Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, it is important that regulations that are made pursuant to powers are subject to the appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny. We have thought very carefully about such powers in this Bill, particularly in the light of the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The government amendments in this group implement three of the recommendations that the DPRRC has made.

Specifically, Amendment 197 makes regulations under Clause 10, prescribing descriptions of provider to whom the transparency condition applies, subject to the affirmative procedure. Our policy intent, as set out in the White Paper Success as a Knowledge Economy, published in May 2016, is that a transparency condition will apply to approved and approved fee-cap providers on the register of higher education providers.

Amendment 198 makes regulations under Clause 38, prescribing descriptions of provider who will be eligible to receive OfS funding in the form of grants, loans or other payments, subject to the affirmative procedure. Subjecting these regulations to the affirmative procedure adds to the oversight Parliament has, compared with the current legislative arrangements.

Amendments 45, 200 and 201 ensure that the first set of regulations prescribing the higher, basic and floor amounts for the purposes of determining providers’ fee limits, will be subject to the affirmative procedure.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, and the members of the DPRRC for their thorough consideration of the Bill’s powers. I beg to move.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, it seems wrong to intrude on a private conversation between the two noble Lords. We are grateful to the Government for bringing forward these amendments, as recommended by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

Amendment 45 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 49, in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and give my wholehearted support to all the government amendments in this group.

Amendment 49 is a reinforcement of the registration conditions for higher education providers. It requires that it is not only the quality of provision and use of sector standards that can be subject to registration conditions but also the systems and processes that a provider has in place to ensure quality and standards are upheld. This provides an additional level of assurance of the ongoing maintenance of quality by a provider to the benefit of students.

I thank the Minister and the Bill team for their thoughtful work in bringing forward the government amendments on quality and standards. They effectively address the concerns of the sector, and of many noble Lords, that the definition of academic standards must be owned by the sector and not be in the remit of the Office for Students. The government amendments are, indeed, quite innovative in that they provide an implicit challenge to institutions in the sector to work together to define standards in other key areas—plagiarism might be a good example. These would be standards which the OfS could then use in its registration conditions. The Minister and the Bill team are to be commended for this forward-thinking approach, and I repeat my strong support for the government amendments. I beg to move.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, has introduced this important group of amendments with great skill. Like the questions we had earlier on institutional autonomy, this issue was raised by a substantial number of individual institutions as being a barrier to them engaging more widely with the purposes of the Bill. It became a bit of a block to progress. We had a good go at it in Committee and we have had several meetings with the Minister, the Minister from the other place and the Bill team.

As the noble Baroness said, the Government have not only stood up to the plate and agreed to move on this but they have actually gone a little further. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, I commend the idea that, within this apportionment between individual institutions and the sector, individual institutions have academic standards reserved to them. There is an implication that that work will not be deemed satisfactory unless it is done through collaboration, the development of an appropriate process and bringing forward something which we do not currently see—a better understanding of how every individual institution is not only independent and autonomous but part of a wider whole.

In that sense, this plays back to our debates on new Clause 1, which has been inserted in the Bill and which deals with the much wider context in which higher education institutions—universities particularly, in this case—must operate. We are very pleased with these amendments. We support them and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.