Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Storey]

467: After Clause 84, insert the following new Clause—
“Offence to provide or advertise cheating services
(1) A person commits an offence if the person provides any service specified in subsection (4) with the intention of giving a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider of an unfair advantage over other such students. (2) A person commits an offence if the person advertises any services specified in subsection (4) knowing that the service has or would have the effect of giving such a student an unfair advantage over other such students.(3) A person commits an offence who, without reasonable excuse, publishes an advertisement for any service specified in subsection (4).(4) The services referred to in subsections (1) to (3) are—(a) completing an assignment or any other work that a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider is required to complete as part of a higher education course in their stead without authorisation from those making the requirement;(b) providing or arranging the provision of an assignment that a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider is required to complete as part of a higher education course in their stead without authorisation from those making the requirement;(c) providing or arranging the provision of answers for an examination that a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider is required to complete as part of a higher education course before they complete it and without authorisation from those setting the examination;(d) sitting an examination that a student enrolled at an English or Welsh higher education provider is required to sit as part of a higher education course in their stead or providing another person to sit the exam in place of the student, without authorisation from those setting the examination.(5) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.”

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, plagiarism is a form of cheating and an academic offence. “Contract cheating” is a particular type of plagiarism where a student commissions a third party to complete an assignment. They might even employ a ghost-writing tutor. The QAA says it poses a risk to the security of academic standards and the equitability of assessments, as well as reliability and validity. “Essay mills” produce assignments that are not completed under exam conditions, and other pieces of work such as coding assignments in computer science can be completed by a third party as well.

I knew nothing about this 18 months ago. It was not something I understood. Then a group of students from one of our redbrick universities made contact with me. They came to the House of Lords to talk about it. We sat out on the Terrace. They were genuinely upset that they saw this practice happening regularly among their fellow students. They said, “Why are we diligently doing our work when you can pay and you can cheat?”. As a result of them coming to see me, I wrote to the chief executive of the QAA, who kindly wrote back and said, “We don’t regard this as a particularly serious problem. The number of people we are talking about is minuscule”. I contacted him again and furnished him with quite an important file of evidence. He very kindly arranged to come and see me, and we talked it over—in quite robust terms. He then organised a private round-table discussion with a number of other academics. From that, a number of issues arose. I am very grateful to them for taking that initiative.

So how many students are we talking about? According to the QAA, about 17,000 students—about 0.7%—get caught cheating each year. Remember, those are the ones who are caught. The data do not show how many students plagiarised. Another report commissioned in 2014 showed that 22% of students reported having paid someone to complete their assignment. As I said, this type of cheating is referred to as contract cheating, a specific type of plagiarism where a student commissions a work produced by a third party for a fee.

How does this happen? Different approaches are taken and different sites can be used. The more established sites will have a bank of people who have previously written for them and essay commissions will go to those people, with the essay mill acting merely as an intermediary. Other sites go instead to an online freelance writer: the work will be reverse-auctioned and any writer registered on those sites will be able to bid for the work.

In a recent publication, Professor Phil Newton and Christopher Lang looked at the operational aspects in some depth. They found that turnaround times for commissioned essays are very small: between a day— 25% of those analysed—and 24 days. The average was five days. Most—80%—were fulfilled in the specified time. For every fulfilled request on a freelancer-type site, another 10 people bid for the work, suggesting significant spare capacity in the market. The prices range from £15 for law—a master’s, a 3,000-word dissertation —to £6,750 for a PhD or a 100,000-word dissertation, with a seven-day deadline.

I was talking to some students only yesterday who told me that people even approach them on their campus and say, “We can get you a 2:1. We can write your essay for you. We can write your dissertation for you”. These people actually approached them on the university campus.

What about the students themselves? Well, it must be noted that some students do not plagiarise intentionally. A disproportionate number of students who are caught cheating, I am sorry to say, are foreign students. We had the debate earlier on foreign students. Language competence is one of the main reasons for them cheating. There are also sometimes cultural difficulties. Interestingly, according to the Times investigation, foreign students are four times more likely to cheat. Universities have been criticised for enrolling foreign students with poor command of the English language because they pay higher fees. There is then real pressure on those students to complete their assignments.

What should we do about it? My amendment is based on what has happened in New Zealand, where it was quite a serious problem. As a result of them making the practice illegal, the problem has significantly improved.

I am minded to quote the QAA, which said that the way forward can be described in three words: “Education. Detection. Deterrence”. The QAA goes on to say that at present it has no legal or regulatory powers to take action against students quickly for plagiarism, using essay mills, websites or ghost writers. We see this as academic fraud. We need to take action now.

We are in our sixth day of Committee, and we have heard so many eloquent speeches about the importance of higher education, the incredible work our universities and students do and how important it is to maintain that quality. Well, maintaining that quality means making sure that academic fraud does not happen, and that all students are on a level playing field. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I will say a few words in support of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. I commend him on the amount of preparation he has done for this amendment. I am very surprised at the extent of what he has revealed. I think we all know that, to a greater or lesser extent, cheating goes on—it is important to use that word—and in some cases fraud, but the extent of it is such that action needs to be taken. I am disturbed by the QAA more or less dismissing it, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said. And yet, as he pointed out, 17,000 students had been caught, and if that number were caught how many were getting away with it?

It is an issue that has to be addressed. Although there are means of catching cheats these days—software can be, and is, employed by universities that can spot and pick up patterns of writing—there are other ways that cannot be tracked easily. It would be helpful to have a recognition that this is a problem and for something at least to be said, if not done, by the Minister to indicate that the matter will be taken forward in a way that it has not been, effectively, up until now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Baroness for her helpful intervention. I cannot answer on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, but no doubt he will make some concluding remarks.

[Lord Storey]

The Minister is absolutely right: this should not be rushed and we should get it spot on. We have a responsibility to universities, students and academics. I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned software. There is a software programme called Turnitin, which will identify parts that have been plagiarised.

Professor Deech—I am sorry, I mean the noble Baroness, Lady Deech; I am not sure whether I am promoting or demoting her—raised the issue of students who are caught. Interestingly, there are solicitors who advertise their services on campus to represent and help those students who are caught. When students are caught, as noble Lords can imagine, there are varied practices right across the sector about how they are treated. Some students who are caught are given a slap on the wrist; others are actually sent down. Some have to repeat a year and some lose marks, so there is no consistent policy in higher education as a whole.

I am delighted that the Minister told us of the new initiative that will be announced. The NUS, as well as supporting students—your heart goes out to students who are caught in such a situation, perhaps for all sorts of reasons—will be there on campus to make sure students realise how serious this is. If they are caught, the NUS, wearing another hat, is there to represent them, I suppose. I am delighted that this initiative is taking place and we will see where it leads.

Finally, I mentioned Professor Newton, who emailed me. It was interesting, and this is why I hope to come back to this. He wrote that he just wanted to highlight the word “intent”:

“The amendment as currently proposed would make it quite easy … for essay-writing companies to hide behind a defence that they provide ‘custom study aids’ and that it is the students’ responsibility to use them appropriately. If the amendment could be tweaked to take ‘intent’ out of the equation, then the law would become much more powerful”.


I hope that between now and Report, we could perhaps meet to talk this over and see where the initiative goes. We really do need to take action on this matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 467 withdrawn.