Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

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

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to all noble Lords who made this such an informed and interesting debate over the past seven hours—yes, it is seven hours. I pay tribute to the honourable Member for Orpington for his indefatigability. He seems to have been here throughout the whole process and that is much to his credit.

I also welcome and very much enjoyed the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg. I am sure we can remember when we entered your Lordships’ House that there was a feeling of some trepidation; perhaps we were daunted by the prospect. However, when, as we heard, you have dropped from a helicopter on to a nuclear submarine as the noble Baroness has, I am sure that coming into your Lordships’ House was an absolute breeze. We may not often agree, but I look forward to her contributions in future.

As I had long understood to be widely acknowledged and accepted, our university sector is hugely successful, but it would appear that that is not widely accepted enough in government circles. A higher education Bill was certainly due, but it should have concentrated—as the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave, said—on celebrating that success and building on it, not imitating my five year-old son with his latest Lego set. He opens it eagerly, builds it according to the instructions and admires it. The next day, he moves on to what really challenges him: he deconstructs it, then rebuilds it to his own design specifications and the result bears no resemblance to the picture on the box. That analogy with what the Government are trying to do to the university sector in the Bill is, I think, apt. They are attempting to solve problems that do not really exist. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked, what is the Bill designed to fix? We have not been told.

The 2016-17 world university rankings again demonstrate the continued strength of the sector, but the latest set of rankings highlight a marked increase in the number of our Entrepreneurial University of the Year institutions in the overall list, which includes many newer universities. As is often the case, the wider value—particularly the social value—of what universities do is overlooked by league table compilers. That includes providing opportunities for older learners and part-time learners who continue to study while at work—issues on which the Bill is silent. My noble friend Lady Bakewell and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, spoke eloquently on these issues, which we shall address in Committee.

My noble friend Lady Blackstone emphasised the diversity of the sector as a source of strength. That is important to avoid a narrative that only the “top” universities matter to the Government, which would be very damaging for both the sector and its students. For example, last week London South Bank University won the Entrepreneurial University of the Year Award. Other modern universities such as Bath Spa and Southampton Solent regularly sit atop the league tables on creative courses, while Abertay University in Dundee—about which I should disclose an interest as that institution awarded me an honorary doctorate—was the only university in the whole of Europe to feature in the rankings for computer game design, a hugely important earner for the UK. It is important to note that excellence is to be found across the sector, and both the UK and its economy are the richer for it.

Yet we have a Bill that is in thrall to the market, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Royall. It proposes an open-door approach to new institutions. My noble friend Lady Kennedy warned of the consequences. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, told us that his daughter called it a power grab. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, called it a changed dynamic.

It is not just the Department for Education or the newly fashioned Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy seeking to influence that control; we now see the Home Office playing an increasingly intrusive role, one in which the objective is to reduce immigration, irrespective of the damaging effect that will have on not just higher education and research but the broader economy. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to the need for an appreciation of the threat to international visas. International students’ fees subsidise home-based students and anything that undermines that would have a seriously detrimental effect on the viability of some institutions.

The international perspective was mentioned by many noble Lords, among them my noble friend Lord Stevenson and the noble Lords, Lord Smith of Finsbury and Lord Macdonald of River Glaven. It is also a potential problem in respect of the TEF, which would result in universities being graded—some might say shamed—very publicly in a way that no other country does. The TEF as proposed, with its flawed metrics, would not provide quality assurance on teaching. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, rightly highlighted, the Scottish perspective on the TEF, even though it would not apply north of the border, is another important issue. For obvious reasons, that matter is of personal interest to me and it will be probed in Committee.

The Bill has nothing to say on links with the further education sector and technical and vocational education, nor on higher education delivered through further education colleges. These issues were raised by my noble friend Lord Stevenson, the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and, most strongly, by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. I think the noble Baroness’s contribution was the feistiest one we heard today and I am relishing the prospect of her getting to grips with Ministers in Committee. I say to Ministers that they should anticipate a wolf in wolf’s clothing.

Like many noble Lords participating in this debate, I am of the generation that benefited from the expansion that followed the Robbins report. Of course, the landscape has changed out of all recognition in half a century, and nostalgia is of little value, but some of the Robbins principles stand the test of time. Robbins said that universities should have,

“four objectives essential to any properly balanced system”.

The first was “instruction in skills”. The second was the promotion of,

“the general powers of the mind … to produce not mere specialists but rather cultivated men and women”.

The third was to maintain research in balance with teaching since teaching should not be separated from “the advancement of learning” and “the search for truth”. The fourth was to transmit,

“a common culture and common standards of citizenship”.

However, having read the Bill, we are left with these questions for the Government to answer. In 2016, what is a university? Does it have a public purpose? That is an important issue because under this heading is the guarantee of free speech, which the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Polak, rightly stressed.

The Bill makes no mention of scholarship or the pursuit of truth, yet it displays a relentless pursuit of a free-market approach, with students as customers or consumers—terms that my noble friends Lady Cohen and Lord Judd rightly derided. That is not the best means of ensuring that we prepare the workforce of the future—the drivers of industry and the economy. To some extent, that is happening already, with too many universities, as we have heard, employing academic staff on short-term—sometimes zero-hours—contracts, sometimes even paying on an hourly basis. This applies to universities with which more than a few noble Lords have an association and perhaps they might ask some questions of their CEOs.

The student experience is an essential part of what should inform the choice of university that a young person makes. It is also essential to what the student emerges with at the end of the course. If academic staff have no sense of job security or a commitment to the institution, that can only devalue the student experience. Noble Lords will have seen the case reported this week of an Oxford graduate taking legal action, claiming that the university was at fault for his failure to achieve a first and therefore a more lucrative career. I doubt that that case has much future and it dates back 15 years, but it could presage a glut of modern cases relating to a poorer level of teaching stemming from the increasing demoralisation of junior academic stuff. Job insecurity is a major concern and universities need to be aware of the consequences of any race to the bottom in employment practices.

Institutional autonomy and academic freedom are vital, as we heard from many noble Lords, particularly my noble friends Lord Giddens and Lord Triesman, and the noble Lord, Lord Patten. That is why I find the relative silence on these matters—indeed, on the Bill in general—from Universities UK and the Russell group at best puzzling. Have they been leant on, by any chance? We understand that they are more concerned at the implications of leaving the EU, but surely it ought not to be beyond the means of those well-resourced organisations to respond to two major threats simultaneously.

Part 3 of the Bill makes changes to the arrangements that govern the funding and support for research. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, provided some figures on UK research and used them to illustrate the extent to which the country punches above its weight. My noble friend Lord Darzi referred to this country as a research superpower—a status that should be guarded jealously. These Benches share the concerns of many noble Lords who attach great importance to the objective of ensuring that the UK remains a world-class centre of research and innovation, with strengthened capacity to address cross-cutting and cross-disciplinary issues. We accept the argument that there can be economies of scale, but there is potential for there to be adverse effects. In Committee, we will probe how adequately the new arrangements will ensure that the benefits of the current system are not lost.

There have been considerable advances ascribed to the autonomy of the research councils. Certainly, we are of the view that it is important to ensure that they have independent chairs and that the devolved Administrations are given a proper voice, not the token one which emerged from a government amendment on Report in another place. The Bill will, in our view, be enhanced with the Haldane principle written into law.

The Bill has many flaws and will require significant amendment to make it fit for purpose. We shall use the Recess to gird our loins for the battles that lie ahead in Committee and hope that at the end of that process the Bill is in a much more acceptable shape.