Higher Education (Registration Fees) (England) Regulations 2019

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Wednesday 1st May 2019 General Committees

[Chris Skidmore]

Taxpayer.

[Gordon Marsden]

Government.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Yes, from the Government. We can talk about the sources of Government money. Why are these costs going up? In a response to me in 2016, the then Minister made it clear that fees would only be charged on a cost-recovery basis—it is in Hansard and I am happy to pass it on to the Minister—yet that is not the system that we have in front of us today. This SI does not seem to marry with what we were being told in the Bill Committee.

We have to return to the points made by Universities UK. I am not sure that the Minister answered those questions, so I will ask him again. First, Universities UK makes the point about accountability in relation to the overall costs of the OfS and the reasons why the costs for providers have increased so substantially from previous estimates. We have not had a clear answer from the Government or from the OfS about why that is the case and we have absolutely no idea why the Government think the cost will increase by another £5 million in the next five years. We need an answer to that.

The Minister should be concerned about the way in which the OfS is growing like Topsy. It is a quango; what happened to the Government’s desire to see a bonfire of quangos? This one is being let grow more or less out of control.

The second point was about a commitment to move to a model of charging fees that properly reflects the costs of regulating different providers, rather than just size. The Minister reiterated the importance of looking at size today, but in our initial discussions, the Bill Committee felt that if fees were charged on a cost-recovery basis, particularly for universities that have clear systems and can easily provide information to the OfS, that would perhaps result in more limited costs than for new providers coming into the market and that would be reflected in the fees. That has not happened; quite the opposite. In fact, what the Government appear to be doing through exempting smaller providers is ensuring that their marketisation agenda continues apace, rather than reflecting the cost to universities.

The third point is that there should be appropriate funding from the DFE so students are not paying for Government policy priorities.

Shale Gas Development

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I totally agree.

Despite the huge wealth of environmental, medical, geomorphological and other scientific evidence, the Government are ploughing ahead. Even the research of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy shows that just 16% of people support fracking—the lowest figure since it started collecting data five years ago. Greenpeace has commented that public opinion on fracking is in free-fall.

[Gordon Marsden]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government cannot have it both ways? They say that they want a national regime, but when it comes to policing the drilling of fracking in Blackpool and the Fylde, they are refusing to pay the cost fully from Home Office resources, and are leaving it to Lancashire ratepayers.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an important point.

BEIS concludes that all the scientific evidence pertaining to possible risks of damage to the natural environment, the risk of contamination to the water supply, and safety concerns about earthquakes are to be dismissed. Try telling that to the people of Lancashire. They have had 18 earthquakes recently, each one increasing in seismic magnitude. Interestingly, the Government are telling local people who oppose fracking that they just need help to understand the process. It is exactly because they do understand it that they are concerned. The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth has said that she pities

“any local councillor who gets an application on their desk, because they will shortly have a travelling circus of protestors to deal with”.—[Official Report, 12 September 2018; Vol. 646, c. 333WH.]

Is that really how a Minister should respond to concerns of local people? I hope that the Minister today will distance himself from those comments.

I am not sure that the planning system should allow fracking at all, but I know that the permitted development system is not appropriate for dealing with the complexities of fracking, and neither is the nationally significant infrastructure project process. Both those aspects of the planning system totally ignore the voice of local people. Greenpeace has said that the fracking industry is pulling UK energy policy in entirely the wrong direction and that the public are right to be concerned, and I agree.

Many people in the Chamber might not know that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government today issued a further consultation document on talking to people earlier in the planning process for fracking, as if that will stop them opposing it. I say to the Minister that that is just not going to cut it. The Government have to start listening to local people, change track and get planning policies that support renewables, not fracking.

Funding Higher Education

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Marsden]

No, I am not going to take another intervention. The Minister will have plenty of time to say what he wants to say.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) rightly talked about the sustainability of the sector and some of the key issues in terms of Brexit. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), who is no longer in the Chamber, absolutely rightly drew us back to further education and nursing bursaries, and the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) spoke about issues post-Brexit.

The point is very straightforward: since coming to office in 2010, Conservative-led Governments have repeatedly raised tuition fees. They trebled fees to £9,000 and subsequently increased them to £9,250. That agenda has hit students—particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds—harder and harder since 2012. The cutting, one by one, of all the concessions that David Willetts introduced to temper the impact has been just as damaging. Those concessions were dismantled deliberately. The National Union of Students lists them in its briefing for the debate: the Government abolished maintenance grants, NHS bursaries, the disabled students allowance and the education maintenance allowance, and ended Aimhigher.

The Minister has inherited that. He is not responsible for it, but he would be wise to show due humility about its incremental impact on the people concerned. If he reads the “Fairer Fees” report published by the Sutton Trust late last year, he will see, as Members have already said, that the average debt for students in England is higher than the European average and twice the US average. As a result, the Government have racked up an unenviable record of nudging people away from, rather than towards, aspiration in higher education and chipping off many of the rungs of the ladder of social mobility that were designed to protect them.

The July report by London Economics for the University and College Union suggested that thousands of graduates would suffer a mid-life tax crisis, analysis undertaken last year by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows the level of debt, and only this week the Sutton Trust gave us figures that show disadvantaged students across the UK are more than three times more likely to live at home while attending university. The hon. Member for Glasgow North West made that point, too.

The Prime Minister finally admitted last week, after months of us, the Sutton Trust and an impressive range of stakeholders all saying the same, that the current funding system leaves the most disadvantaged students with the highest debt, yet behind the warm words and soft soap that were ladled out by the Prime Minister in Derby and by her Education Secretary in the Commons, it seems that no new money is available and there is the potential for HE funding cuts. In her speech, the Prime Minister tried to talk the talk on social mobility and aspiration, but she did little to walk the walk and address either the FE sector, in which 10% of HE is delivered, or the problems with 16-to-18 provision that many colleges are suffering, including the one in which she chose to make her speech. It will take more than a brush-by in Derby one afternoon in February to remedy those issues.

The terms of reference published by the Department state that the review cannot make recommendations on tax policy and must make recommendations in keeping with the Government’s fiscal policies. Will the Minister confirm that that means there will be no new money for the policies in the review? Does it mean that savings will have to be found elsewhere in the FE budget if changes are to be made? My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central challenged him and, to give him credit, he made a commitment that access and widening participation funding will not be diminished as a result of the review. I warn him that the Treasury has a long reach and he will need a stout shield to resist it in this area and others.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, unless the Government are at least prepared to put more money into the sector, it is difficult to understand how we will get a sustainable system for funding universities? The Minister needs to be clear about that.

[Gordon Marsden]

I absolutely agree. As the Minister is eager to explore our policies, I remind him that Labour’s policies and our message of progression were taken on board so strongly by would-be and existing students, their families and their parents during the recent election because we had a cohesive narrative. Whether we were talking about adult learning, college learning or traditional cohorts of young people going into higher education, we said that we wanted to lift barriers and financial burdens to make a step change in social mobility. The Conservatives did not put that message across, and suffered accordingly. Given the restrictions on the review, they will miss another opportunity.

The Conservatives continue to falter on the reintroduction of maintenance grants, to which we have been committed for nearly two years. The Prime Minister engaged with that tortuously last week. Our position is echoed by the education sector, Universities UK, MillionPlus, the Chair of the Education Committee, the Treasury Committee and even the vice-chancellor of the private University of Buckingham, Sir Anthony Seldon. UUK has said that there are ways in which the current system can be improved, such as by reintroducing maintenance grants, as has MillionPlus, but it is likely that colleges and universities will be expected to cover any extra costs. The Prime Minister implied that in her speech last week when she said the Government will have to look at how

“learners receive maintenance support, both from Government and universities and colleges.”

We have some idea of how that extra funding might be delivered under her policies: by robbing Peter to pay Paul. We saw the same sleight of hand from the Secretary of State in The Sunday Times, on the BBC and in his statement last week, when he talked about cutting the cost of tuition fees.

The bottom line is that those who already have a lot will be given more. Wealthy students and graduates will benefit the most, because they can pay off debt the earliest. Over the next 10 years, there will be 13 million vacancies but only 7 million school leavers to fill them, yet great swathes of our university extramural departments, institutions such as the Open University and Birkbeck, and new providers, have been swept away or at least crippled by the tripling of fees since 2012.

There is a social dimension. One in five undergraduate entrants in England from low-participation neighbourhoods chooses or has no option but to study part time. The Government need to address that. However, when the Prime Minister talked about lifelong learning last week, there were no words of contrition for what the Government have done: tripling fees, scrapping maintenance grants and introducing adult learning loans, half of which have been handed back unused to the Treasury.

What we need to know from the Minister—apart from why, curiously, there has been no reference to 16-to-18 education—is what he is going to do to reassure people. No direct grant has been available for university courses in the arts and humanities, social sciences, computer science, design, architecture or economics since 2014-15. Will there be anything in the review to support those? The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have talked about two-year courses easing financial burdens on students, but where is the commitment to the continuous professional development that will be necessary in HE if those are to go forward correctly?

