Higher Education and Research Bill

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I rise to speak on new clause 7 and amendments 49 to 51, which are in my name. New clause 7 and amendments 50 and 51 cover ground we discussed at length in Committee so I will refer briefly to those points then talk a little longer on amendment 49.

New clause 7 provides for automatic review of degree-awarding powers where ownership of a university changes. This is rooted in experience of the sort of system the Minister is seeking to create in the United States, where a number of institutions with a reasonably well-established reputation changed ownership and fundamentally changed the product and service delivered to students. We need to learn from the mistakes made in the States by ensuring that, should we find ourselves in this new terrain with institutions in this country with degree-awarding powers changing ownership, that should automatically trigger a review of their status. I would welcome some reassurance from the Minister on how he intends to deal with that issue, if not through this new clause. Otherwise we could find ourselves in the same situation as the States, and not only have the reputation of the sector damaged, but students let down and still carrying a fee-debt. So this is a crucial issue that we need some clarification on.

Amendment 51 covers terrain I have discussed with the Minister on a number of occasions. It simply seeks to require universities to introduce the integrated student enrolment system with voter registration, which is recommended by Universities UK, supported by the Cabinet Office and was originally and very successfully piloted by—I have to get this reference in—the University of Sheffield.

The Minister and I share a common objective of trying to improve the levels of voter registration among students. This has been a demonstrably effective way of doing that where we rolled it out not only as a pilot in Sheffield, with the support of the Cabinet Office, but in other universities—Cardiff, de Montfort and many others, which have gone on to introduce it. This seems like a good opportunity, as we are looking at the registration requirements of universities, to roll it out across the country to achieve objectives we both share.

I have discussed this with the Minister and also his colleague from the Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore). There was due to be a roundtable at which we were going to discuss it further tomorrow, but that has been cancelled and kicked into the long grass of sometime in the new year, I was told last week. Given the shared objectives in this area, I would like to hear from the Minister why we cannot simply use this opportunity to get this matter sorted out.

Amendment 50 reflects concern over the reliability of the metrics used to measure teaching excellence. I emphasise, as I did many times in Committee, that we all welcome the Government’s focus on teaching excellence, and we can all work effectively together on the principle of the teaching excellence framework. However, the metrics on employment outcomes, on retention and on the national student satisfaction survey have been identified by the Government themselves as a proxy for teaching excellence.

The amendment simply seeks to add to the Bill a requirement that the metrics used by the Government to determine teaching quality should have a demonstrable link to teaching excellence. This was the unanimous recommendation of the then Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, of which I was a member. We all agree that employment outcomes do not necessarily demonstrate teaching excellence. There are also enormous regional variations in employment outcomes and salary levels. The Minister will know that someone who comes from the right family and goes to the right school and university could have an awful teaching experience but still get a decent job. The converse is also true. People who do not come from the right family and who do not go to what many see as the right university could have an excellent teaching experience but not command such high salary levels. So employment outcomes are a crude and almost perverse proxy measure of teaching excellence. I would therefore welcome the Minister’s observations on why this simple amendment to introduce a demonstrable link between the metrics and teaching excellence would not strengthen the Bill and will not be accepted by the Government.

[Mr Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Should the demonstrable link involve a recognition of the experience and qualifications of lecturers? What does my hon. Friend have in mind when it comes to proving that teaching quality exists?

[Paul Blomfield]

Measuring teaching quality is difficult, but if we are going to do it, and if we are going to link fee increases to it, we should do it well rather than badly. For example, the Higher Education Funding Council for England is piloting some work on value added to determine how it can be demonstrated that good teaching has contributed to students’ learning outcomes during a particular period. That is the kind of research we should be looking at before we rush into establishing a teaching excellence framework that might end up measuring everything but teaching excellence.

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[Paul Blomfield]

I look forward to joining my hon. Friend in Westminster Hall on Wednesday, because she makes a valid point—one that a number of us made in Committee. This pre-Brexit vision should have been parked and rethought as a result of the decision on 23 June because the challenge facing our universities is fundamentally different and of enormous proportions. We need to reconsider the proposals.

[Mr Hendrick]

On that point, many mainland European universities now offer courses in English. Our leaving the European Union will significantly disadvantage British universities in attracting foreign students, because degrees in some European countries are now offered in English, not necessarily in French, German or the native language.

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend highlights a new dimension to the challenge facing our universities as a result of Brexit. My wider point about international students existed before 23 June, but we now face a situation in which the 185,000 international students, of some 500,000, from EU countries may no longer choose to come here. However—this is crucial in relation to my hon. Friend’s intervention—30% of the non-EU students who were polled before 23 June said that the UK would be a less attractive destination if we chose to leave the European Union. Our competitors in Europe, adding to the competition that we already get from Australia, Canada and the United States, are seizing the opportunity to teach English-language courses, which will become very attractive.

