Higher Education and Research Bill (Eighth sitting)

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Committee Debate: 8th Sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 15th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

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

I beg to move amendment 178, in clause 13, page 8, line 17, at end insert—

“(f) a condition relating to the provision of access to a range of cultural activities including, but not restricted to, the opportunity to undertake sport and recreation and access to a range of student societies and organisations;

(g) a condition relating to the provision of student support and wellbeing services including specialist learning support;

(h) a condition relating to the provision of volunteering and exchange opportunities;

(i) a condition relating to the opportunity to join a students’ union.”

This amendment ensures that all aspects of a positive student experience are considered relevant to the inclusion of a Higher Education institution on the register.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. This amendment takes us back to the thorny issue of what a university is and how we ensure that the measures in the Bill do not allow for or enable the dumbing down of the sector as a whole. I want to pose a series of questions to the Minister about why clause 13 does not provide a list of the sorts of service and the range of amenities that the Minister might expect a university to have in order to be deemed a university. The amendment sets out a whole range of conditions that should be included in the clause, so that something called a university actually is a university. I will be interested to hear why the Minister thinks that is not important.

As we all know, students do not only go to university to get a degree. Of course they go to university to get a degree, but along the way, they join lots of clubs and societies. They take part in cultural events. They might have a drama club. They often, as in the case of Durham University, have a theatre and put on performances—really good ones—that local people go along to. That is an incredibly important aspect of the cultural activities at Durham. At the weekend, we often go along to watch the university teams compete against other universities or in local leagues. It is incredibly important that students, particularly those who have done so at school, can take up sport at university.

Students join a whole range of clubs and societies that enhance not only their wellbeing but that of the wider community. In that respect, I point out the particular importance of providing volunteering opportunities for students, which can often help them with future employment and give back massively to the local community through community service. Indeed, I was at a luncheon club in my constituency just a couple of weeks ago that had been started up by students in a disadvantaged area of Durham. They have a volunteering rota to keep the club up and running.

We would normally equate those sorts of activity with the university experience, along with being able to join the students union, which I will not mention again because we discussed it a couple of days ago, but that is clearly a very important aspect of what students can do when they go to university.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the thrust of the Government’s policy here is enhancing the learning experience, and that the sorts of activities that she describes are not simply important in giving students the widest opportunities in their lives, but provide them with opportunities to learn team and leadership skills, and are very much part of that broader learning experience?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the way in which the wider experience of university contributes to the overall student experience. Indeed, a necessary part of that student experience is universities ensuring that there is adequate student support and a range of wellbeing services, and that specialist learning or special needs are met through the university learning support system. It seems a little odd, to put it mildly, that in the list of “other initial and ongoing registration conditions” in clause 13, there is absolutely nothing about the range of services that an institution should provide; it is all about regulation. It is important that the sector is properly regulated, but that is not sufficient.

A few months ago, I was standing where my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South is sitting now, questioning the Housing Minister about starter homes. I made the point to him—this is directly relevant—that a starter home was not affordable housing just because the Government legislated for it to be affordable housing or thought that it was affordable housing. Clearly, a £450,000 house in London, or a £250,000 house outside London, is simply not affordable. Alas, that Minister did not take my advice and went ahead with legislation that said that such houses were affordable, when clearly they are not. Now, of course, the Government are having to revisit that legislation and what they are doing on starter homes, because it was absolutely obvious that they could not simply legislate for something to be what it is not. I fear that the same will happen with the Bill, and the Government will say about a college or specialist provider, “It is a university if it meets these regulation conditions,” when in any other context it would be considered not a university but a specialist provider.

I am trying to help the Minister to avoid falling into the same trap of legislating for something that clearly is not what the Government try to make it out to be by suggesting that it would help us all in our deliberations—indeed, it would help some of us to negotiate our way through the clauses dealing with registration conditions—if the Minister clarified what he thought a university should be and the range of services that an institution should provide before it is able to use “university” in its title. We really do not want students to think that an institution provides a certain range of services when it clearly does not and has no intention of ever providing the range of services or opportunities that one would normally associate with a university.

It would be helpful to hear what the Minister thinks a university is and what range of services he would like to see universities normally provide. Can he reassure us that no institution will be able to call itself a university when it clearly is not one?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I do not wish to detain the Committee unduly, but the Minister will be well aware that Universities UK has, in its written evidence to the Committee and, I am sure, in person with him, expressed some real concerns about how the concepts of quality and standards are being applied in this legislation.

In the written evidence, Universities UK pointed out to the Committee that the way in which standards should be assessed is not being set out clearly enough, nor has enough clarity been given to the difference between what is meant by “quality” and “standards” throughout the Bill. Universities UK states:

“The quality of higher education provided is clearly a key consideration in the regulation of the sector, although at present the bill makes the relevant condition one which may be applied rather than one which is a mandatory condition of any institution seeking to be included on the register of higher education providers.”

It points out that all the clauses subsequent to clause 13 that deal with assessing quality and standards should make the distinction between “quality” and “standards” much clearer.

On that point, clause 23(3) as drafted states:

“‘Standards’ has the same meaning as in section 13(1)(a).”

Clause 13(1)(a) states that

“a condition relating to the quality of, or the standards applied to, the higher education provided by the provider (including requiring the quality to be of a particular level or particular standards to be applied);”.

That does not seem to be a particularly helpful or clear definition.

Will the Minister, from clause 13 onwards and in clauses 23, 25 and 27, assist the Committee in its deliberations by agreeing to put more clarity in the Bill or in regulations?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is shared by the Russell Group in its evidence. It is concerned that the definition as it stands would require the OFS to be involved in decisions about appropriate standards that are properly for universities themselves to make as autonomous institutions? There is widespread concern, which the Government need to address.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. The Minister has had many representations on this issue. I have not yet heard from him how he will address those concerns, but I am sure I am about to.