Higher Education and Research Bill (Third sitting)

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 8th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I remind the Committee that time is now beginning to press down upon us. Three Members have indicated that they wish to ask questions and we have to finish at 12.30. Should we finish earlier than that, there will be more time for the next set of witnesses. I call Roger Mullin.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

Q Thank you very much for your evidence this morning. It has inspired me to ask a different question from the one that I came in to ask; it is about the wider policy context.

I have been listening carefully, and on quite a number of occasions you have talked about, for example, industrial strategy, social inclusion and economic policy with the assumption that there are such things in the United Kingdom. Of course, there are not because the devolved Administrations have increasingly different approaches to economic policy and the like. How do you see the Bill and your own functions as described in the Bill being able to accommodate the different policy contexts that are developing in the UK?

Dr Ruth McKernan: This is something that Innovate UK works through very successfully by partnering with the other enterprise agencies in the regions and nations. We are actually prototyping a process with Scotland. When we run a programme, the number of high-quality, fundable applications always exceeds our budget. We are working with Scotland to enable them to pick up some of those applications against their policy and preference, to the extent that they want to do that.

We would like to be able to roll that out. Being connected to the research environment helps us to put out the right sorts of competitions, which allows regions and nations to develop their own expertise and specialist skills and choose where they want to invest in proposals that come in at a national level against their priorities. We have a way of simplifying that. We have a way of working with different policies and values in different parts of the UK.

Professor Philip Nelson: Research Councils certainly engages strongly with the devolved Administrations; we are in dialogue across those Administrations. For example, I led a delegation to Scotland back in June. All seven research councils were represented. We had conversations with the Scottish Government and we visited Scottish universities.

We absolutely treat all those universities out there in devolved Administrations as part of the team, as it were. There is no question about that. How to deal with industrial strategy and perhaps different slants on how things should be developed in that way will be a challenge for us, but by working with Ruth, for example—this is another advantage of working closely together—we can absolutely address those challenges. We are definitely minded to do so. There is no difficulty in that.

Professor Ottoline Leyser: I agree that good interfaces, once again, are crucial, so Research England will be part of United Kingdom Research and Innovation, but the equivalent organisations from the devolved nations will not. Establishing really good relationships with those organisations and maintaining those, going forward, will be important.

I would say in principle that the research landscape, the research base, is the same, and it can feed into anybody’s industrial strategy. Exactly how that knowledge is used will depend on the Governments in the various Parliaments taking it, understanding it and using it to develop their own priorities. The fact that there will be one place which will have a better integrated understanding of what is going on in the research base will in principle help all those organisations. I do not see it as a conflict if that interface works properly. It is about an interface. There is not one at the moment and there needs to be one, and that is what this Bill will try to achieve.

[Roger Mullin]

Q A quick follow up, particularly to Professor Nelson. You will be aware, having consulted with the Administrations in Scotland and your partners there on the research side, that there is some anxiety about the Bill and the lack of formal representation in some of the architecture described in it. Would you like to comment on that?

Professor Philip Nelson: We did absolutely acknowledge the existence of those anxieties and said we would make it clear that we needed to do something about it. I know there have been proposals about representation on the board of United Kingdom Research and Innovation. I would have thought at the very least one would want to have a clear point of contact within United Kingdom Research and Innovation.

I do not know how we would do this but we certainly need to absolutely manage it, and those anxieties were very clearly expressed, but from the research councils’ point of view there is no need for concern. We place huge value on the Scottish universities’ contributions. There are some great institutions there doing great work, and we would continue to fund excellence wherever it is across the UK.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Q I have a question—mainly, I think, for Dr McKernan, but I am interested in other views. The UK has traditionally had a reputation for cutting-edge research, brilliant innovation and coming up with ideas, with the commercial exploitation taking place in other countries. Does the Bill mean that the UK manufacturing sector is more likely to benefit from the research that takes place here?

Dr Ruth McKernan: I do not think the Bill specifically addresses that, but indirectly I think there is a benefit from having business close to research such that the benefits of research and innovation could be more easily adopted in business and provide a competitive edge.

Some 50% of productivity growth comes from innovation, so to the extent that we can help businesses grow more quickly because we can help them innovate, they have a chance to be more globally competitive, although many other factors in terms of access to capital and the competitive environment come into that. The Bill can only ever relate to a small component of your question.

Professor Philip Nelson: An awful lot of our work is focused on doing exactly what you are asking and I think that we will continue to do that. I think, frankly, this country has got an awful lot better at converting its scientific output into application in the last 20 years, and I would hope we will continue on that upward path.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Fourth sitting)

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 8th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you again, Mr Hanson. I hope that this is not a private fight, and that the Committee does not mind a Scot intruding in this debate, which would seem rather strange to anyone who has been in receipt of university education in Scotland, because universities in Scotland have had students at their centre, in different ways, for centuries. Indeed, the amendments are extraordinarily modest in their intent.

