Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Matt Western Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Secretary of State. I share a lot of her view on the importance of lifelong learning and how it transform lives, and the passion with which she spoke about that. The policy areas that unite us in this House are few and far between, but as she demonstrated in her remarks, the principle of lifelong learning elicits widespread support across the House. That is because we all recognise the transformational potential of education and the fact that it should not be capped simply by virtue of a person’s age or life stage. My view, and that of the Opposition, is very much that education is an investment not just in the individual, but in human capital and society, and, de facto, in our economy. We all probably know a Mr Ashcroft, as the Secretary of State was describing; we have all been touched by someone who felt that they should perhaps be widening their skillset through their lives or careers.

The world is clearly changing fast. With the fourth industrial revolution, net zero and changing demographics on the horizon, the need for a flexible multi-skilled workforce is more important than ever before. The CBI estimates that nine in 10 workers will have to retain and reskill by 2030 as result of the digital changes seen in the world of work. Likewise, the Climate Change Committee estimates that 300,000 additional jobs will be created if we are to meet our decarbonisation targets by 2030. Many of those jobs will require skills not yet being taught—or skills that perhaps should have been taught in recent years—if we are to catch up on achieving our objectives .

For too long now, the drive for more widespread adult education—lifelong learning and reskilling—has been, at best, lacklustre. The Government have sat on the sidelines and overseen a decade of decline in skills. On adult learning, for example, a survey by the Learning and Work Institute revealed that only one in three adults self-reports any participation in learning—that is the lowest in 22 years. Between 2009 and 2019, Government spending on adult education fell by 47% and, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, adult education and adult apprenticeships will still be 25% lower in 2024-25 compared with 2010-11.

We often talk about the lost decade of wage growth, and that is a fact, but it is pretty hard not to see it as a lost decade of skills growth as well. Indeed, the Learning and Work Institute quantifies that loss as up to 4 million learners, which is a pretty damning indictment of the Government’s skills agenda for these past 13 years. Indeed, part of the problem in recent years has been the lack of priority and focus in the Department, as deckchairs have been shuffled, reshuffled and shuffled again. The figures are well known. We have had five Education Secretaries in the past year, a succession of Ministers responsible for higher education and a seemingly constant shifting set of responsibilities between Ministers. There has been a fatal lack of consistency at the heart of the Department. It must be particularly challenging for the Secretary of State to be witnessing that at first hand. That may well explain why there is a widespread lack of awareness among employers of the Government’s skills reform programme. Four in five employers said that they were unaware of the Government’s plan to introduce lifelong learning entitlement.

Having listened to the Secretary of State’s opening speech, however, I note her determination finally to kickstart the lifelong learning agenda, and I commend her for the work that she is doing. I commend, too, the work of the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, both from the Back Benches and as Chair of the Education Committee. It was my former colleague, Gordon Marsden who, as MP for Blackpool South, really started this agenda, recognising the need for lifelong learning in the form of Labour’s Lifelong Learning Commission report in November 2019. Labour is fully committed to supporting the Government in delivering lifelong learning, continuing the important work that Gordon Marsden put together.

None the less, there remain some significant questions over the Government’s stated policy. In a slightly unusual way, what we have before us is merely a frame with no content—an exoskeleton without a body, as it were. The Government launched a consultation 12 months ago on how the lifelong learning policy should be framed, which included who should be eligible; whether maintenance should be provided; what courses should be covered; what courses should be exempt; what changes to the regulatory framework are required; what incentives, support and guidance are needed to encourage prospective students; how students can stack up their credits or modules; and how course quality assurance is monitored. However, despite that, the Government have failed to publish their consultation response ahead of introducing this legislation, denying Parliament the full picture when scrutinising the Bill—and that consultation closed 10 months ago, in May last year.

The Cabinet Office regulation rules, published in 2018, state:

“Government responses to consultations should be published in a timely fashion.”

Ideally, that is within 12 weeks—I guess that is three months—of the consultation. If not, they should

“provide an explanation why this is not possible.”

I ask the Minister this: why has the response to the lifelong learning consultation not yet been published? When does he expect to publish it, and what explanation can he give for the delay?

This is important, because this skeletal Bill’s skeletal impact assessment states:

“A full and detailed quantitative assessment of impacts on learners, providers, employers, the Exchequer and the wider economy and society is…not possible because of two key sources of uncertainty”—

namely, broader lifelong learning entitlement policy and behavioural uncertainty. The impact assessment goes on to say:

“As some aspects of the broader LLE policy are still in development, it is not yet possible to accurately estimate these familiarisation costs.”