Finally, what are the principles behind the timing of the report? Of course, the report will not be independent but will have input—that is all it is—from the panel. However, that input may be quite weak. Why will there be no consideration of that? What will the Minister do to reassure us all that it is not just a PR exercise?

Henry Ford famously said that a customer can have any colour so long as it is black. If the Minister and his Government do not take proper regard of the various elements described in the debate, they will be just as guilty of that as Henry Ford.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend is making a strong case. I agree that it is good that the Government have recognised the challenge to university reputation that could come from the extension of university title without safeguards in place. Does he agree that the Government’s proposals are a watering down of Lords amendment 1 and that it will be necessary to look carefully at the guidance in due course to ensure that it adequately protects university title?

[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend, the esteemed chair of the all-party parliamentary university group, is absolutely right. She makes precisely the same point that so many people want to make to the Government. Edmund Burke famously said that the price of liberty was eternal vigilance. Well, the price of extracting these concessions from the Government today—if, by any chance, they get back into office after 8 June—will be at least very severe, if not eternal, scrutiny. Whatever the situation is, not just in the House but outside it, that scrutiny has to happen.

The agreed process is not a tick-box one, but one where there must be a big conversation. My hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and all sorts of other people have made this point. I pay tribute to Baroness Brown for pursuing the matter. I hope that the penny has finally dropped for the Government. As MillionPlus said,

“strong safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that any body that is awarded degree awarding powers…has met the criteria to do so, and will not put student interest at risk, or potentially damage the hard earned reputation of the entire higher education sector in the UK.”

That is why it is so important that the Government commit to that full and wide-ranging consultation.

I am pleased that the Minister has confirmed, as we discussed, that the consultation will look at international examples, such as Australia, in granting university title. It is crucial that the Government look at the range the Minister talked about: excellent teaching, sustained scholarship, cohesive academic community, learning infrastructure, knowledge exchange and—often forgotten—pastoral care, with universities actually supporting students to learn and not simply be part of some vague online community. As Research Fortnight said last year,

“the title of university needs to be seen as a privilege…not an automatic entitlement”.

That is why this consultation and the subsequent guidance are so important, with the market being open to new entrants, and that is why we will continue to press Ministers on this issue.

Let me move on to the granting of degree-awarding powers. As we have said from the beginning of proceedings on the Bill, that is at its heart significantly about trust, or the lack of it, and that was nobly elaborated and strengthened by the amendment tabled in the other place by Baroness Wolf, who is a fantastic advocate for the HE and FE sectors and who knows of what she speaks, which is why the Government have had to move on this issue. We have said right from the beginning that the Government need to make things very clear to allay some of the concerns that we, along with a number of people across the sector and the noble Baroness and others in the other House, have had about the principle of independence. Giving providers the option from day one to build up degree-awarding powers is potentially dangerous, and we are potentially taking a gamble on probationary degrees from probationary providers.

I do not want to reopen the debate we had on this in Committee, and I want to say very strongly that we are not against private providers or new providers as such, but the premise must be to strengthen the public sector and to ensure that new providers can demonstrate that they provide high-quality education—including robust governance that maintains academic quality, protects the student interest and has a demonstrable track record of delivering higher-quality education—before they are granted degree-awarding powers.

We know only too well from the issues that have arisen in the United States with private providers, from the criticisms Baroness Wolf has levelled at a similar process in Australia and from the issues involving BPP and the Apollo group three or four years ago why the safeguards being put into the Bill are entirely necessary. The Council for the Defence of British Universities said exactly that in its submissions.

We are therefore pleased that a significant degree of scrutiny will now be put in place and that, when granting, varying or revoking degree-awarding powers, the OFS must be advised by the independent designated quality body—the Government have conceded that—on a provider’s ability to provide and maintain HE provision of an appropriate quality and standard. It is crucial that there is a traffic light, if I can dare to use that expression, saying “Caution” and providing a guarantee of the process. It is important that the OFS is advised in the way I have described; after all, in the first few years of its existence, it will—whether we take the term neutrally or not—be a creature of the Government, but one that is on probation and on trial.

There are known quantities in this process, which is why I was pleased to hear the Minister praise the QAA for what it has done, but, as he said, things change with time. That is why we had to press the Government so hard to come forward with a new mechanism if the QAA were no longer to be the appropriate body. That is reiterated in the concession of an automatic review by the designated quality body if there is a change of ownership or a merger at a university. We know what can happen, just as people in the sector know—the people employed there and the people being taught in inferior conditions because of what has happened in the past. We therefore need these steps, alongside a consultation and guidance on university title, to protect our brand of HE providers.

This is about not just the letter but the spirit of these proposals, and that is reiterated by the automatic review, which will prevent university title and degree-awarding powers being purchased without the protections of quality assurance. We remain concerned that, should no independent designated quality body exist, the OFS must set up an independent specific committee. We were determined to encourage the Government to take that fall-back position. Their concession of an independent specific committee with a majority of members with no previous involvement with the OFS is crucial. It is also crucial that this body remains independent of Government and of the OFS, for the reasons that I have described.

I want to move on to the teaching excellence framework, and Lords amendment 23 and the amendments that the Government have tabled in lieu. The Minister said that the importance of teaching excellence was accepted across the House. Indeed, who would be against teaching excellence? However, the devil is always in the detail. In this case, the detail is that it took nearly six years to take through the research excellence framework process. We are therefore wise to think and to pause, particularly on the potential to differentiate fee levels at higher education institutions, which has been a major concern for many across the sector. We have expressed serious fears from the start, not least in the context of the ridiculously titled “gold, silver and bronze” scheme, which was no doubt dreamed up in the Minister’s office by someone in a post-Olympics euphoria back in the autumn.

People are concerned that any sort of link is bound to affect student decision making adversely, particularly in deterring students from low-income families from applying. Those concerns have been expressed right across the sector, from unions such as the UCU and Unison to a number of other groups. The Minister quotes somewhat selectively on occasion the groups that he wishes to quote, but I can assure him that a number of universities and university groups, including some of our most revered and aged, remain concerned about this. That is why it is crucial that the Government put in place a legislative commitment to a full independent review before the TEF could be used to differentiate fees and why it is right that that has been accepted and aided by the work that the Lords has put in. It gives us a different direction of travel from the rubber-stamping technocracy the Government previously had in mind for us.

The Government’s agenda on higher education has consistently hit students hard, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. As we have always said, we will do everything in our power to resist the TEF being used as a Trojan horse for the escalation of fees. We know from the Sutton Trust and from the various surveys about the daunting mountain of debt that is being imposed on students as a result of how this Government and their predecessor have gone forward on this: what an impediment to their hopes and dreams. Now that inflation is leaping, post-Brexit, to the sorts of levels that will bring in increases in future, we are right to be concerned that there should be a proper process in how we take this forward.

Along with the unions involved and many others in the sector, we feel very strongly about any sort of link that affects student decision making adversely—particularly, as I say, with regard to low-income families. The NUS and the UCU have strong concerns that the TEF would create a high-stakes, multi-tiered system and increase pressures on teachers, as well as incentivising universities to cut teaching in subjects that score less well. Sally Hunt, the general secretary of UCU, said last December:

“If the Government really wants to improve teaching quality, it”

also

“needs to think…about whether staff are supported”

enough

“to deliver their best teaching.”

It is therefore vital that the Government have now finally, on the back of the strength of the concerns of our colleagues and the people who really know what is going on in the sector, found the courage to put in place a legislative commitment to a full independent review before the TEF could be used for differentiating fees.

I was grateful to the Minister for spelling out so clearly the chronology of that process, because it is not simply about the extra year, but about the process itself. We would have preferred—and we will still campaign for—the link between the TEF and the fees to be removed altogether, but we know that we have entered a process where we have to do the best we can with this Bill.

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[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the review is welcome but that it would have been really good to hear the Minister say this afternoon that he would definitely want to act on its outcome, not simply ignore it, which could happen in the future?

[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend knows that I cannot be responsible for the Minister’s mood music. I can only respond to what he has committed to do in the Bill, and its commitment to an independent review is very important. A whole raft of people, not just the Lords, are concerned. The combined efforts of an outside challenge, the wisdom of the Lords, who constrained the Minister by inserting the original amendment, and our determination have resulted in welcome concessions.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Committee Debate: 12th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)]

Academic freedom is one of the fundamental strengths of our higher education system. I understand the desire of the hon. Member for Blackpool South to find the best way of protecting it, and I sympathise with the motivation behind amendments 299 and 301, which seek to enhance the protections for academic freedom already in the Bill.

