Higher Education and Research Bill

Michael Gove Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I acknowledge that the Scottish National party takes a very different view of this issue. The reality is that the choice that it has made has resulted in fewer students being able to go to university in Scotland. One in five students in Scotland who apply for, and who have the grades to get, a place cannot go because the funding is not available. The hon. Lady’s Government in Scotland have made that choice, but it is not a choice that this Government want to make. We have to make sure that places are available for students who have the potential and talent to make their way in life. Putting a cap on opportunity and potential is not just bad for students; it is bad for our country more broadly.

[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

First, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend on assuming her new role? She has been an outstanding advocate for greater social mobility in every role she has had in frontline politics, and I am delighted to see her in this job.

Is it not the case that, following the introduction of fees, we have seen more students from working class and poorer backgrounds go to university in England and Wales, while in Scotland educational inequality has worsened, to the extent that the First Minister of Scotland had to sack her Education Secretary in despair at the way in which inequality was growing north of the border?

[Justine Greening]

Since 2009, students from a disadvantaged background in England are 36% more likely to go to university. It is not good enough to come up with excuses and tell young people of great quality who have the grades that they cannot go to university because the Government who, unfortunately, are running the country in which they live are not prepared to take the decisions to enable funding to get to the sector and create the places that they need. We are prepared to do that.

The Bill is about opening up the sector to enable new providers to enter it and create the extra places that our young people need. There will be rigorous tests for those new providers, as well as for those that already exist, centring on quality and making sure that they have financial stability. We are interested in enhancing the world-class reputation of our universities in creating opportunity for all, rather than in expansion for its own sake.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marsden]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with quality, but we have to see where the quality extends. The truth is that that is not clear in the TEF before us.

In addition to the first year, we know that only the simplest of tests will be available to allow HE institutions to obtain tuition fee increases. In essence, it is a cash-in coupon. There are no guarantees about where that will take us in fee changes in years two and three. It is therefore not surprising that the vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire, Bill Rammell, who is a former HE Minister—[Interruption.] When the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr Evennett), stops barracking from the Front Bench, he might find that one or two respondents to the Bill have close connections with the Government and the Conservative party. It is not surprising that Bill Rammell says that the TEF proposal

“risks the commoditisation of higher education”,

even if the Government have had to row back from their original plans.

It took about six years in the early 2000s to get a broadly acceptable framework for measuring research quality with the research excellence framework. Simply using existing datasets and metrics in teaching such as the national student survey will not on its own do the business. The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee said that the use of metrics as proxies for quality was problematic. Although the White Paper claims that TEF awards will add up to £1 billion in 10 years, there are no cost predictions. The Government are proceeding on the assumption that there will be only one TEF assessment per university—a one-size-fits-all approach that has been criticised by a wide range of commentators, not least at the all-party parliamentary group meeting that the Minister spoke at last December. Where is the recognition of that, and where is the strategy for finessing that assessment, which could perhaps be done by schools of humanities, science, social science and so on?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous and I do not doubt his commitment to improving higher and further education, but for the life of me I cannot understand what his argument is with the teaching excellence framework. He begins by attacking the Government for extensive consultation and then attacks the Government for being too narrow and rigid in their application. Which is it: are the Government too open-minded or too narrow-minded? Can he enlighten the House?

[Mr Marsden]

From a right hon. Gentleman who has demonstrated his ability to turn on not one but several sixpences in the past few weeks, I think that that is a little rich. I will, however, deal with his particular point. It is not a question of saying that we do not support the teaching excellence framework. What we are saying is, “This is the Government and these are your Ministers. Bring forward the material to demonstrate it is going to work.” So far, they have not done so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is being exceptionally generous in giving way. In improving access to higher education, is not improving the quality of secondary education one of the most important things? Is it not a great tribute to our previous Prime Minister and to the previous Education Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), that there are now 1.4 million more children in good and outstanding schools who now have the chance to go to university and achieve great things?

