriate time. It is not my job to announce that but I am having fun doing it, so that is what we are going to do.

This group of amendments counterposes those considered in the last debate. It would be better to consider it as a single group with the amendments in group 7 as they both relate to the broad understanding that we should have about the form and function of the Office for Students. Clause 2, which sets out general duties for the Office for Students, runs to six subsections. The interesting thing about them is that they swing around a bit, in the sense that three or four of them are broadly in line with what we have been saying we want the Office for Students to do: to promote,

“quality, and greater choice and opportunities for students … to promote equality of opportunity in connection with access … and participation”—

we have had a fair amount of discussion on that, and—

“so far as relevant, the principles of best regulatory practice”,

and “regulatory activities”, which I am sure we will come back to at some stage. However, interposed in those provisions in three paragraphs are rather hard-edged issues to do with competition, promoting value for money and,

“the need to use the OfS’s resources in an efficient, effective and economic way”.

It is almost as if two different hands in separate rooms drafted a set of duties for the OfS and then got together and cut and pasted them together. These two groups of amendments address that issue.

There is nothing here about serving the public interest or taking account of promoting confidence in the higher education sector. There is nothing about being forward looking, as my noble friend Lord Giddens said in relation to another amendment. Will this body have a remit to scan the economic future and think about the way the sector should develop to meet changing technologies, needs and economic requirements? These matters are not mentioned. Does that mean they will not be addressed? There is always a worry that if you have a specific set of duties—obviously, they cannot cover pages and pages but they should certainly be extensive enough to ensure that we know what we are about—and they do not mention a particular issue, it may not be addressed. As the old adage goes, what is mentioned or specified gets measured.

The other half of that problem is the question of ranking. In this list of what is to be done, is there a sense in which quality is important? If it were, that would be the most important thing, but is that at the high end of the hierarchy? In other words, does the OfS look first at quality, choice and opportunity, secondly, at competition between English higher education providers, thirdly, at,

“the need to promote value for money”,

and, fourthly, at,

“the need to promote equality of opportunity”?

From what we have been hearing in the debate so far, equality of opportunity, social mobility, access and participation are ranked quite highly in your Lordships’ thinking but that is not obvious from the way the Bill is set out. In speaking to the previous amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said that in some cases it is reassuring and important to have a Bill’s aspirations and focus set out in it. If he is right, we are missing something in that regard in this Bill.

Amendment 29 seeks to reflect my point that a ranking or hierarchy would probably be inappropriate in this case. We surely want to ensure that all aspects of what is written down in statute for the OfS are given equal prominence. I hope the Minister can confirm that that is in his mind as well, by means of a reassuring statement or other method. If it is not, he should say what the priority is and why the relevant provisions are set out in the order they are.

Amendment 42 relates to the point made earlier about the unease and scepticism the Committee feels, in that, without a specific duty to maintain the confidence of the UK higher education sector, it may be difficult for the OfS to win the hearts and minds argument and get the support it will need from the sector if it is to be successful. Would that not be a sensible provision to include somewhere in the general duties?

Amendment 43 gives us the opportunity to put some flesh on our earlier discussion about extending higher education in the mindset of those who use it across the whole range of activities within the sector, and include the provision of vocational and professional education within OfS functions. This would pick up alternative providers and the new challenger institutions. It also addresses the point made by my noble friend Lady Cohen about the work done by providers that were established by the last Labour Government to undertake more vocational and professional education, but which are now universities. If that is not listed and made clear in the general duties, does that mean it is of lesser substance? I know that my noble friend feels passionately that there should not be a two-tier system. I agree. If providers are to abide by the Bill’s provisions and offer good value for money, be effective and high quality, meet all the tests and provide what students want, we should not separate them into different classes. It is important to ensure that the Bill’s wording is correct in that regard.

Our Amendment 44 is of a slightly different character. It relates to an issue to which we will probably return: that the Office for Students has no student representatives. Thanks to government amendments that are due to be tabled, the concept will be introduced that someone should be on the board who is capable of representing students. However, as we have said, students permeate all aspects of higher education. Those of us who are young enough to remember the 1960s, and even those of us who do not remember them, know that the battles of the day were fought to get representation on academic boards and the whole edifice of higher education as it then was. We marched, stood, stamped and occupied. It was terrible; it was great. It was also very confusing. If you were young, as I was, and you were a bit confused about it all, it was just a terrific partying time. Anyway, we got there. To our considerable shock and, in some cases, dismay, we had to sit for hours in committees listening to boring stuff. I suppose I should not take up time with such anecdotes—but why not?

Having marched for the right to have student representation on the Bodleian committee at Oxford, and won it, I then attended a committee and found that I was the only student there because the rest had either not got up, forgotten about the committee meeting or had gone to the wrong place. I had to defend the argument before people who terrified me in every respect. They were crabby, difficult and wonderfully, scientifically aggressive, in a way that only very senior academics can be. The question we were asking was why the university could not arrange it so that the library was open when the students were up. The academics replied, “Don’t be ridiculous. Banks don’t open in the evening; why should libraries be open in the evening?”. And that was the end of the meeting, so it was not a very successful experience. However, we got better at it as we went on. Why did I go into that? Because I think it is good to have students on the bodies with which they will be involved. It would be sensible and possible, despite what the Minister said the other day, to find a way for students to be represented on the board of the OfS, either through the NUS or appointed by the NUS. That is what our amendment seeks to do.

I will make two minor points before I run out of time. We have talked seriously and at length earlier today and at other times about the need to disseminate a diverse provision of higher education. We are in favour of having lots of different types of institutions, from conservatoires right through to the highest-level institutions. Amendment 51 would establish that specific arrangement in the general duties. Amendment 52 plays back to an earlier discussion about credit transfer and will give the Minister the opportunity to come back on that point.