The language used in the Bill is based on the protections in the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, which have successfully ensured for nearly a quarter of a century that HE institutions can develop and teach entirely free from political interference. That approach has proved to be robust over time and, in our view, it is the best way of ensuring that academic freedom is protected in the future. The Bill preserves academic freedom as a broad general principle, with specific areas of protection explicitly and unequivocally set out. By contrast, defining academic freedom too tightly would risk limiting its meaning and, by extension, limiting the Bill’s protections.

The Bill imposes the first statutory duty on the Secretary of State to

“have regard to the need to protect academic freedom”

whenever he or she issues guidance, conditions of grant or directions to the office for students. It introduces a set of protections for academic freedom that apply comprehensively to the ways in which the Government can influence how the OFS operates. It refreshes and reinforces the current protections for academic freedom, ensuring that they are fit for our HE system today and are sufficiently robust to last for decades into the future. Although I completely agree with the intention behind the amendments, I do not think that they add anything practical to the Bill’s thorough and comprehensive approach to protecting academic freedom.

The hon. Member for Blackpool South raised the question of staff. The Bill supports the academic freedom of staff at HE institutions by giving the OFS the power to impose a public interest governance condition on registered providers, as we discussed when we debated clause 14. Providers subject to such a condition will have to ensure that their governing documents include the principle that academic staff have freedom within the law to question received wisdom and to put forward new ideas and controversial opinions without fear of losing their job or their privileges. As the hon. Gentleman said, that is a vital principle, which is exactly why the Government have ensured that it must be included as a component of the condition set out in clause 14.

Amendment 162 would define academic freedom differently, by referencing section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, which is a provision about freedom of speech and in particular about the obligation of certain HE institutions to

“take…steps…to ensure that freedom of speech…is secured for…students and employees…and for visiting speakers.”

Defining academic freedom in that way would introduce a lack of clarity and would not adequately capture what the Bill seeks to protect.

Our approach in the Bill is absolutely clear that academic freedom must be protected. It also sets out comprehensively the areas in which the Government must not interfere:

“the content of particular courses and the manner in which they are taught, supervised and assessed…the criteria for the selection, appointment and dismissal of…staff…the criteria for the admission of students”

and the application of those criteria in particular cases.

I remind the Committee what Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, stated in his evidence on this point:

“I also particularly like the implicit and explicit recognition of autonomy”.––[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2016; c. 22-23, Q32.]

Amendment 162—inadvertently, I am sure—would actually weaken the protection the Bill provides for academic freedom. I ask the hon. Member for Blackpool South to withdraw his amendment.

[Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his considered and measured response to amendment 299. It was helpful of him to elaborate some of those key issues in the way he did. As I have said previously, I am mindful of the fact that these things are extremely difficult to define comprehensively on the face of a Bill, but I welcome the direction of travel in respect of the issue we have raised. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham can speak for herself, but the Minister is right to say that she has raised a separate issue. As I am satisfied with the Minister’s response to my amendments, I am content to withdraw them.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I listened to what the Minister had to say. I am not particularly allied to that specific form of words, but, as the Bill mentions academic freedom so much, there should be something in it about what it encompasses. I leave the Minister to reflect on that.

I have one further question. The clauses that refer to academic freedom mention the courses and

“the manner in which they are taught, supervised or assessed”.

If they are taught in part through a programme of visiting lecturers, does freedom of speech apply to those lectures? The point of my question was to ascertain whether the Bill should to go beyond academic freedom to include freedom of speech. If the intention was to limit that because of other legislation, which is absolutely right and fair, there should be some clarity from the Government on that.

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[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I started off being a little bit concerned about this, and now I am getting quite anxious. We all want better use of data. We want the best use possible to be made of UCAS data to inform any policies on social mobility or widening access to universities and to understand what leads students to apply to one institution and not another. That is all very useful information. As the Minister said, it might also help us understand the economic benefit attached to a higher education experience. However, all the examples that he gave were easily understandable as being in the public interest, so I cannot understand why the Government will not make that more explicit on the face of the Bill. That would give a lot of reassurance to people who are very concerned about how the data might be used and for what purposes.

I do not think anybody is against more flexible use of the data or them being passed over to researchers more frequently than annually, but the point UCAS has made is that it is not resourced to do this. Its primary function is to get students admitted to university and the course they want to study. This is an add-on. If we keep adding things to the information that UCAS has to pass on, there will be a resource issue. The Government have to address that, one way or another.

The other point I would like the Minister to concentrate on is that there is already a body that covers people wanting to use these sorts of data: the Administrative Data Research Network. People have to sign up to be a member of that network and agree to protocols. I suppose my question is, why not just make it a requirement? If he does not want researchers to have to join that network, at least we would be clear about the sorts of protocols to which people would have to sign up to ensure that they use the data correctly and that there will be a clear public benefit.

We are moving to a world of greater marketisation of higher education and there is no longer any guarantee that people might request that information simply for the public benefit. In fact, it is likely that a number of bodies will want it for a whole variety of commercial reasons that might not be in the student interest at all and that might not sufficiently protect individual data and individual information. I hope the Minister will take this away and have another look to see whether sufficient safeguards are in place.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 71, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 72 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 73

Higher Education Funding Council for England

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Gordon Marsden]

The Minister will be relieved to know that I do not rise to oppose the principle that the Higher Education Funding Council for England should cease to exist, as that would blow a large hole in the Bill—I am sure he would not wish that to happen, and I would not necessarily wish it to happen, either—but I want to tease out some of the implications of that process.

I refer all members of the Committee back to the original White Paper, which was produced in May. Chapter 3 was intriguingly titled “Architecture”—whether it is classical or brutalist I leave for future generations to judge—and the chapter summary included a rather arresting phrase:

“The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Office for Fair Access (OFFA)”—

the Committee will be relieved to know that I am not going to talk about the Office for Fair Access—

“will be dissolved following creation of the OfS.”

Leaving aside the image of mad scientists and test tubes created by the dissolution, I want to raise a serious and practical point in the context of what the White Paper said at an earlier point, on page 51, about the teaching excellence framework.

What are the implications of what I can only describe as the interesting ménage à trois, which will continue for some time, between HEFCE, the QAA and the OFS—with OFFA being a peeping Tom, if we want to continue the metaphor? What will that mean in practical terms for the administration of these important processes?

This is for illustration—let us not reopen the debate about the TEF—but paragraph 20 states:

“In Year One, where the TEF does not involve a separate assessment process, the Government will publish a list of…eligible providers who have had a successful QA assessment and therefore have achieved a rating of Meets Expectations.”

Of course, that has now been changed. Paragraph 20 continues:

“From Year Two onwards, TEF will be delivered by HEFCE working in collaboration with QAA, until such time as the OfS is established. After this point, the OfS will deliver TEF.”

It is the process over those three years and what the relationship between all these various bodies will be in practical terms that concerns me most. The process would concern me in any case, whatever the broader political context—I am sorry if the Minister inwardly groans when I refer to Brexit again—but I am concerned about that two-and-a-half or three-year period. I assume, although he might wish to correct me, that it is expected that the OFS will deliver TEF from 2019. That is how it looks at the moment but, as has already been discussed—most people, whatever their views, recognise this—those two or three years will be a period of considerable turmoil for our institutions and the way they are regarded in the outside world in the context of the Brexit negotiations, which may very well mirror that period.

I am deeply concerned, as are others—this has been mentioned to me by numerous vice-chancellors and other people who are concerned—that if we do not have a bit more clarity about how the relationship between HEFCE and the OFS is going to work in the transition period and where the QAA stands in all of this, that will not be good for the reputation of our universities internationally or for establishing the OFS on a clear footing. I appreciate that the Minister does not want to give a long exegesis on this today, but would be helpful if he gave at least some indication of how he sees those bodies interacting in that period and, in particular, what the implications are for the staffing and the resources of those different organisations, given the conversations and discussions we had earlier.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Joseph Johnson]

We would not expect to set out the precise circumstances governing the use of this power in the Bill, but they will be subject to guidance from the Department to the office for students in the normal manner in due course.

[Gordon Marsden]

The Minister asks me yet again to trust in the sentiment of what his Department has done, but the answer, I fear, is that there was no specific or distinct assessment of the sort for which I have asked. Nevertheless, I have heard what he has to say. We will see how the transfer operates, and on that basis I am content to leave it at that.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 62 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 63 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 64

Other fees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I beg to move amendment 239, in clause 64, page 38, line 43, at end insert—

“(6) Any fees or costs that arise from the activities of any one institution are only liable to be paid by that institution.”

