Office for Students

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady asked a number of questions that I will take in turn. Her first question relates to having a National Union of Students rep on the board. As she will know, in addition to having a senior representative on the board, there is also a student panel. I met the student panel within, I think, the first week of my being appointed. [Hon. Members: “Answer.”] I am giving an answer. I spoke to the student panel directly; it is doing a great job. There is an NUS representative on the student panel, but there is nothing to say that the person on the board has to be an NUS representative, given that the board has not been constructed to be the place where delegates of represented bodies congregate. The NUS can therefore influence what is happening in the Office for Students.

On the wider question of social media and social media vetting, clearly the social media vetting of Toby Young was not as extensive as it could have been, also given that there were 40,000 tweets.

With regard to the influence of special advisers, Members across this House will know that the way government works is that civil servants and advisers advise but ultimately Ministers decide. In making a decision, Ministers make a judgment call, especially in recruitment decisions. The judgment call in this case was that, having considered the advice from the advisory panel that had looked at the candidates and all the information, none of the three student representatives put forward was suitable. Therefore, because someone needed to be in place by 1 January, an interim member was appointed with a view to reopening the competition later on.

I take the hon. Lady’s point about the all-male appointment panel. I think that an attempt was made to make sure that the panel was more representative, but, for whatever reason, someone could not be available. [Interruption.] The key thing, if the hon. Lady will stop commenting from a sedentary position, is that three out of the five members who were eventually appointed were women. Sometimes, in these situations, it is as important to look at the outcomes as the process.

As we look at the process and the lessons that we have to learn, it is important that we do not forget the ground-breaking role that the Office for Students will play in empowering students and championing them—something that this Conservative Government have delivered that was never delivered by Labour.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister’s comments, but may I ask him about a wider issue? What I do not understand about the board of the Office for Students is that, given what the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have said about technical education and further education and the link to higher education, why on earth does the Office for Students not have serious individuals from the further education sector and from the apprenticeships sector, many of whom are students doing degree apprenticeships?

[Mr Gyimah]

The Chairman of the Education Committee asks a very important question. As he will be aware, however, this is a regulatory body for the higher education sector. He will also be aware that the panel that has been appointed for the higher education review includes some very strong representation from the further education sector. Baroness Wolf of Dulwich is very well known for her work in her reviews of further education, and Beverley Robinson is the principal of an FE college. However, this particular regulatory body is for the higher education sector.