Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Triesman Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Triesman (Lab)]

My Lords, Ministers are sometimes asked to explain the need for a Bill for which there is limited necessity and which may well do much more harm than good. I am not convinced by what the Government have said about why this Bill is needed. As they have looked for the changes in higher education, I am far from convinced that any of the safeguards they propose will protect what is most valued in higher education in this country.

There may be a case for bringing together research councils, as advocated by Sir Paul Nurse, although I am of the same view as the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave. I can see that innovation may be impeded by a silo structure but it is imperative to think through what we want to achieve and what we might lose if we get it wrong. The UKRI would need to understand that not all research can or should be directed at supporting business, important as I accept business is. We are world leaders precisely because we have never lost our passion for fundamental research or allowed its finances to wither. It often translates into near market or full commercial opportunities. The Bill risks jumping these stages. It could easily damage fundamental research, our international reputation for this research and, perversely, the strong business-facing mission that almost every university has.

In due course, I have no doubt that researchers will grasp that the UK should not be their choice of destination and they will go to places where they feel there is much more latitude and willingness to accept that broad and deep research, and its impact on international students, is more important. The Bill may—unintentionally, perhaps—turn off the tap for many international students in this way.

Like many of your Lordships, I think the Bill is dangerous to the fundamental values of United Kingdom higher education. At the heart of this legislation are a number of attacks on the autonomy of institutions and their capacity to establish and maintain standards, and the consequential damage to academic freedom. None of the assurances have so far been convincing. Indeed, only extensive amendment or rejection of key elements of the Bill are likely to inspire confidence. Almost all speakers have seen this as an area where additional protection is needed.

We have a long history in this country of tussling with these issues. The global status of United Kingdom higher education rests on past success in keeping political fingers off the higher education steering wheel, both in teaching and research. Our system of charters, which has been mentioned—and, indeed, in two cases, papal bulls—and the confirmation of independence in Acts of Parliament have laid the foundations for the independence which is so fundamental. Funding mechanisms have ensured that government finance and public interest always had a buffer mechanism between them—between the political world and ground-breaking research and study in universities. We designed it over all those years to achieve that outcome. We now put it at risk.

I wish to report two issues to the House. I sent, without comment, copies of the Bill and Explanatory Notes to colleagues who had served on the Commonwealth Universities Council, which I had the great pleasure of chairing at one stage. I prompted them in no way and, without prompting, they all wrote back and said the same thing: that it is extraordinary; that they had not realised that higher education in the United Kingdom had deteriorated so badly. They naively said that they believed, and continued to believe, that the international ratings lauded by the Government even today had been a true picture. They now believe that, for all the protestations to the contrary, the Government think that United Kingdom higher education is in need of urgent treatment—a life support system which only the Government can provide. Apparently, we need major injections of untested institutions able to award degrees whether or not they have a proper track record. We are so narrow and undiverse, my colleagues said, so complacent about the future that we need to concede authority over our universities to a Minister and to bureaucrats in Whitehall. The Bill sends a poor message around the world by any standards, and the medals system is probably the worst bit of all.

In 1997 my noble friend Lady Blackstone signed for the United Kingdom a normative instrument at UNESCO, a global treaty on the status of academic teachers and researchers and on academic freedom. I had the good fortune to be there and the honour to help draft the international commitment to which the United Kingdom assented. It guaranteed the protection of academic freedom, not least by protecting in treaty terms the autonomy of legitimate academic institutions. It set global standards and it expressed long-standing and long-established values in this country and many others. Several aspects of this Bill break those normative instrument obligations.

The powers of the OfS, starting at Clause 2, are outwith the United Kingdom’s international obligations. Will the Minister confirm that the Bill will be brought into full compliance with the international obligations to which we have signed up? Will he address this point in all aspects of the operation of the OfS and UKRI? Will he be prepared to write into this legislation that obligation to the UNESCO 1997 normative instrument—and to the 1998 world conference higher education declaration, to which we also gave our consent—so that, for the avoidance of doubt, the Government have accepted the current extent of autonomy for higher education institutions and teachers, which they signed their name to and undertook to protect?