This amendment will ensure that where a Higher Education Institution incurs fees or costs only that Institution is liable to meet the obligations incurred.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. The Minister is trying to reassure her by saying it will be all right on the night. The truth is that we are looking at something the Minister wants; he keeps telling us we need it. We are looking at having a very large number of new providers. I make no comment on whether that is good, bad or indifferent. The fact is that we are looking to get a very large number of new providers. Does my hon. Friend not agree that it is probably unreasonable to expect the new providers to bear some of the increased operational costs of the OFS for that? The likelihood is that the amount of operational costs that existing providers will be expected to bear under the process the Minister describes will increase significantly.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I want to come back to saying to the Minister that there is acceptance in the sector of the broad direction of activity establishing the OFS. There has been some consultation with them but it is the view of many that, if the Government want to move to this particular regulation and quality assessment and research regime, they must substantially pay for it, and not put the costs on to a group of people who are already having to pay a substantial amount. I accept that it is a loan but they will ultimately have to pay substantially for the whole of the sector, and we have to put a brake on that somewhere. For me, the brake is here. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider Government new clause 2.

[Gordon Marsden]

I was not clear whether the Minister would speak to proposed new clause 2 before we had the clause stand part debate. However, since you have asked me to speak, Sir Edward, I will do so.

It seems to me that the Minister has got himself into a complete tangle over the business of fees. He will remember the Micawber principle that the difference between income and expenditure is the difference between happiness and misery. The Minister seems to be in some misery on this matter at the moment because he is unable to declare what amount the happiness will be.

I want to probe a little further on two or three specific points. The document that supports the case for the creation of the OFS, which is subtitled “a new public body in place of the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Office for Fair Access”, was published in June 2016. That was before the referendum and all the consequences that flow from it. My question to the Minister is a technical one. Has that document been revised in any shape or form since?

Very little information has been given by the Government today. I accept that these matters cannot go in the Bill, but the paucity of information from the Minister when he says, “This will happen or we will have this, that or the other,” on something as crucial as establishing a new financial institution as well as a new non-departmental body, is pretty poor.

The Minister’s response to the comments of my hon. Friends about cost-sharing were very vague. I know myself from having spent a number of years in the private sector, working with a number of private institutions, how difficult and corrosive the issues of cost-sharing can sometimes be within companies, let alone between organisations. I really do not think that the Minister has given a satisfactory answer in that area.

I refer the Minister to the comment he made earlier: “We are looking at this and we will produce information in due course.” In fact, the Government did produce information in due course. The information is contained in a document I have, and very revealing it is too. On page 22 of the “Case for creation of the Office for Students”, there are two tables. One talks about the operating costs of the OFS over the period 2018 to 2027. I found it very interesting that in 2018-19, the first year of operation, the operating cost will be £30.9 million. In 2019-20, it will be £32.5 million, and it will be £34.1 million in 2020-21. If my maths does not fail me, that is a fairly modest increase between 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21, whereas in my experience of the private sector—I accept that this is not a private sector body, but it is in a situation of quasi operating as a private sector body—operating costs for the first two or three years of an organisation are always substantially higher in years 2 and 3 than they are in the first year. The Minister might want to elaborate on the basis on which those operating costs were dealt with.

However, perhaps more revealing is the stuff referred to in table 2, which gives the estimated split between the costs covered by the sector and those covered by the Government. In 2018-19, we have a figure of £14.9 million for total Government support, as opposed to £16 million for total registration fees. Then there are separate and much smaller figures: £1.9 million for new provider support and £4.8 million for activities with wider economic or societal benefits. There is also transition funding, to which the Minister referred, of £8.2 million. In that context, depending on how we want to do the maths, the balance between Government support and support from the university sector—as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham and others have made clear, substantially that means money coming from students —is 50:50.

When we go to the figures for 2019-20 and 2020-21, we are told that Government support will drop from £14.9 million to £8 million and the total registration fees income will be £24.4 million. I have checked, and that balance is retained during the subsequent years of the Department’s forecast. That means that the Government are bearing a load that is 25% of the operating costs of the office for students and the university sector and the students who fund it are being asked to cough up 75%.

If the Minister wants to say that those figures are inaccurate, he may do so, but he might find it rather embarrassing, given that his own Department produced this document in June. Really and truly, I do not think we have had very good or accurate explanations from the Minister today. If he were before the Select Committee, it might have some interesting questions for him.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that it is hardly co-funding for the student body to be carrying such a weight of the costs of the OFS and the Government so little, and that that is why we are so exercised about this measure—because it is unduly burdensome on students?

[Gordon Marsden]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I absolutely agree and I will repeat what I said earlier. This is a double-whammy in terms of the costing structure that the Department is suggesting for the university providers, and by implication. This is the reason why I raise Brexit. In an uncertain world, it will pile more problems on them in the first two or three years. It is a whammy on the students. It is also a whammy on the new providers, which will be entrepreneurial in many cases and will not be able to bear more than is suggested in the Bill. If the OFS begins to crumble financially because of the incompetence of the costings produced by the Government, where will that leave the ability of the OFS to supervise and protect new providers? It is a dog’s breakfast, and the Minister has done nothing to unscramble it.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Gordon Marsden]

I will withdraw the amendment, but I am sad, yet again, that the Minister thinks that the only thing that matters is the people who sign the cheques or who press the buttons or take the decisions. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but that is the way it will be seen outside the massed ranks of the Government by many in the sector: this is an opportunity missed, as it has been missed so far on the Bill with students, to put them in the frame for a brand-new structure. That is what people will be concerned about. I will withdraw the amendment on behalf of the Opposition, but the Government should think very carefully about the way in which they are alienating so many people in the sector. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendments made: 49, in schedule 4, page 73, line 39, leave out “either or both of”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 50, in schedule 4, page 74, line 1, leave out “recommended function or functions” and insert “assessment functions”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 51, in schedule 4, page 74, line 4, leave out “and standards of” and insert

“of, and the standards applied to,”.

See the explanatory statement for amendment 46.

Amendment 52, in schedule 4, page 74, line 6, leave out sub-paragraphs (3) and (4).

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 53, in schedule 4, page 74, line 19, leave out from beginning to “and”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 54, in schedule 4, page 74, line 24, leave out “an assessment function” and insert “the assessment functions”.

See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.

Amendment 55, in schedule 4, page 74, line 27, leave out “function” and insert “functions”.—(Joseph Johnson.)

See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I beg to move amendment 232, in schedule 4, page 74, line 30, at end insert “and students”.

This amendment and amendment 233 would ensure that the OfS consults students before body suitable to carry out assessment functions is designated.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendments made: 56, in schedule 4, page 75, line 1, after “include” insert “the”.

This amendment clarifies that when the Secretary of State provides a notice all of the reasons for the decision are given.

Amendment 57, in schedule 4, page 75, line 6, leave out “and standards of” and insert

“of, and the standards applied to,”.

See the explanatory statement for amendment 46.

Amendment 58, in schedule 4, page 75, line 30, leave out “an assessment function” and insert “the assessment functions”.

See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.

Amendment 59, in schedule 4, page 75, line 33, leave out “designated function” and insert “assessment functions”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 60, in schedule 4, page 75, line 37, leave out “designated function” and insert “assessment functions”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 61, in schedule 4, page 76, line 4, leave out second “designated” and insert “assessment”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 62, in schedule 4, page 76, line 25, at end insert—

“Power of the OfS to give directions

9A (1) The OfS may give the designated body general directions about the performance of any of the assessment functions.

(2) In giving such directions, the OfS must have regard to the need to protect the expertise of the designated body.

(3) Such directions must relate to—

(a) English higher education providers or registered higher education providers generally, or

(b) a description of such providers.

(4) The designated body must comply with any directions given under this paragraph.”

This amendment allows the OfS to give the designated body directions regarding the exercise of the assessment functions. In using this power, the OfS must have regard to the need to protect the expertise of the body.

Amendment 63, in schedule 4, page 76, line 29, leave out “designated function” and insert “assessment functions”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 64, in schedule 4, page 76, line 30, leave out “that function” and insert “those functions”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 65, in schedule 4, page 76, line 40, after “provided” insert “in England”.

This amendment clarifies that in Schedule 4 a “graduate” means a graduate of a higher education course provided in England.

Amendment 66, in schedule 4, page 77, line 1, leave out “an assessment function” and insert “the assessment functions”.—(Joseph Johnson.)

See the explanatory statement for amendment 44.

Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 27

Power of designated body to charge fees

Amendments made: 67, in clause 27, page 16, line 15, leave out subsection (3).

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 68, in clause 27, page 16, line 20, leave out “or (3)”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 69, in clause 27, page 16, line 21, leave out from “provider” to “by reference to” in line 22 and insert “—

(a) may be calculated,”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 70, in clause 27, page 16, line 25, leave out from “functions;” to “may” in line 29 and insert “and

(b) ”

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 71, in clause 27, page 16, line 32, leave out “or (3)”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 72, in clause 27, page 16, line 34, leave out

“in the case of subsection (2)(a),”.

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Amendment 73, in clause 27, page 16, line 37, leave out paragraph (b).—(Joseph Johnson.)

This amendment is consequential on amendment 43.

Clause 27, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 28

Power to approve an access and participation plan

[Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 200, in clause 28, page 17, line 12, at end insert?