As a cherry on top, we are promised that an enactment impact assessment will be published after the Bill receives Royal Assent. One would have thought that the two sources of uncertainty—broader LLE policy and behavioural uncertainty—would have been addressed by the consultative process and the learnings from the pilot programme. But no, for some reason those are being kept from this House. That may have something to do with the fact that only 33 applications for student finance were made for the Office for Students short course trial, which is widely considered to be a failure.

Call me old-fashioned—I have only been in this place for six years—but I prefer to debate the policy underpinning parliamentary Bills and their potential impact while we still have a chance to get it right. It is incumbent on all of us to try to deliver the best legislation. That is in all our interests, particularly given the unanimous support for the principle behind this Bill. Instead, we, the sector and prospective students are waiting on tenterhooks for the final publication of the consultation response before we can make any well-informed assessment of the Bill and how it will interact with the broader lifelong learning policy offer.

In anticipation of the Minister delivering the much-awaited consultation response in the coming days, I will move on to our concerns about the principles of the Bill as drafted and about lifelong learning policy. Given the importance of getting the lifelong learning policy right for boosting the UK’s economic growth, productivity and workforce potential, there remain significant questions related to the deliverability of this reform. The Minister is committed to delivering lifelong learning by the 2025 academic year. However, as he well knows, it takes a considerable amount of time to make changes to the student finance system, the admissions system and the design of new courses. As a fellow pragmatist, does he genuinely believe that it will be delivered by the start of the 2025 academic year, or will it be delivered in a limited form?

Delivering that could prove groundbreaking in changing the post-16 education landscape, and Labour would continue to tailor it if in government. To borrow a sporting metaphor, the pitch needs to be rolled. That includes the need for more clarity on who will be eligible. Universities UK, the representative group of 140 universities, has called for broad and consistent eligibility criteria to ensure that as many future learners as possible can upskill and retrain in the future. Given this Government’s previous form on proposals to limit access to higher education, whether directly or indirectly, what plans does the Minister have to extend this policy offer to as many people as possible, including those who are most hard to reach? Ultimately, as I have said, education is an investment in people. Therefore, the lifelong learning entitlement should be viewed through the lens of educational empowerment, rather than restrictively controlled and micromanaged. Many of us have concerns about how this is going to be managed and delivered, particularly through the OFS.

Given the scale of the challenge and the reforms to the student finance system, it is also important that the Student Loans Company is adequately prepared to deal with this new funding model. I, and indeed the sector, have noted that there is little to no information on the financial cost for the Government in the event that the Student Loans Company requires a redesign in any document attached to the Bill. That could be significant, surely. Given that the SLC funnels £10 billion-worth of public money into supporting students undertaking higher education courses, what assurances can the Minister give the House that adequate preparation has been carried out to ensure that the SLC is prepared for the coming change?

The Bill gives a surprising amount of power to the Secretary of State to decide what fee method applies, the type of courses and activities it applies to, and the maximum amount of funding available for each module or course. Understandably, that has raised eyebrows. With so much power in the hands of the Secretary of State, depriving Parliament of the ability to hold the Government to account adequately, there are few brakes to prevent them from unilaterally deciding to redefine the nature of a credit or a module, and to make compliance with that change contingent on future funding. I am sure that the sector would therefore warmly welcome greater clarity in the Bill on key concepts such as credits and modules. That would go a long way to assuage such concerns, whether or not they are well founded.

It is also widely recognised among providers that running modular provision is more expensive, not least because of the need to provide additional wraparound support, including onboarding, mental health support and academic writing support. Clearly, it is important that a minimum fee level is set to prevent students from being unfairly charged more for modular study than for a traditional academic year of study. However, in the light of the financial pressures on institutions, what plans does the Minister have, if any, to address the cost burden for providers delivering those courses? Failure to understand how that will work on the ground runs the risk of providers shying away from running such courses because of their prohibitive expense. The Government’s own impact assessment stresses as much, stating:

“Some providers could receive less tuition fee income per student if some types of learners that are currently studying longer courses instead choose to study in a modular fashion”.

It would be deeply concerning if the policy behind the Bill further eroded the financial sustainability of the sector, and damaging to the UK’s economic outlook if providers ended up opting out of modular study. It is therefore vital that sustainable and adequate funding be available to providers, and that fees be proportionate to a full qualification with support to deliver wraparound support and high-cost modules. That is also why consultation and dialogue with the sector are so important during the setting of fee limits. In that vein, what plans does the Minister have to ensure that, when setting those limits, the Secretary of State has properly consulted those in the sector charged with delivering this model of teaching?