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[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I want to speak to new clause 16, which draws on some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) made in relation to amendment 49. In essence, the new clause seeks to remove students from the net migration figures. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister whether the Government have that on their agenda.

I also want to comment on how damaging it would be for the university sector if the number of international students that can be recruited in any one institution is related to the traffic light system in the TEF.

As we know, international students are important not only to higher education but to our economy. The contribution of international students to UK GDP is almost certainly in excess of £10 billion, and they support about 170,000 full-time equivalent jobs. Many of the students go on to do postgraduate work, and they are involved with and drive forward world-leading research and innovation in this country. They are therefore very much to be commended and supported.

While international students are in this country, they not only get to know the UK but develop an affinity with it. They develop links with staff, and they contribute massively to soft diplomacy, as we have already heard. It cannot be overemphasised that they improve Britain’s standing in the world, so it is very important that the Government do not put the recruitment of international students at risk. Once they are in this country, such students also enrich our society and contribute to its diversity. I know that from my Durham constituency, where international students very much add to the whole cultural experience of the local population.

[Mr Hendrick]

I concur with my hon. Friend on the contribution of international students and the very good experience they get. My local university, the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, has many thousands of foreign students, who very much enrich the city and bring it to life. Once they leave the UK and go back to their countries of origin, these students become some of our best ambassadors and, whether they go into industry or government, their experience in the UK always makes them very positive about the future.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The Government should take on board his point about that ambassadorial role.

We can only be bewildered at the mixed messages the Government are giving international students. One message is coming from the Department for Education, another from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and another from the Home Office. I do not yet know whether the Department for International Trade has a view on international students, but, if it does not, it really ought to. Its view should be one of promoting an important industry, as hon. Members have said clearly this afternoon.

Instead of supporting an increase in the number of international students, the Home Office seems to be giving the message that we need to reduce the numbers, and that is having an effect. The figures I have for the number of international students and the trend are very different from those read out by the Minister. It appears that the number of new entrants has fallen by 2.8%. Indeed, one study has put the reduction as high as 5%. The Minister must know that the British Council has stated that the UK is beginning to lose market share to our competitors. Again, the Government should be very concerned about that.

New clause 16 also seeks to find out whether the Minister or the Home Office has any notion of introducing a system in which the number of international students that any institution can recruit is linked to what happens to it in the TEF and, in particular, to where it is in the traffic light system. To give the Minister an example, if the institution is given a gold rating, there may be no cap whatsoever on the number of international students that it can recruit, but if it gets a bronze rating—oh, dear—a cap might be put on the number of students it can recruit. To use the automobile analogy that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central used earlier, that is like telling Nissan, “You can sell as many cars as you like,” while telling Vauxhall, “We’re going to put one of your hands behind your back and limit the number of cars you can sell.” That is clearly nonsense. We need definite reassurances from the Minister that the Bill will not be used to link the TEF to the number of international students that can be recruited.

[Mr Hendrick]

Given that the Government are supposed to believe in markets, it is bizarre that, when Times Education Higher produces university rankings across the world, they should choose to intervene and say which students should go where when students clearly have a choice in a market-based system.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. International students are central to the business model of every higher education institution in the country. In addition to the possible reputational damage that could be done to our universities, we do not want a message to go out that international students are not welcome. The Minister, the Home Office and other Departments could deal with that by saying that students are temporary visitors, which is what our international competitors do in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. That means removing students from the net migration statistics, which would be a very simple thing for the Government to do, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that he is going to do that. We should be ambitious for our universities. We should enable them to grow, particularly in international markets such as Canada, Australia and other countries, and not limit their international potential.

As the Minister will know, he has a mandate to do that. A recent ComRes study—my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central mentioned this—showed that 75% of people who expressed a view would like to see the same number or more international students in the UK. The poll also revealed that the overwhelming majority of the British public think that international students should be able to stay and work in the UK for a period of time. A very clear case has been made and I hope that the Minister will respond positively.

The Minister has referred to amendment 58. There is huge concern in the higher education sector about enabling bodies to call themselves universities even when they do not provide the range of student services and support that most of us would expect from a university. The reason that there is no particular guidance is that we have not needed it. Most of this country’s universities provide a system of student support and access to sport and recreational opportunities. They also provide wellbeing services and volunteering opportunities, enable students to join a students’ union, and play an important civic role.