“(1A) The OfS must appoint an independent Director for Fair Access and Participation responsible for approving access and participation plans.”

This amendment would strengthen the powers of the proposed Director for Fair Access and Participation in line with the current powers of the Director and those proposed in the Higher Education Green Paper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

I welcome what the Minister has said, which is consonant with what he has said on previous occasions. I repeat our view that it would be beneficial to make the amendments, for the reasons that I have given, but I accept the Minister’s assurance that he is giving them careful thought. There will be a number of opportunities to develop them at other stages of the Bill’s passage, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I beg to move amendment 179, in clause 28, page 17, line 16, at end insert—

‘( ) The OfS must, in deciding whether to approve a plan, have regard to whether the governing body of an institution has consulted with relevant student representatives in producing its plan.

( ) In this section “relevant student representatives” means representatives who may be deemed to represent students on higher education courses provided by the institution including, but not limited to, persons or bodies as described by Part 2 of the Education Act 1994.”

This amendment would ensure that when higher education providers produce an Access and Participation Plan, they must consult with students and student representatives, including – but not limited to – the students’ union at that higher education provider.

This amendment would add a new subsection to clause 28, to ensure that before a participation and access plan is approved, the institution in question can demonstrate that students have been consulted in the drawing up of that plan. It is a positive step forward that, through measures in the Bill, institutions will be required to produce participation and access plans. I know that a number of organisations, including the National Union of Students, welcome and support those provisions. However, as the Minister will be aware, much of the excellent access and outreach work at universities is done by students, often co-ordinated by their students unions. The amendment would therefore recognise the work of students and ensure that they are involved when their university produces the access and participation plan. The amendment would give student representatives the chance to discuss their views on their university’s plan and ensure that it reflects the interest of current and future students.

We had a long discussion in this morning’s session about student representation, but I hope that the Minister can be a bit more forthcoming about student involvement in the plan. Frankly, it is hard to envisage how a plan for widening access and participation could be drawn up without speaking to current students and involving them in what that plan ultimately looks like. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

The Minister will understand that I can speak only to the Labour Front Benchers’ two amendments. It is encouraging to hear that he has made provision for co-operation between UKRI and the OFS. He mentioned clause 103, so no doubt we will have another opportunity to discuss the issue when we examine that part of the Bill. On that basis, I will be content to withdraw the amendment.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I am afraid that I am not quite so easily repleted—[Laughter.] Clause 103 states:

“The OfS and UKRI may cooperate with one another”.

I accept that subsection (2) gives the Secretary of State an ability to make them co-operate, but the clause does not really capture what we are trying to achieve with our amendments, which is to ensure that the research community is included when research degree-awarding powers are given. The provision might include UKRI, but it does not include the national academies and other learned societies.

I am sure that, having heard my point again, the Minister will want to go away and look into it. Perhaps he will give us an indication of what might be in the guidance or regulations that would assist the OFS in coming to its decisions on research degree awarding powers.

[Gordon Marsden]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

No. I said that Martin Wolf was not about to cross the Floor to join the Labour party and that is exactly the case. [Interruption.] If Mr Wolf wanted to put things on record I am sure he could do so, but that is the point I am making. The Bill is causing concern among the Conservative party’s own traditional supporters and representatives, and elsewhere. That is the important issue to be addressed here.

The Bill, as the Council for the Defence of British Universities has said,

“is designed to give encouragement to ‘new providers’ but has few safeguards to protect students from for-profit organisations… Experience in this country, and particularly in the US, suggests extreme caution is needed to protect the reputation of British universities”.

Those are some of the issues that we have tried to mitigate in our amendments. I have asked the Minister a range of specific questions regarding the TEF paper, and I invite him to respond to them.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Given the gung-ho attitude that the Minister has displayed in wanting to open up the sector to alternative providers, I am not sure I will get anywhere with amendment 234, but I will try, because as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South has outlined, there is considerable concern across the higher education sector that not enough regulation and requirement is being put on to new institutions before they are allowed to have degree-awarding powers.

The amendment would put a few additional requirements into clause 40(4). The OFS would have to assure itself that the provider was able to maintain the required standards of a UK degree for a period of perhaps three to five years—the length of time we would expect a degree to last—to ensure that it was properly bedded in. The reason for that, as my hon. Friend outlined clearly, is to prevent students from undertaking courses and degrees with new providers that have not been adequately tested and where there are not enough safeguards in place. If a course falls, students have to transfer or be compensated in some way, so the amendment is an attempt to put a few more safeguards in the system.

The amendment asks that

“the provider operates in the interest of students and the public.”

That is important because, as my hon. Friend said, we are all genuinely worried that some providers could operate simply in the interests of their shareholders, without sufficient regard to the needs of students.

We have rehearsed a whole set of arguments, which I will not go through again, about the way in which institutions should demonstrate a public interest. They should have a civic role and be judged in exactly the same way as all other universities. The Minister has not really given us an adequate explanation as to why he has adopted a gung-ho approach with so little regulation and requirements being placed on alternative providers, and he has not mentioned what he will do if students end up losing out. The Committee has not sufficiently added requirements to the Bill to ensure that students’ interests, and indeed the public interest, are safeguarded.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

I listened carefully to the Minister, as I have throughout our proceedings. At least he is now addressing some of the meat of the issues, rather than going off and misrepresenting Labour’s position, which I warned him not to do at the beginning because we have made our position clear.

The Minister attempts to smear the Opposition by saying that we are not in favour of for-profit institutions. We did not say that. We said that for for-profit institutions to be absorbing significant amounts of public money and support—the implication of his proposals—we need rigorous inspection and process. I do not believe that he has demonstrated that today by offering a system of, “We’ll do it this way and that way with guidance.”

Where is the evidence? The Minister has produced no evidence for the so-called stifling of all the private institutions that are just springing up. We heard evidence from private sector alternative providers, including Condé Nast. Those providers were not—dare I say—typical of the sort of providers that we will get during this great revolution that the Minister is talking about. If he looked beyond his obsession and besottedness with his competition gurus to the possible implications if his proposals went wrong, he will see that we are not crying about things that will not happen. These are real risks and it is incumbent on us as policy makers and Members of Parliament to look not just to the utopian view but to a realistic view. Public money going into this expansion needs guarantees for the students and for the people who work in the institutions. If they do not get those guarantees, not only will a great deal of public money be lost but the public reputation of our higher education system will be at risk.

It is clear that the Minister is not going to move on these amendments. We will not press the amendments to a vote at this point and will make a decision on clause 40 when we have completed the further deliberations on the clause.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I want to say briefly to the Minister that I do not think that it should be easy to get degree-awarding powers in this country. If we are really serious about upholding the quality and excellence of higher education, there should be a rigorous system and, because of the Minister’s remarks and the lack of safeguards for students and the public, I wish to press amendment 234 to a vote.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Committee Debate: 7th Sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 15th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Gordon Marsden]

When I referred to a major increase, I was not commenting on the specifics of the percentage; I was talking about the fact that it will affect all students. Neither the Minister nor, as far as I am aware, anyone from his Department has seen fit to comment on the issue, but over the summer a number of universities have taken the confirmation in the written statement as a green light to put up fees not simply for those who enrol in 2017-18, but for those who already have a loan. There was some discussion in the media—again, I do not think the Minister took part in it—about whether, for example, a reference to the potential for fees to go up on the University of Exeter’s website constituted a good enough broadcasting of the issue. This will have a retrospective impact on students at a number of universities, and it has come about on the back of the way in which the Minister chose to announce the process.

If I remember correctly, when the Minister and his colleagues were pressed on the process, they said that they were doing it in accordance with the requirements of previous legislation. It is curious—I put it no more strongly than that—that when it suits him to smuggle a measure out in a statement on the last day of term, he prays in aid legislation that is more than a decade old, but when it comes to this thing, it is referenced in the context of the main Bill but without our being told anything more about the teaching excellence framework that will enable fees to go up.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend is making a very important and powerful point. Does he agree that the situation is becoming even more complicated because now, we understand, there will be a link between fee increases and the TEF results, but the Government are not being clear about what the uplift in fees can cover? One would assume, as there is a link between the TEF and the fee level, that it would be to support the quality of provision within institutions, but we understand that that uplift in fees might be used to fund secondary school education, requiring students to fund not only their own education but that of secondary school students.

[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend, indefatigable as ever, makes an excellent point. I will not dwell on the issue to which she refers. It was part of the substance of the Prime Minister’s speech, and a lot of it was in the statement made by the Secretary of State for Education the other day, so I will not go into any detail on it other than to observe that my hon. Friend is absolutely right: if universities are to take on a significant, major role—there can be lots of discussions about how that is done, the value of it and all the rest—inevitably that is another element that will call upon their resources.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

I beg to move amendment 168, in clause 13, page 8, line 12, at end insert

“and which must include information about how students will be protected from any reasonable financial loss if an event specified by the OfS were to occur, in particular the closure of a course or a higher education provider.”

