Draft Higher Education (Access and Participation Plans) (England) Regulations 2018

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 General Committees

[Mr Gyimah]

We need clarity to be effective, so of course I support absolute clarity in this respect.

The board composition was touched on. The hon. Member for Blackpool South has been looking for much longer than I have at the detail of this. The OFS has quite a wide remit, and board members are bringing different experience from different places to the board so that it can fulfil its wide remit.

I will draw my comments to a close. A very important issue is what happens to access and participation plans in the event of a change of control or ownership. A provider must have an access and participation plan approved by the OFS if it has a fee cap and wishes to charge higher fees. If there is a change of registration or any change of ownership, that would remain in place.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

May I highlight one very important aspect of the regulations, which the hon. Member for Blackpool South may have highlighted in earlier sittings? It is the avoidance of some of the duplication that was happening between the director of fair access and HEFCE. The new OFS will replace the degree of overlap that there was between those two bodies and increase consistency. I would be grateful for a brief comment from the Minister on that.

I also hope the Minister will have a chance to visit the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, which is the Ofsted of higher education and happens to be based in my constituency. It has an important role to play, particularly in terms of student feedback on some of the issues that the regulations cover. Since the burden of payment for higher education has shifted from taxpayers in general to students, and the regulations clearly build in student involvement on access and participation, a discussion with the QAA about how it can contribute to student analysis of the higher and further education model would be very useful.

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend makes a forceful point. He is right to say that in bringing together HEFCE and the fair access parts of the regulation of higher education institutions, we remove a significant amount of overlap, but it goes further. Funding for higher education has changed, so the regulatory structure is now catching up to reflect the funding structure.

We have other challenges that need to be dealt with. This is about not only removing inconsistencies and bringing clarity but, I hope, making the regulation of higher education more effective. On my hon. Friend’s second point, I would be delighted to visit the QAA.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Higher Education (Access and Participation Plans) (England) Regulations 2018.