[Mr Marsden]

I am always happy to applaud excellence in the secondary sector, but it is a little rich coming from the right hon. Gentleman, given that he and his predecessor presided over a system in which level 4 schoolchildren were denied automatic access to work experience, which would have built up their skills and capacity to take some of these positions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael]

Yes, of course I do. Colleges do produce foundation degrees, for example, and that has a logical link and extension to universities. The relationship between larger colleges and universities should be allowed to develop and be encouraged, because that is exactly the kind of fluid way in which we can address the question of getting the skills we need.

I want to end on a subject that is also critical: making sure we think about the world of education in a linear way, from start to finish. That is why I am so pleased to welcome the creation of this new Department. I wrote about it a few years ago, and hoped it would happen, and now it has. There were several reasons why I hoped it would happen. One of them is that we do need to see universities and colleges thinking more about what their relationship is with schools and academies. That is a key issue, and the direction of travel goes the other way, too. That will help us understand more about what the labour market and the skills requirements are.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee is making, as ever, a compelling argument. I want to associate myself with the point he has just made about universities and higher education institutions playing more of a role in our schools. Does he agree that the leadership shown by Baroness Alison Wolf in ensuring that King’s College, London sponsors a maths school—an outstanding new free school—is exactly the model other universities should seek to emulate, and that if vice-chancellors want to show they are committed to social inclusion and social mobility they should sponsor more free schools and academies?

[Neil Carmichael]

That is an interesting intervention and I was coming on to that area, because the world of education is not just boxed up into different sections; it is linear. We need to see more mixing up of people within the sector. There is value in vice-chancellors knowing more about schools and academies and in lecturers getting more involved in schools. I also want to emphasise the value of businesses and professions going along as well. That will mean we get an education system that knows more about what is needed out in the world, that is more comfortable with itself in delivering those things, and that is reaching out to the people who most desperately need to be reached out to—those whom I described as being locked into places where they should not be and being deprived of opportunity and hope. That is what we have to put right on this journey we are embarking upon with the Second Reading of this Bill.

The Committee I chair will look at a lot of issues raised by the Opposition; I have taken note of one or two of them, because I want my Committee and this House to get this Bill right, as it is an important Bill. If viewed through the prism of Brexit the Bill is even more important. Brexit is a call to arms for our education system. We will have to provide more of the skills that we need because we will not necessarily be able to rely on the European Union to do that for us, and that must be in the back of our mind when we think about higher education, or indeed about all education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Carol Monaghan]

All SNP Members share that concern, and we should be worried about the move towards privatisation of the university system.

Courses that are more expensive to deliver—again, I mention STEM courses—will be left to traditional higher education institutions that will either bear that financial burden alone or, worse still, will abandon some of the courses that have earned the UK its worldwide reputation for excellence in that field. New institutions will be allowed to operate without providing services such as libraries or student unions, which are a key part of the student experience at university. Indeed, the Bill permits competition not on equal terms with existing universities, but on substantially reduced terms. The only assumption one can make is that the new providers will put profit before students.

The Government have outlined two models, and with the “low” fee cap of £6,000 we will have universities that potentially offer lower quality provision. At the other end of the scale, the higher fee of £9,000 can further rise with inflation. Where teaching is high quality, that is recognised as a strength of an individual course, not of an institution, yet fees will be the same for all courses in an institution. Creating a system that assesses the quality of a whole institution and allows it to raise the fees for every course based on that assessment when the quality of teaching will vary across departments, is unrealistic. It will create a framework in which students could study courses of lower quality at an institution that was judged to provide “generally” high quality, yet they would, unfairly, be charged higher fees for poor-quality degrees.