This amendment would ensure that students are protected from reasonable financial loss if their provider or course closes.

In the interests of allowing a little light as opposed to heat into the proceedings, and given the nature of the hour, I do not intend to speak at great length to the amendment, although I will raise some broader issues when we debate a subsequent one. Again, I draw on what my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North said in the previous debate about the challenge to the Government to recognise the interests and concerns of students, which is what the amendment is designed to do. So that Members are in no doubt, clause 13 relates to initial and ongoing registration conditions, and the amendment would insert a very important additional condition.

We have heard a lot about transparency in the Bill, and about how things can be put forward and on the record, and early in Committee we had some debate about the nature of documents and all the rest of it. However, that does not relate to one of the most crucial things that students will want to know, in particular those who are attending new providers—a subject for further debate. There is nothing wrong with being new, and on Second Reading the Minister scratched very hard for precedents going back to the 1820s and 1830s and talked about cockney universities that are now world-beaters, such as University College London and King’s College London. He was right and, as an historian, I praise him for referring to historical precedent. Sometimes, however, it can be stretched a little too far, and on that occasion I think either he or his team did so.

Nevertheless, new providers have to show their bona fides and students must have confidence in them. My amendment is designed to make it easier for them to have that confidence. Student representatives are extremely concerned about the lack of detail of what would happen if things went wrong—and in life things do go wrong. Things might not go wrong in the Conservative manifesto, but they go wrong in life, and then have to be addressed. In this modest amendment, I am suggesting that the clause should include some information about how students will be protected from any reasonable loss if an event specified by the OFS were to occur, in particular the closure of a course or a higher education provider. That is the more difficult and detailed stuff, not the principle or the fine-sounding words that can roll off the Minister’s tongue.

This is a probing amendment and I am not asking for it to be included in the Bill, but we want to hear a lot more detail from the Minister throughout our deliberations if we are to be convinced that his safeguards for students are adequate.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I merely want to emphasise to the Minister the extent of NUS concern about this issue. I met NUS representatives recently, and they understood that the Bill allows for new entrants into the sector and creates a registration system, which means that in future some institutions might fall foul of that system. The NUS does not have an issue with that, but with what protection there would be for students if a course closes or if the institution itself closes.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South said, this is a modest amendment, but it seeks to put something on the face of the Bill to include information about how students will be recompensed if their course or institution closes. Furthermore, NUS anxiety is based on experience of course closures, in which it has taken a long time for students to get their particular issues sorted out, such as transfer to another institution or on to another course. What reassurances can the Minister give to students who are really worried about that matter?

Higher Education and Research Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

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

[Gordon Marsden]

This amendment, again, is in line with transparency before Parliament, particularly transparency in serious cases. That is what it would be, in our opinion, if a provider were removed from the register. We had a run-around on this subject in another context on Tuesday. The Minister said to me then, perfectly reasonably, that the register would be done in real time, that it was an ongoing process and so on. I observed that things done on a rolling basis day by day are often things that people do not pick up on.

After all, if a provider is to be removed from the register, there must be substantial reasons for doing so, and it is in the public interest, let alone the interests of students and other stakeholders, that that should be made clear. They should not be constrained to look on a website every day to see whether their institution has not made the grade in some way. As a de minimis process, it should be the case that the OFS must submit, according to the terms of the amendment,

“any list produced under subsection (7) to the Secretary of State who shall lay it before Parliament.”

That is not onerous—indeed, one might say that stronger things could have been put into the Bill. However, it is important for the sake of transparency and confidence in the sector, particularly if we are going to be dealing with a significant number of new and alternative providers over the next 10 years, that the public and students have confidence, and that the communities in which those new providers provide higher education have confidence. That is why we tabled amendment 175 as a probing amendment. I hope that the Minister will understand the difference between simply putting something on a register in real time and having a fixed period in which to lay it before Parliament.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I will speak to new clause 5. The clause continues the argument set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South that in the event of deregistration, the interests of students must be paramount. In particular, students and their degrees must be protected, and they must be able to prepare and decide what to do if their institution is deregistered or their course is removed.

The purpose of new clause 5 is to ensure that something is put on the face of the Bill about how and when students will be informed that there is a problem with their institution. It will ensure that the governing body of a higher education provider informs students enrolled on one of its courses if it is notified by the OFS of its intention to suspend the registration of the institution or remove it from the register, or if it refuses to approve the new access and participation plan, which would have the effect of removing it from the register. It stresses that the governing body must notify students if a suspension or deregistration is to take place, when it will take effect, whether it is enforced or voluntary and, critically, whether there is an expiry date for any existing access and participation plan.

The new clause is straightforward: it simply seeks to set out in the Bill some basic protections for students to ensure that they are informed well in advance. Although the new clause does not say this, students should be notified before something inaccurate gets into the media that might alarm them. They should be informed well in advance of anything leaking out and be given clear information about whether there is going to be a suspension or deregulation, and when. Critically—this was the purpose of the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South—students must be enabled to take relevant and appropriate action early enough to safeguard their current and future studies. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

I thank the Minister for his response. It is clear that, if not a philosophical, there might be a slight ideological division for us on whether it should be “must”, or “considers it to be appropriate”. He will be relieved to know I will not go down that route again. I accept the thrust of his arguments and am glad that he has been induced, if I may put it that way, to speak as passionately on the subject as he has, because that will enable a much clearer steer to go to the OFS. I think that steer is important, as I have said before, with any new institution, notwithstanding the wisdom of the Secretary of State in appointing whoever she does to those particular posts. On that basis, for my own part—my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham must speak for herself—I am prepared to withdraw amendment 175.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I listened carefully to what the Minister said. I think that he was assuring us that the protection plan will contain clear guidance about how students are to be informed in the event of an impending deregistration or suspension. If that was indeed what the Minister was saying, that suffices for the moment and I will not press new clause 5.

[Gordon Marsden]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 18, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 19 and 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.



Clause 21

Refusal to renew an access and participation plan

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

I hear what the Minister has to say. I am grateful for his explanation and, on that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 23

Assessing the quality and standards of higher education

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[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?

Higher Education and Research Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Thank you, Mr Hanson. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again.

The amendment seeks to include a specific duty on the office for students in the Bill, to make it clear that maintaining confidence in the sector must be high up the OFS agenda. The UK’s higher education sector has an extremely strong global reputation, and a degree from a university in the UK is generally of high value. The Bill must therefore protect the reputation of the sector, especially in the context of an increasingly competitive global market and the possible negative ramifications of Brexit for our universities. If we do not mandate a body to look after the health of the entire sector, we risk losing that hard-earned status. The amendment, which would insert that duty in the Bill, therefore seeks to reassure the sector that the Government have its interests at heart, that they are listening to it and that they understand the need to promote and maintain confidence in it.

Amendment 136 is also sensible because it seeks to ensure that student interests are protected by including the need for consultation with students when putting an access and participation plan together. That is sensible. I am not sure why someone would want to draw up a participation plan that is based on extending access to universities for additional students and then not to consult students. That would seem nonsensical. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that students will be put at the heart of such plans and will be consulted when they are being drawn up.

[Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to return to serving under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. It is also a pleasure to speak in support of our amendments, and to back the amendment moved by my hon. Friend.

I will say no more on amendment 159—my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham has put our case strongly—but amendment 136 is in line with the gist of what we have been arguing throughout consideration of the Bill so far: if we are to have an office for students, we need to involve students as often as possible in all its vital aspects. We are genuinely disappointed that, despite their warm words about the role of students, the Government still seem determined not to put anything in the Bill about it. Their vote against our amendment the other day underlined that.

Amendment 140 is the other side of the coin. I shall not detain the Committee long with it, because in our extensive debate this morning the Minister took pains to make the point that he wanted to see collaboration and innovation. I do not want to suggest he should put his money where his mouth is; I merely invite him to insert a clause along the lines of our amendment. No doubt that would give some comfort to the groups that have been concerned about collaboration and innovation.

I have reserved most of my remarks on this group for amendment 141, which would ensure that the OFS takes on board

“the need to promote adult, part-time and lifelong learning”.

Again, many warm words have been said about such things during our consideration of the Bill, but we want to see specifics and so do people in the sector. The Open University has expressed its view:

“A prosperous part-time higher education market is essential, now more than ever, to address the challenges and opportunities which lie ahead to deliver economic growth and raise national productivity…and to increase social mobility.”

I see a strong argument for lifelong learning and part-time higher education based on their social value, but we also need to think hard about the economic and demographic circumstances. The figures are quite stark: only 13% of the 9.5 million in the UK who are considering higher education in the next five years are school leavers. The majority are working adults. That cannot be said too often, because the phraseology of the White Paper and the Bill has made it look as if we are in a ghetto that extends between the ages of 18 and 22, which is not the case.

