Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Winston Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I just add a few brief words in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. I declare an interest as a former chancellor of the University of Strathclyde, although I do not think that his amendment would extend to Scotland for the reason that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, mentioned. In that connection, I should point out that since Clause 117 makes it clear that the Bill extends to Wales as well as England, it may be that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, should extend his amendment to cover Wales as well, because I am not sure that there is any difference between Welsh institutions and English institutions for this purpose.

That aside, I commend the way in which the amendment is crafted, particularly the first paragraph because, as it was pointed out, it is directed to the duties to be performed by the Secretary of State. One of the problems revealed by the earlier debate is that of universities being required to do certain things that might attract all sorts of extremely unwelcome litigation. However, this amendment is directed where it should be directed and for that reason, as well as all the other points made by the noble Lord and by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I hope the Minister will take it very seriously.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I am wedged between two lawyers. I absolutely support the amendment spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. One thing concerns me and it may concern the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, as well. The rise of racist, anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish behaviour in universities in recent years causes us great concern. I wonder whether the phrase,

“the freedom of academic staff within the law”,

will be adequate to control some of these outbursts, which are not necessarily exactly illegal but are certainly very discreditable and dangerous for universities. Would the noble Lord like to address that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, support the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, in his Amendment 65. There should be such a duty on the Secretary of State, although it makes me think about the duty on the Lord Chancellor to protect the independence of the judiciary. We do not see that being lived up to in the way that we would like, so just placing duties on Secretaries of State does not always deliver the outcomes that we want. But I certainly support the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake.

I want to give some comfort to my noble friend Lord Stevenson because I share many of the concerns expressed in his amendment. I am not in favour of for-profit universities: I should make that very clear. The ideal of the university is so precious and important to our nation. We should ask ourselves this question: where is a world-class university that is for-profit? The answer is that there is not one—not Harvard, Yale, Oxford or Cambridge.

[Lord Winston]

MIT?

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

MIT has some provisions in its statutes that ensure that the money is fed back into MIT for research at the highest level. If that were part of the standards that we expect of the new private universities, one might feel rather differently. But my concern is that, if you speak to Americans in the field of education and higher education in particular, they look with envious eyes. Yes, they have grand universities, wonderful new liberal arts colleges and some great state universities, but they feel that in Britain we have, across the board, a much higher standard of university than can be seen in parts of the United States.

One thing that concerns them is that they went down this road themselves some 10 years ago. They let the business world bring all its entrepreneurship into the university world and by God, they are regretting it now. They have started having scandals. It has even reached our ears about Trump University, but only because Mr Trump’s name has of course become rather more familiar for other reasons. He was sued by students on the basis that the university set itself up claiming that it would deliver education in the world of business, but in fact the students were absolutely short-changed and exploited. Many of them were ordinary working folk who had thought that it would advance their careers, and in fact they were taken to the cleaners.

A pay-off is now taking place, but there are other cases in the pipeline. We should be very wary about where this will take us. There is the idea that universities could set up without any probationary period to show that they are acting in a proper way. My noble friend Lord Stevenson suggests in Amendment 2 that there should be a period of four years. I certainly agree that there should be a serious period of time to see whether these new institutions will be up to the standard we want this country to be recognised for.

I rather like the idea that “UK universities” will become the kitemark for institutions that follow the traditional pattern, but I am afraid that I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, that the pursuit of modernity has to be approached with some caution. I say this particularly when remembering so well the New Labour years. I regret the mistake made by New Labour in its enthusiasm for markets. I have great enthusiasm for markets and I like all aspects of them in their right place, but I do not like their consolidating interests such as the utilities. I do not like markets where you do not get real competition, and I certainly do not like their entering areas of our public life like education and health, where the result is in fact a diminution of investment. So I am very concerned about what the Bill means.

I appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said earlier about his children and their friends going to universities where they felt rather short-changed because they did not get the teaching they expected. I am happy that the Government are seeking to pursue good teaching by creating the right kind of framework, and I have no objection to some of the things proposed in the Bill. However, I am concerned about autonomy and the potential for interference by Government and bodies that are basically a part of Government. I am also really concerned about this business of introducing into the sector profit-making universities which basically will be a milch cow for hedge funders and the like. I have no hesitation in saying that I am concerned about us going down this road, and I support the attempt by my noble friend Lord Stevenson to find a way through that will reconcile the mistake that Labour made when it said that profit-making universities could be brought into the system. I do not think we will relish that in the years to come.