[Michael Gove]

Like the hon. Lady I am a huge admirer of higher education in Scotland, not least because in the middle ages my home town of Aberdeen had as many universities as the whole of England. In its most recent report, the Sutton Trust revealed that Scotland has the worst record of any part of the United Kingdom in admitting students from poorer backgrounds to higher education. What is going on?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I will try to keep this even shorter, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a great pleasure, as a London MP, to be here with the dynamic duo who have now taken over our education system: my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), who is, unfortunately, not in her place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson). Having sat here for the past two hours, I can confirm that he has slightly blonder hair than she does, although I will allow excuses to be made about that. We have another London Member here, the birthday boy, no less: the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). Mysteriously, when I read The Guardian today I saw that it said he was born in 1972 and I was sure that must have been a misprint— he does not look a day over 55 to me. I look forward to hearing his words later on.

At this point, I should make a brief declaration of interest, in that I have spent the past 11 years on the advisory board of the London School of Commerce, which is a private higher education provider.

[Michael Gove]

I am sure the House is delighted to hear that my right hon. Friend is a reader of The Guardian, but may I say that I am glad we do not have mandatory reselection in the Conservative party, because such a confession might not endear him to his constituents, and I very much hope he is here for many years to come?

[Mark Field]

That is very kind. As a vice-chairman of the party, may I say that there might be mandatory reselection in Surrey Heath before too long if we are not careful? I thank my right hon. Friend for the observation. Perhaps this is another Guardian misprint; perhaps that is what the problem has been.

As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted, my role on the advisory board of the London School of Commerce has been enthralling and interesting. I have watched the development of a private education provider that has dabbled with the idea of having full university status and trying to get degree-awarding powers but has actually expanded overseas. This debate is probably not a great opportunity to talk about the Government’s immigration-related policies, but let me say that I do recognise that they have had an impact on the broader higher education sector; a school that had some 7,500 students coming from abroad only 10 years ago now has about a third of that number. However, one interesting thing has been that this college provides two-year degrees and charges well under the £9,000 limit, and there has been growth in the number of domestic students in recent years; there is a sense that this is a vocational, value-added degree going forward. I have watched the college develop further colleges overseas in places such as Kuala Lumpur and Dhaka in Bangladesh, and in a number of European centres. The fact that the college is often just regarded as an alternative provider fails to acknowledge its genuine contribution to the vital eco-system of higher education, where this Bill, perhaps belatedly, is doing important work. Elements of this Bill would have come into place some five years ago had it not been for some high-profile problems arising.

It is fair to say that there is an apparent sense of rude health in this sector, and we all have to recognise that this is a hugely important business and revenue generator for UK plc. That is partly because of the benefit of our having the English language, but to a large extent it is because we have highly recognised and highly approved standards of quality. We perhaps take that for granted with our own education providers, be they in the HE or the FE sphere, but this is not necessarily the case in many other parts of the world. The Minister will know that we have some 125 publicly funded HE institutions, which have almost 2 million students. The sector employs 170,000 academic staff and has an income in excess of £25 billion per year.

The research side of what is being proposed in the Bill is crucial, as innovation is at the heart of what is done in many of our universities, although not all. It is right to recognise that some providers in this sphere will not go down the research route, recognising that they will be focusing largely on vocational education. It is also important that we bear in mind that it is not just spin-off companies from the Cambridge universities of this world that do well; a huge number of high-tech companies, in pharmaceuticals and in other areas, have tremendous successes.

I have been the MP in this district for the past 15 years. Right in the heart of London, we have a tremendous array of HE providers. We have the super Russell Group of the London School of Economics, King’s College London, Imperial and, just outside my constituency, University College London. They are globally successful universities, and in many ways the dominance in popular culture of Oxbridge is now being threatened, in a positive way, by the raising of standards by those four London universities, which are now global players in what they do.

I also have in my constituency one of the sites of the London Metropolitan University, which has been a troubled institution. I have worked with a number of MPs across the House to try to make the case for its continued existence in these troubled times. When I hear debates such as the one that took place earlier today on the idea of allowing universities to fail, I think that that is an important part of any economic eco-system. I do not deny that the implications of such a failure for employees and for students cannot be ignored, but I believe that that is a healthy state of affairs if universities are not doing the job and not providing the education that they ought to provide. If that education is not of appropriate quality or there is insufficient demand for it, universities should not be preserved just because they have existed as institutions for a long time.