I pursue the point that the Minister was keen to make this morning: over the next 10 years, there will be 13 million vacancies but only 7 million school leavers to fill them. This is bread-and-butter stuff; it is not an appeal to the Government’s better nature to give people second chances for the sake of it. If we do not empower people and we do not give those chances, the economy, our productivity and all sorts of other things will suffer.

There is a social dimension to the issue, underlined by the fact that one in five undergraduate entrants in England from low-participation neighbourhoods choose—or have no option, perhaps for financial reasons—to study part-time. Some 38% of all undergraduates from disadvantaged groups are mature students.

That is the need: what has the response been? Until relatively recently, I am afraid it has been what I can only describe as “poor”—I will not use the unfortunate alliterative word I was going to put in front of that. The situation that faces adult learners is bleak, both in further education and in higher education; lifelong learning in the UK has declined. I am sorry to take issue with the Minister’s statistics again, but the 24% cut to sections of the adult skills budget in 2015-16, along with the further 3.9% reduction, created a new large gap in college budgets.

As funding for non-apprenticeship skills has dropped, so has the number of learners. The latest data from the Skills Funding Agency show that 1.3 million learners have been lost from learning—excluding apprenticeships, which of course are the Government’s great get-out clause: they always say “Look at all the money we’ve lavished on apprenticeships”. They may have lavished money on apprenticeships—the end result is yet to be seen—but adult skills have been starved of funding in the process. That has not gone unnoticed by people in the sector. In its briefing to the Committee, Birkbeck said it was concerned that part-time students could be

“seen as an add-on rather than an integral part of the work of the OfS. Birkbeck would like to seek assurances that part-time students are an integral part of the Government’s thinking in the Bill.”

The Open University has made a number of similar points.

These issues do not affect only part-time and mature students; they affect the health of existing traditional universities that have found that by losing numbers of part-time and other students their funding and economic base has been chipped away at. They also, of course, affect some of the people in the workforces of those universities. That is why the trade union Unison, in submitting written evidence to the Committee, said:

“Opportunities for mature and non-traditional students should be increasing not decreasing.”

It points out that mature students accessing higher education via a part-time route, while often having caring responsibilities or employment issues, increases both their life chances and the life chances of their families. It is vital for workers who are retraining or reskilling themselves and the decline of this group is worrying for our future society when considering social mobility and providing access for those from social and economically deprived backgrounds.

Similar points have been made by the Workers Educational Association, union learning representatives and many in the trade union movement who are genuinely concerned about the impact of the dropping away of opportunities.

The Bill’s equality analysis claimed that there had been a dramatic improvement in the participation rate of disadvantaged young people. There has been an improvement, albeit from a low base, but I make the point again that that has not been seen for mature students where numbers have declined sharply. These huge challenges to social inequality and promoting social mobility in higher education were underlined by the survey of students by National Education Opportunities Network and University and College Union two months ago. It said:

“Over 40% may be choosing different courses and institutions than they would ideally like to because of cost and restricting the range of institutions they apply to by living at home or close to home.”

It added:

“The majority of students who are participating in post-16 courses which can lead to HE are not choosing to progress to HE because of cost.”

That is a real tragedy, not least because of the following. Here I would like to pay tribute to one of the Minister’s predecessors, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). When we had the big debate about advanced learning loans early in the life of the coalition Government, there were expressions of concern that it would put people off if they had to take out a loan for HE access. The then coalition Government specifically gave ground on that issue. We welcomed their response to that campaign on behalf of the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of students doing HE access courses who found they did not then have to take out two sets of loans.

The benefit of that concession and of looking more holistically at the process will be undermined if the Government do not address the issues of what happens to those part-time or mature students when they eventually get into HE education. According to the NEON/UCU survey,

“Nearly 50% of students think they will undertake part-time working to afford to eat and live.”

The removal of grants, which the Government pressed hard on at the beginning of the year,

“will increase term-time working, especially for those from non-white backgrounds and those in receipt of free school meals”.

It is astonishing that in such a large Bill, the Government have not so far put centrally the importance of adult and part-time learning towards improving social mobility.

However, I am glad to say that although the Government may have been reticent or deficient in that respect, members of the other place have not, where only yesterday, there was a very significant and fruitful debate on lifelong learning. The points the participants made, a couple of which I will quote, bear repeating.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thank the Minister for that full response. I am reassured by what he has said. Providing that clauses 4 and 5 are implemented in the way he suggests, they should give enough reassurance to the sector that its autonomy is being protected. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave withdrawn.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

The register

[Gordon Marsden]

I beg to move amendment 143, in clause 3, page 3, line 6, leave out “may” and insert

“must, after a period of consultation”.

This amendment would help inform the nature of the choices made by the Secretary of State, and ensure that any changes must be set out to show that they benefit the sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

I am grateful to the Minister, first, for all the detail and explanation of the consultation and, secondly, for his general mood music, if I may put it that way. We have had a tussle over some things, but to put something in the Bill does not automatically, even in law, mean that other factors will be excluded. However, as I said, I am content with the broad thrust of his assurances and, on that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I have a few questions for the Minister and am seeking some reassurances from him. One possible reading of the clause is that it could lead to dumbing down of the higher education sector by allowing a lesser form of regulation for colleges of a particular type, whether a small FE college, a private provider or a small university.

Given what the Minister said earlier, I am sure that he wants to uphold the excellent reputation of the sector, so he will not want to put in place a regulatory system that could expose the sector to accusations of the quality not being uniform across all the players. I cannot see anything in the clause as drafted that will guarantee an equally rigorous approach across all the different types of institution, regardless of their track record. For example, a college might be good for a couple of years, but then have a poor principal or adverse market conditions, resulting in it being not such a good provider. I am not exactly sure how, if we are going on a particular track record in a particular period of time in terms of the regulatory system, that is going to be captured. These are really a series of questions that I am posing to the Minister. Perhaps some of the detail in the regulations will help us to understand better what the clause will do in practice, but I have huge anxieties about it as drafted. I hope that the Minister is able to address those and help me to feel better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gordon Marsden]

I support the amendment. I will also speak to amendments 153, 155, 154 and 152, which stand in my name. These amendments are supported and promoted by the National Education Opportunities Network, whose research in this area, published jointly with UCU under the aegis of their highly effective chief executive Graeme Atherton, I referred to earlier. What they say on this area is important and mirrors what my hon. Friend has just said.

The transparency duty is to be welcomed but there is a serious oversight in restricting the categories that HEIs have to publish information on participation to the ones in subsection (2)(b)(i) to (iii). There is no valid reason why data on students with disabilities and the age profile of students should not also be included. That is reflected specifically in amendment 155, where we ask for the insertion of data on students with disabilities, the age profile and care leavers. The issue of care leavers has recently come up in other aspects of Government policy. Ministers in the Department for Education have been strong on supporting care leavers and we think that category would be an important addition to the list, even though it is a relatively small and modest group.

If the transparency duty is to have any impact, it needs to include as many different dimensions of participation by social background as possible. The Sutton Trust, too, believes that the Bill does not go far enough in that area. It says that transparency is fundamental, but continues:

“evidence suggests many universities are favouring more privileged candidates even when levels of attainment are taken into account... The Bill should be amended to require universities to publish their contextual admission policies clearly on their websites to encourage applications from students from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

It is in that context that we tabled amendment 155. We urge the Minister not just to consider the addition of those categories, but also the arguments that NEON, the Sutton Trust and others have put forward for greater disclosure and greater requirement to disclose from HE providers.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friends and my own amendment 164. This is a straightforward amendment to clause 9 which, in the first instance, seeks clarity from the Minister. I am not sure whether under subsection (2) the OFS will have to publish the information provided to it by higher education providers, or whether it is simply the institutions themselves that will have to do so. If it is the institutions themselves, it would be helpful if all the information was collated in one place. UCAS seems to be the obvious place to do that, if it is not the OFS. The point of the amendment is to ensure that somewhere, either through the OFS or UCAS, all the information is provided in one place. That would be much easier for the sector at large and for prospective students, rather than people having to trawl through every higher education provider’s publication.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Gordon Marsden]

I thank the Minister for responding in the spirit of the amendment, even if he did not feel able to respond in the letter. It is a pity that we cannot have the provision in the Bill to send out the message I have talked about, but I accept the Minister’s points. It is important that agreements in the terms of the chief executive and chair are made public in a public fashion, if I can put it that way, and not just tucked away at the end of a list of things that might not attract the attention of Members of Parliament on an off day. I accept the Minister’s assurance.

When I hear Ministers or civil servants talking about flexibility, I sometimes feel that I should reach for my reach for my revolver, because flexibility can cover a multitude of sins. On this occasion, not least because the Minister has made it very clear on the record—that will obviously form part of these proceedings—and because I welcome and respect his commitment to transparency, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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

I beg to move amendment 158, in schedule 1, page 65, line 31, at end insert—

“(1A) A joint committee shall be established by UKRI and OfS, which must—

(a) consist of representatives of both UKRI and OfS, and

(b) produce an annual report containing details on—

(i) the health of the higher education sector,

(ii) work relating to equality of opportunity,

(iii) the health of different academic disciplines,

(iv) research funding,

(v) the awarding of research degrees,

(vi) post-graduate training,

(vii) shared facilities,

(viii) knowledge exchange,

(ix) skills development, and

(x) maintaining the public interest.