The reason that I tabled amendment 58 is that the Bill will allow a series of higher education institutions to call themselves universities even though we as yet have no idea whether they will have to offer a range of basic services to students. Will they be able to join a students’ union and sports clubs? Will they play an important role in the local community, as is the case with existing universities? Will they have an important role in the local economy? We have heard nothing yet from the Minister except that there will be some guidance, so I am minded to press amendment 58 to a vote. I would like to hear from the Minister what will be in the guidance about how we describe universities, what the Minister’s understanding of a university is and when the guidance will be made available. In particular, will it be available before the Bill is considered in the other place?

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[Wes Streeting]

I certainly do not think that we will be able to find a typical student to sit on the board of the OFS because, as others have said from their perspectives, no such thing exists. That leads me on to where I wanted to direct the Minister, in as far as I can. We should value the skills and expertise that representatives of students develop through their roles in student unions, precisely because there is no such thing as a typical student or a typical student experience. We should value and champion the role that the officers of student unions play in developing their skills and experience as representatives to make sure that student unions champion the broad diversity of students at their institutions; whether students are full time or part time, or are doing part of a course on a credit-based approach, whether they are living at home and commuting to university or have moved away from home, there are a wide range of student experiences. The challenge for anyone who seeks to be a representative is to make sure that they genuinely draw on that broad range of experiences, just as we have to as constituency MPs.

I hope that, when the Minister appoints one of these representatives, he appoints one who is a students union sabbatical officer, for example, because we are lucky in this country to have a means by which students can develop a good base of skills and expertise. Many of the country’s leading chief executives of voluntary sector organisations have been students union sabbatical officers, as have many Members of Parliament and people in all sorts of professions, because the experience and skill sets that it gives them are genuinely valuable beyond the scope of representing students during their time at university. I hope that that is the sort of person the Minister has in mind and that we will not drag people back from beyond to dust themselves off from retirement.

[Mr Hendrick]

Although I agree with everything that my hon. Friend is saying, I think that the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) was perhaps referring to distance learning students, mature students and people who follow a less usual course to obtain qualifications. Certainly, when I have met the presidents of my students union over the years, they have been sympathetic to the needs of such students. Will my hon. Friend perhaps address the hon. Lady’s point?

[Wes Streeting]

I absolutely agree with that point, which brings me back to the skills and expertise that student union sabbatical officers develop in that role. The Open University students association or Birkbeck students union are institutions almost entirely dedicated to part-time students, people from non-traditional routes and people who often work alongside their studies who have returned to learning later on in life. It is important that that broad range of experience and perspective is represented on the board of the Office for Students. I hope that the Minister will appoint someone to that position who can represent the broad interests of students.

I want now to deal with staff. I should probably declare that I am a member of the trade union Unison, which represents a number of staff in higher education, and I should draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests on that point, too. Amendment 48 picks up the theme that I have been discussing—student representation on the board of the Office for Students—and makes the case for having staff on that board.

Staff are absolutely crucial to the success of our higher education sector, whether they are academic staff directly engaged in teaching and learning or the wide range of support staff, whose contribution to the student experience is often unheralded. Thinking back to my student experience, the first member of staff I spoke to at my university was not an academic; it was Gina Vivian-Neal in the admissions office. When I was at university, I spoke to staff such as Bill Simmonett, who was involved in catering and conferencing, because of my role as the students union entertainments officer. When I had a particularly small room in my second year and a larger one became available, Sue Jeffries made a substantial difference to my learning environment. Margaret Hay, who, I believe, recently retired from her role in the tutorial office, was absolutely central to the experience and welfare and care of students.

Bearing in mind what other hon. Members have said about the role that international staff play in our institutions, it is important that people on the board of the Office for Students have experience of representing the interests of staff. Many of our trade union colleagues, particularly in the University and College Union, have made a powerful case about the impact that the casualisation of contracts, for example, is having on our ability to recruit and retain good staff and their ability to deliver a good student experience.

Other trade unions, such as Unison and Unite, represent those staff who, while perhaps not directly engaged in teaching, often provide essential support functions that can make the difference between an excellent or a poor student experience. I hope that their voice and interests are represented on the board of the Office for Students. Given where we have taken our country in the debate about our ability to attract and retain excellent staff from around the world, we could leave ourselves in a vulnerable position in a sector such as ours that is so world-leading in its performance and reach, and we need to champion and protect the interests of staff.

I hope that the Minister will take those points on board. I thank him for the movement that he has shown since the Bill Committee. I had almost given up hope by the end of the Committee that we would see much progress, but, to give him credit, he has moved. I hope that he will listen to the points that we make today, and perhaps they can be addressed in the other place.