I welcome the Bill. I shall focus my brief comments on part 1, which deals with the creation of the office for students. No one can deny that the regulatory system in this sector has evolved into a bafflingly complex framework of organisations and an alphabet spaghetti of acronyms. The overlap between the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Office for Fair Access and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education has rightly been identified. The new mechanism will get rid of that overlap.

I wholeheartedly support the recognition of the role of students as consumers. They are far more conscious of that role than they ever were in my time as an undergraduate in the mid-1980s, and that is a positive thing. One of the by-products of students paying for their education is that they want to get good value from it. They will be much more critical of poor or repetitive teaching. They will want to ensure broadly that the facilities, both academic and non-academic, within the institutions to which they are paying that money are of a high standard. When I see undergraduates in my constituency, I am struck by how focused they are on getting the best out of their education. One might say that that is consumerism; one might say it is a source of regret for those of us who were at university in bygone decades. I think it is a healthy state of affairs that students take such matters seriously. The Bill implicitly recognises that by setting up the office for students.

The Bill needs full scrutiny in Committee and in the other place, where there are plenty of experts in this field. There are concerns about the granting of provisional degrees, which were mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden). The proposals to relax the criteria for validating degree-awarding powers will need to be examined thoroughly. I have some sympathy with the view that because the title of a university is much respected, it should be clearly protected and defined. I hope that if we have a system that allows market failures, the Government will make provision for the interests that need to be protected. No university should be seen as too big or too old and established to fail. A range of regulatory relationships will need to be clarified, but the Bill establishes an important new architecture for the higher education system.

One aspect that will no doubt be debated here and in Committee is Government and ministerial interference in university courses. We need to ensure above all that those institutions retain as much academic and administrative freedom as possible. That is important going forward.

I take this opportunity to congratulate the Secretary of State on the ambitious proposals set out in the Bill. She has already shown herself willing to put excellence and elitism at the heart of the state school system, with her open-mindedness about the expansion of the grammar school sector. As a committed Conservative and former grammar school boy, it is tremendous for me to hear a Conservative Government putting social mobility at the heart of our educational philosophy.

I regard the promotion of competition, variety and consumer choice as long overdue, so I am delighted that this Secretary of State and her Minister for Universities and Science have indicated the intention to take on the vested interests in this field. There are few things as conservative as the left-leaning cadre of vice-chancellors. I wish the Bill Godspeed and look forward to hearing the rest of the debate on it this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

As a new Back Bencher, I feel fortunate to have the chance to contribute to this debate; it has been well-subscribed, and conducted in the generous spirit one would expect of any education debate. And we have learned a lot, as we would expect in any education debate. We have learned that the University of Aberdeen is staying true to its internationalist foundations at a time of change. We have learned that my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) is that rare thing on the Conservative Benches, a Guardian reader. We have also learned from his skilled powers of observation that the new Secretary of State for Education is slightly less blonde than the Minister for Universities and Science, but one of the things his observation has reinforced in my mind is that blondeness is clearly a quality that brings preferment under this new Government—and I know where I went wrong.

I also thank the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) for his contribution from the Front Bench for the Labour party. He was a distinguished editor of History Today and an outstanding Open University lecturer, but I fear that in his speech today he did not do himself justice. His speech was 45 minutes long, which is some 12 minutes longer than Mozart’s longest symphony, and during those 45 minutes, while there was a great deal of criticism of the Government’s proposals, there was precious little that was fresh, original or new in terms of policy vision. As an education reformer, he is not yet ready to join the ranks of Rab Butler, Lord Robbins or H.A.L. Fisher. It was a pity that instead of what we used to have from Labour—a comprehensive vision of education, education, education —we had instead prevarication, obfuscation and mystification. It is, I fear, sadly reflective of the condition in which the Labour party now finds itself—of the fact that a party that was once committed to the improvement of education, the extension of opportunity to all and radical reform to bring that about now has so little to say. That is not a criticism of the hon. Gentleman or indeed of those who spoke from the Labour Back Benches today; it is just an observation of the fact that where there was once intellectual fertility, there is now, sadly, aridity. But I wish my colleagues on the Labour Back Benches well as they try to ensure their party rediscovers its radicalism and policy vitality.