(1B) The report must be sent to the Secretary of State who shall lay it before Parliament.”

This amendment would ensure that the two major bodies, UKRI and OfS, do not work in silos and that the work of each organisation is complementary to the other.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Edward. It is a beautiful day, but I can assure you that for someone from northern climes, these temperatures present quite a challenge.

Amendment 158 is a probing amendment that will hopefully elicit from the Minister some more information about how oversight of the whole sector will work, particularly with regard to the OFS and UK Research and Innovation. As the Committee knows, a great many witnesses, including MillionPlus, the University Alliance and almost all of the research bodies that gave evidence, were concerned about how the OFS and UKRI will work together. It is essential that there is overarching oversight to guarantee the continuing success of the sector. This amendment would require the OFS and UKRI to establish a joint committee that would produce an annual report each year about the higher education sector in its totality, which would be reported to the Secretary of State and be put before Parliament. The amendment would add an additional layer of scrutiny and give parliamentary oversight to the whole sector.

When Pam Tatlow from MillionPlus gave evidence to the Committee, she said:

“I think we should be looking at the Bill in a holistic way. There is a real risk that we look at the Bill in terms of a silo—the office for students, and then UK Research and Innovation. What we have got at the moment through the Higher Education Funding Council for England is some holistic oversight over the whole of the sector”.––[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2016; c. 9, Q6.]

That is the point that people are making. There is additional concern that the separation of responsibilities for research and teaching could mean that the interests of postgraduate research students, in particular, are lost.

I would like the Minister to reassure us about where PGR will sit, and about some of the other issues on the list, including the health of the sector, work relating to equality of opportunity, research funding, shared facilities, knowledge exchange, skills development and maintaining the public interest. Where will those issues sit, and how will they be reported on?

As I said, this is largely a probing amendment. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thank the Minister for his response. I would point out that clause 103 states that the OFS and UKRI “may co-operate”; it does not actually direct them to do so. I heard what the Minister said about providing the Committee with more information about the nature of the framework and what might underpin an MOU.

There is one other point that I want to make to the Minister. I do not see any reason why UKRI or the OFS cannot work together to produce a single report that would really help the sector at large to understand what is happening across the whole of it. It would be helpful if he could consider that when putting the framework together. On the basis of what I have heard, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Gordon Marsden]

I beg to move amendment 133, in schedule 1, page 66, leave out lines 9 and 10.

This amendment would prevent the Secretary of State’s representative from taking part in any deliberations of meetings of the OfS or any of its committees.

I have already spoken this morning about setting out guidelines and principles for the OFS. I know that the Minister is keen for the OFS to be seen as having independence under broad direction from the Secretary of State. If it is to function effectively and correctly, it is extremely important that it is seen as independent—after all, it is an arm’s length body. It is worth looking at this in context, because there is a section on procedure on page 66. It states:

“A representative of the Secretary of State is entitled...to attend any meeting of the OfS or of any OfS committee”.

The practicalities of that and how it would work out are obviously a matter for the parties concerned, so I have no problem with someone attending a meeting.

However, parts of meetings fall into different categories, as they do in Select Committees when we have a public session and a private session. I am not sure about the representative of the Secretary of State taking part in OFS deliberations, even though there will be a veto over the decision. I do not know whether this Government are fans of nudge theory—we have not heard the new Prime Minister pronounce upon it yet—but the previous Government and the coalition Government were greatly in favour of the principle of nudge. They believed that people should be nudged towards things rather than legislating on matters. I have observed on occasions that there is nudge and nudge, and sometimes there is iron nudge.

I would not want it to appear, either for the Secretary of State’s reputation or for the subsequent independence of the OFS, that a functionary of a Secretary of State—if I may be so crude as to put it that way—sitting there quietly in the best traditions of Whitehall and observing the deliberations of the committee might cast aspersions on its ability to make judgments independently. I am genuinely curious to know why the Minister feels it would be necessary for a representative of the Secretary of State to take part in deliberations. I think that it would be wholly otiose and that it would send out the wrong signals. Therefore, in the spirit of transparency that we talked about earlier, and the need not to apply undue pressure to the new body, I hope that he will be able to give us a favourable response.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Roberta Blackman-Woods and Gordon Marsden

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

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

Q Returning to the TEF, do you think it is going to raise teaching standards or is it going to provide a mechanism to increase fees? Could we end up with a very complicated system of fees, where the levels are changing from one course to another or from one year to another, leaving quite a difficult situation for students to comprehend?

Professor Chris Husbands: The policy intention is to provide clearer information for students. The question some way down the track—I do not think the sector has begun to think this one through—is whether once you move to discipline level TEF you end up with discipline variability in fees. There is experience on this. If you look at the postgraduate or international market, which are unregulated in terms of fees, there tends not to be, with one or two exceptions, institutional differentiation—intra-institutional differentiation—on fees, so I think that is unlikely.

As I said earlier, at some point, the reality of higher education economics is that we have to have a framework for increasing the fee basis. We cannot be here in 30 or 40 years’ time on £9,000 fees when prices are considerably higher. The challenge for me and the panel is to make sure that as those fees increase, the institutions are appropriately focused on developing and further enhancing teaching quality.

[Mr Marsden]

Q At the risk of making this a TEF love-in, I would like to pursue a final point with Chris. The elephant in the room on TEF, which has not surfaced today, although it has at many other meetings, not least the meeting of vice-chancellors with the all-party parliamentary group, is the basis on which the TEF is produced. If we go back to the consumer conversations we had earlier, if you were a consumer, you would not just want to know whether chocolate was good or bad for you; you would want to know whether dark chocolate or white chocolate was. This inevitably raises questions about whether you do the test on the basis of disciplines, which would probably be hugely complicated, or perhaps by schools of humanities, et cetera. Have you any thoughts at the moment? Have the Government given you any guidance on where they want you to go with that?

Professor Chris Husbands: I will make three brief points if I may. First, the Government did not need, I suspect, to appoint a serving vice-chancellor to chair the TEF panel. I have taken that as an indication that they want to work with the grain of the sector on this. The second point is that we have said that as we move beyond year 2 and from institution to discipline level we will be working as far as we can to co-design this with sector bodies—with individual institutions, mission groups and the sector. That is very important.

The third thing—I genuinely do not have an answer to this, and as this is a TEF love-in, I am very happy to come back for another one—is this. There are some challenges that we have to negotiate in relation to discipline level, because one of the things that Neil’s members value is the very broad variety of course provision in universities. There is a real danger—I am keenly aware that we have to avoid this—that you produce an assessment regime that leads institutions to make their offering less entrepreneurial and more small-c conservative, whereas what we need to be doing to meet the demand in a very dynamic economy is increasing the diverse provision at discipline level. We have to get that right and we have to work at it. There are a range of ways—I have had some discussions with civil servants about what it might look like, but we are not in a position yet to say what it looks like.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marsden]

Q So you are looking for similar guarantees to the ones that the HE sector and universities have had?

Dame Ruth Silver: Absolutely.

Neil Bates: I would like to link this back to the previous question on why we are interested in offering degrees in our own right. Part of the answer to that is that we are not much interested in providing a traditional degree like the universities. We are not trying to compete with universities like that. We are trying to create a legitimate pathway for young people who do not want to go down the A-level, university and degree route, but who want to get their professional development, high-level skills and degree through a work-based route. Frankly, we are better positioned to be able to provide that kind of experience, through the College of Advanced Technology, than many universities are.

In our experience, the universities’ default position has been to go back to the traditional model and to offer that as the diet for people who want to do a degree. We are looking to do this in a different way. There is a mile of difference between the funding of a university compared with the funding available in FE. One of the real challenges for us is levelling that a bit so that we can actually provide the quality of experience that they would expect.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q We have heard quite a lot already about a level playing field. For the independent sector, it is generally about regulation. Do you think that we should look at a level playing field in other ways? If a student goes to university, they have access to a whole range of cultural and sporting activities, they have intensive student support and they can exchange with other universities. Should not that be a set of demands that we also place on the independent sector?

Angela Jones: I think they are getting something different, and that is the point. We do not do what big universities do. They come to us because they do not want to go to a big university. We can give them other experiences and arrange for other things for them to do that our small numbers allow, but our small numbers do not allow us, for example, to have whole departments to support student activities such as sports clubs and things like that. We do everything that we can to provide access to those things or point our students in the right direction. We have a really particular set of students and that is not why they come to us. They do not want those things from us. They have a different set of expectations and demands.