Finally, let me touch on how the policy underpinning the Bill will engage with the current regulatory landscape. Sector bodies and universities are clear about the need to minimise additional burden. As a result, it is important that the Bill builds on existing regulatory and quality-assurance mechanisms. That is important for employer and student confidence in the system. It is somewhat ironic therefore that the Government are currently validating the de-designation of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education from the Office for Students. That could leave a quality assurance black hole when we most need an experienced quality assurance body. I would be grateful if the Minister set out what plans he has to ensure that regulatory burden is kept to a minimum during the implementation of LLE, and how modular-based courses will be assessed for quality harmoniously across the sector.

Although the Bill is the flimsiest piece of legislation, we will not oppose it. We will wait for the Government’s response to the consultation. I urge the Government to publish the consultation document way before Committee stage, so that we have access to it and can properly scrutinise the legislation in the context of the consultation and the Government’s response. On that basis, we will not oppose the legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western]

I have benefited from training courses and adult education throughout my career, as I am sure many hon. Members have. Although some of the skills that I developed may not have been directly relevant to my employment at the time, they proved incredibly useful later in life. Like the Minister and the Secretary of State, I am therefore a deeply committed believer in the power of lifelong learning.

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who participated in the debate, although perhaps I will not refer to them all in my summing up. I was particularly interested to hear some of the historical perspectives from a century ago, or perhaps 40 years ago—certainly I remember Peter Walker from my youth. They give context to the fact that some of these challenges have been around for some time, and show how important it is that we address them collectively.

The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), who is not back in his place, rightly raised the issue of productivity. I am particularly concerned about that and about how the performance of the UK economy has fallen back. As far as I am concerned, it is not a puzzle and there are easy ways to resolve it. The fact is, however, that our relative productivity is 20% behind that of France. He also raised questions about eligibility and maintenance support, especially for carers, which are concerns that the Opposition share.

I was interested to hear the discussion between the hon. Members for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) about debt. Of course, we have to put that in the context of debt for students being raised to £9,250, and the impact of that. We are now in a situation where maintenance loans are relatively frozen, which is frustrating, because it reduces the breadth and opportunity for people and reduces young people’s access to education.

The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) had certain queries and asked about the burden that might fall on the sector, which is a real concern that I also picked up on. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) echoed my concerns about the mechanism of the Bill and the fact that there was no actual policy within it. She asked whether the Government would now abolish the ELQ rule, which is one of the many questions that we will put to the Government in Committee. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) for raising individual learning accounts. They were put forward by the Labour Government, but there were concerns and difficulties with them when they were introduced, because of some of the fraud that they led to.

As I alluded to in my opening speech, the need for lifelong learning is greater than ever. We have been on a slippery slope of economic decline for too long, with UK GDP per capita growing at an average annual rate of 0.5% in real terms between 2010 and 2021, according to the World Bank. The Labour party is resolute in its determination to reverse that trend, so much so that it is one of our guiding national missions. In that vein, we are prepared to support the Minister throughout the Bill’s passage, assuming that we see fuller detail in due course.

As I said in my opening remarks, however, there remain far too many gaps, questions and uncertainties at this critical stage. We have a frame, but the real work is yet to be done. In essence, it is a promise—not an empty promise, but a promise that needs substantiating. Many questions have been asked in this debate, such as about the fee setting for modules and courses; the quality and how the Government plan for that to be determined; and, in particular, the role that the OfS will have.

Many of those questions would be resolved if the Minister were prepared to finally publish the LLE consultation response. I raised many questions in my opening remarks that I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister about shortly, but my lasting message is to please publish the response to the consultation as a matter of urgency. I look forward to working with the Minister to flesh out this most skeletal of Bills, and I hope that we can work constructively in future.

[The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education (Robert Halfon)]

I thank the shadow spokesman for the Labour party, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), for the constructive way in which he has approached the Bill, and the shadow spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson). I knew Gordon Marsden well—he was my opposite number when I last held this post a few years ago. He is a good man and he knows the subject inside out.

The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington asked about the consultation response. We have said that we will publish it before Report stage. He will know that it is not specifically aligned to the measures in the Bill, but about the wider policy of the LLE. He wants us to introduce the LLE at speed, which is exactly what we are trying to do, but we want to do it carefully and to make sure that we respond to the consultation following all the submissions that we had. As I say, it will be published by Report stage, if not before.

[Matt Western]

The Minister is a decent individual, so I ask that we have sufficient time to consider the response before Committee, given that it has been 10 months since the consultation.

[Robert Halfon]

I repeat that the consultation will definitely be ready by Report stage, if not before; I guarantee to the hon. Gentleman that it will be ready by Report.

The hon. Gentleman asked about fee limits. He will know that the Secretary of State can set fee limits as a result of the Higher Education Act 2004. The Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 built on that and allowed for flexible and modular learning. That legislation has long roots in the Augar report as well, so the Government have clearly set the direction of travel.