May I contrast the lack of ideas, fizz and energy on the Labour Front Bench with the qualities displayed by our new Secretary of State in her remarks opening this debate? I had the opportunity to remark earlier on the fact that our new Secretary of State has made extending social mobility the hallmark of all the roles she has taken in Government. She spoke eloquently and from the heart about her own personal journey and her commitment as a graduate of Southampton University and as a comprehensive school girl who was the first in her family to go to university to extend to others the opportunity she herself has enjoyed. It is a promising sign that she now leads a fused and reinvigorated Department for Education that covers the support of children from the moment of birth right up to the point at which they go on to an apprenticeship or into university. It was a mistake of Gordon Brown to separate universities—to make them orphans first of all in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, and then to have them spatchcocked into the business Department—because I feel an unnecessarily narrow and utilitarian approach was taken towards higher and technical education.

The restoration of a Department that sees education in the round and takes a holistic approach to human development and intellectual inquiry is all to the good, and the Secretary of State is absolutely the right person to lead it, and the Minister for Universities and Science, who has already proved himself a distinguished higher education Minister, is the right person to take this Bill forward in Committee.

It is appropriate that we legislate at this stage because this Bill is a sequel, in a way, to the changes we introduced under the coalition. It was the Browne report into higher education finance and the decisions taken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), and indeed Vince Cable when he was Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, that ensured that we were able to place the financing of higher education on a sustainable footing for the future. Almost uniquely among European nations, our higher education system is solvent as a result of the courageous decisions that they took. He will not thank me for mentioning it, but the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), displayed both courage and principle in rejecting his election promise and embracing the right policy outcome. Although he paid a political price for that decision, we should record that it was right, not just for the solvency of our higher education institutions, but also for access. As a result of those changes, more children from poorer backgrounds, and from working-class and disadvantaged homes, now go to university than ever before, and that is a direct result of the courage and coherence of the reforms that were made to funding. Having made those funding reforms, we must now complete the story and ensure reforms to the structure and quality of higher education, so that we maintain our position of global leadership.

Let us be in no doubt that universities across the United Kingdom are global leaders, and some of our finest institutions are among the top 20 universities in the world. Those include not just established institutions of great antiquity such as Oxford and Cambridge, but London’s universities, which are outstanding in research, teaching and their capacity to improve our productivity. We are fortunate that changes in the Bill will ensure that the position of global leadership that we currently enjoy will only be enhanced.

I welcome the fact that the Bill will lead to the development of new challenger higher education institutions. As the Secretary of State made admirably clear, at every point in our history, whenever it has been suggested that we expand the number of higher education institutions, “small-c” conservative voices have always said that more would mean worse. The Anglican clergy used to insist on a monopoly on higher education learning through their stranglehold on Oxford and Cambridge, until a brave, utilitarian radical helped to set up University College London, and helped to break that monopoly and extend higher education.

Throughout the 20th century we had the establishment of the red brick, the plate glass, and the polytechnics into universities, and each of those steps was an exercise in the democratisation of knowledge. It is a pity that in recent years, even though the University of Buckingham has taken its place among universities as a first-class institution, we have not had the same innovation and new institutions being created, but this Bill makes that possible.

There is, of course, an absolute requirement for new institutions to meet a quality threshold that ensures that public money and intellectual endeavour are well directed, and that is why I welcome the principle of the teaching excellence framework. Those on the Opposition Front Bench criticised the Minister of State for being a listening Minister and wishing to consult, while simultaneously suggesting that he was somehow closed-minded and rigid in his desire to ensure that we compare like with like. Let me come to the Minister’s defence—he does not need me to defend him because logic will suffice. The teaching excellence framework has been subject to extensive consultation. That consultation closed just over a week ago on year 2 of the TEF, and in that document of more than 60 pages a series of detailed questions were asked, all of which followed intense engagement with those working in higher education. It was a model for how a Department should consult, and the Minister has shown himself to be a listening, pragmatic and empirical steward of his responsibilities. The TEF has and will evolve as it should in the best traditions of the Department.