We will be having regular consultation with stakeholders as well. The hon. Members for Warwick and Leamington and for Twickenham asked about the hourly value of credits in the Bill. The Government feel that the number of learning hours in a credit is an area that should continue to be governed from a quality standards perspective, rather than from a fee limits perspective, and we have legislated accordingly. In the Bill, the credits are used to signify the total amount of learning time that a student would ordinarily be expected to spend to complete a particular course or part of a course. However, I can assure both spokespeople that further details on the number of learning hours associated with credits will be set out in the regulations. Where providers choose not to use credits in this way for certain courses, these courses will have the fee limit determined using a default credit value, but they will face no penalty or reduction overall as a result.

To turn to my successor as Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) spoke quite interestingly about his father. I have read a book about his father, who was a very good man. My hon. Friend talked about the burden of regulation, and our intention is to simplify regulation, not to add to it. Of course, those institutions that offer the LLE will be registered with the OfS. He talked about partnerships between further education and higher education. I absolutely agree, and I think this policy will rocket-boost that. There are already examples, and I can give him the great example of Nottingham Trent University and the college in Mansfield. I repeat that the consultation will be ready by Report.

I have answered some of the questions of the hon. Member for Twickenham, but on the point about the equivalent learner qualification, I can only say that we will be able to tell her when the consultation has been published. However, I hope she will not be unhappy with that, and I appreciate her support. Again, on maintenance, I envisage a similar system to what exists now for the current student loan system, but the full details will be in the consultation on that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) made a very important speech, and he is passionate about further education and about championing it. He is absolutely right about employer investment. That is why we introduced the apprenticeship levy—it is not part of the Bill and it is separate, but it is very important—so that we would have business investment in skills. He talked about the disadvantaged, and he is absolutely right. They will be able to do modules and flexible learning, and they will have more access to courses they want to do than they otherwise would have had. One of the reasons for the decline in part-time learning is the three-year loan, and they will be able to do short courses or modules of courses. [Interruption.] Of course, I will give way. Sorry, I thought somebody was asking me to give way, but it was just my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) being very noisy, as usual. I used to work for him many years ago, so I can say that. This will be published in the consultation, but the LLE, as has been highlighted, will concentrate on levels 4 to 6 and it will have a phased approach.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) talked powerfully and spoke about good outcomes for students. Of course I will meet his new college group. On local business involvement in qualifications, that is entirely why we have the local skills improvement plans.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) made a brilliant speech, as is his wont. He will know that we have introduced UCAS for apprenticeships and hope to expand that over the coming months and years. He is right that we should not just have been saying, “University, university, university”, but “Skills, skills, skills”.

I am delighted, as I say, by the positive response to the Bill. Universities UK has said that it is a welcome step with a more flexible system of opportunity at its heart, and I thank all Members who have spoken. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned, the Bill is a major step forward in our mission to revolutionise access to post-18 education and skills through the introduction of the lifelong loan entitlement.

I want to respond to an additional point about the number of adult learners. That number has increased by 4.3% from 2021-22 to 2022-23, and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington will know that many adults are now doing apprenticeships and different kinds of adult learning skills.

The Bill has just three clauses, but in supporting the LLE it will transform lives. It will transform the lives of working people on low incomes, it will transform the lives of carers who need to balance their commitments alongside study, and it will transform the lives of anyone who wants to upskill in their existing career or propel themselves into a new one. The LLE will enable access to modules and courses in a way that has not been possible before. It will provide individuals with a loan entitlement equivalent to four years of post-18 education to use over their working life. Regardless of background, income or circumstance, people will have access to a flexi-travelcard to jump on and off their learning as opposed to being confined to a single advance ticket. This is not just a train journey; it is a life journey.

The Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill brings in the next piece of legislation to support delivery of the LLE from 2025. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out, the Bill has three core elements. First, it will enable limits for tuition fees to be based on credits. Currently, tuition fees are set for complete years of full courses only. This change means that short courses and modules will be priced appropriately in comparison with and alongside longer courses—for example, degree programmes.

Secondly, as was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage, this Bill introduces the concept of a course year. Currently, tuition fee limits are based on academic years of study. This change will allow fee limits to be applied more accurately to courses that are not aligned with traditional academic years.

Finally, this Bill allows for an overall maximum chargeable number of credits for each type of course. Currently, a maximum can only be set in relation to an academic year. This will prevent students being charged excessively for their studies. In sum, the Bill will lay the groundwork to ensure that fee limits are the same for a learner who completes a qualification by studying each individual module at their own pace as it would be for them to study a typical full-time course across three academic years.