The idea that we should somehow object that the TEF allows us to compare different types of institutions is a fundamental misunderstanding. The hon. Member for Blackpool South said that it was a one-size-fits-all approach, but it is explicitly not that, as the consultation makes clear. It is an opportunity to allow individual institutions to be compared in a way that allows meaningful lessons to be drawn for undergraduates and for the Government.

[Mr Marsden]

Let me make it clear that we were not saying that the TEF was a one-size-fits-all measure. We were saying that the basis on which it was going to operate during the first year was one size fits all. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will remember that I went on to talk about the need for the TEF to be more disaggregated so that we could look at it within universities. That process might yet come forward.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification. Indeed, in the constructive spirit in which most of this debate has been held, I welcome what he says and entirely accept that this is a move towards greater consensus.

One concern that people sometimes have about an emphasis on quality is that it somehow runs counter to the important principle of access, and that there somehow has to be a tension between maintaining rigorous teaching and research quality in an educational institution and broadening access. I do not think that there is necessarily a tension between the two, and neither do those who lead our universities. It has been conspicuous, over the past six years and beyond, how energetic vice-chancellors and others have been in ensuring that they can broaden access to higher education.

I would make the point, however, that while universities have worked hard and collaborated with the Department for Education in its previous incarnations to try to influence the curriculum and examinations in such a way as to maximise access to the benefits that higher education can bring, still more could be done. I do not accuse any institution or individual of bad faith, but I believe that there is additional potential for higher education institutions to, as it were, get their hands dirty in the business of improving secondary education. As I have mentioned, King’s College London has helped to set up a new maths free school which will ensure that gifted students from across the state sector have an opportunity to graduate to the mathematic and scientific degree courses that our country needs. It would be a wholly good thing if more universities were to follow the example of those that have been in the lead in sponsoring academies. In saying that, I am simply reiterating the case that has already been made so brilliantly by my Friend in the other place, Lord Adonis.

As well as ensuring that we improve access, the Bill makes it clear that academic freedom must be defended. The National Union of Students—a distinguished former president of which sits on the Opposition Benches—has often been an effective steward and safeguard of undergraduates’ interests. At the moment, however, there are voices and individuals within the NUS who have not upheld the best traditions of academic freedom and who have in some respects created a chilling environment and a cold home for students, particularly those who are Jewish. I applaud the work that has already been done by the Minister of State in ensuring that academic freedom is not simply an abstract question of academics being allowed to publish, debate and discuss, and that it must also be about ensuring that our universities are places where individuals can feel confident that they are respected and that their intellectual journey will be allowed to proceed in safety, whatever their background.

That brings me to my final point. A number of speakers in the debate have talked about Britain’s departure from the European Union as though it were a cataclysm the like of which this country had never endured before—a sort of Noah’s flood that will bring devastation to our institutions. I respect the fact that passions were engaged during the referendum debate and that those who argued that we should remain were sincere in their belief that leaving the European Union would bring problems and challenges for our higher education institutions. All I would say is that if we look at continental Europe—I mean no criticism of those countries—we can see that there are no world-class universities in the eurozone that could take their place alongside the universities of this country or indeed of the United States of America or south and east Asia.

The spirit of intellectual inquiry—and, indeed, international collaboration—that marks out all our best universities globally does not depend on membership of any political union or subscription to any bureaucratic system. It depends on a belief in honest inquiry, a desire to go where the truth takes you and a commitment always to have an open mind to new facts, new experiences and new people. I am confident that those who lead our universities will take the opportunity that the Bill gives them to ensure that the superb work they do remains open to students from across this world, so that our higher education sector, which has done so much to strengthen our economy and to make this country such a very special place, can proceed into the future with confidence.