Some may know that for centuries ancient universities in Scotland—the four ancients, as we call them—have had elected rectors. Only the students have been able to vote to elect rectors, who are chairs of the court. That has not led to an utter collapse in the system. Indeed, the other day we heard a professor saying how proud he was that his university was ranked 19th in the world. Over the years there have been some aberrations; in the early 1970s in Edinburgh, they elected a student as rector, who did go on to No. 10: a Mr Gordon Brown, I believe, who also used to be able to get elected as MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, but no more.

Having worked in the education sector at times, I know that students can show remarkably wise judgment: students elected me honorary president of Paisley University in the early 1970s for two years. More recently, when I was doing some work at Stirling University, I was invited to chair the students’ association as an external person. The engagement has been great, and there are many platforms for student engagement.

The serious point I would like to make about the nature of student engagement, however, is that we should look at some of the problems that we have on boards, not just in the education sector, but more generally in society. Look at what happened when the banks crashed. The Government regularly point out that part of the problem is group-think on boards—in other words, nobody on the board comes from a different perspective, able to challenge.

Although I respect many of the contributions we heard in evidence in the past two days, it strikes me that many of the people were talking with similar assumptions and in similar ways. We are just as likely to get group-think among well suited academics sitting together in a room as we are on the board of a bank. Student representation can provide a type of challenge, which is important. It is not even a problem if challenges are wrong, as long as there is challenge. To avoid group-think, there should always be someone willing to provide that challenge. That is where I think student representation has a particular role to play. If I correctly understood the hon. Member for Blackpool South to say that he intends to put his amendment to a vote, we will be happy to support it.

[Joseph Johnson]

I will respond to amendments 2, 122 and 3 together, as they all relate to student representation on the board. As I said earlier, students’ interests really are at the heart of the reforms. They are hard-baked into the Bill. They are clearly and explicitly, in black and white, in schedule 1, in which, as has already been made clear, the Secretary of State must have regard to the desirability of the OFS board containing people with experience of representing students’ interests.

We will continue to engage with our partners as the implementation plans are developed. That will include ensuring that the student perspective is represented on boards and decision-making bodies. That is why, for the first time, we are setting up an office for students, with the intention, set out in primary legislation, that its members will, between them, have experience of representing such interests. I think it is fair for the Committee to acknowledge that that is progress. The current legislative framework, which was set up in 1992, did not have any requirements for the board of HEFCE or its predecessors to have experience of representing the student interest. It is also fair to acknowledge that putting students at the heart of the governance of the main regulatory body that will oversee the sector is a significant step in the right direction, even if that is not quite as hard-baked as the hon. Member for Blackpool South would like, in terms of prescribing the specific number of people on boards who are capable of representing the student interest, or prescribing that those involved be current students.

Higher Education and Research Bill (First sitting)

Roger Mullin Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Joseph Johnson]

said that it was open to all parties to propose witnesses, but that the Labour party had not proposed NUS representatives until so late in the process that they could not be accommodated within the programme motion. He commented that the Scottish National party had proposed witnesses representing Scottish higher education and that they would give evidence in the afternoon sitting.

[Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)]

made a declaration of interest in that he is an honorary professor at the University of Stirling.

[Mr Marsden]

made the point that the Government’s failure even to consider students’ presence in the evidence sessions before being pressed to do so was deplorable, and that they could have accommodated students on the Thursday, as they had the SNP at late notice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Pawsey]

Q How important is the Bill?

Pam Tatlow: The Bill is very important because the Government want to table it. It would not have been our most immediate priority, but there are regulatory things that need to be sorted out, as colleagues to my left have pointed out. You can undertake the teaching excellence framework without this Bill—we should be clear about that—and HEFCE is already making preparations to do so. We do not necessarily need the Bill to deliver the Government’s commitment to teaching.

Gordon McKenzie: I agree with Mr Kirkham that the Bill is essential. It was essential from 2011, when the Government made substantial changes to the fee regime. I think it is important to look at the Bill holistically. The essential part is the creation of the office for students and the ability to regulate all providers on a fair and equal basis, whatever their background and history. I have concerns that, in the approach taken—having the office for students on the one hand and UKRI on the other—some of the benefits of having a single body looking at higher education as a whole might be lost, but there are perhaps ways around that.

[Roger Mullin]

Q In terms of the panel members who have already commented on the regulatory framework, some people have been criticising the proposals as being overly summative and not formative enough to enable or encourage proper development. Would you like to comment on that?

Professor Simon Gaskell: I will come to your question in a moment. I just want to say, in terms of the need for the Bill, that clearly it is essentially replacing the 1992 legislation, which was appropriate at the time, although the times were quite different then. The argument for an upgrading of the regulatory framework for higher education is compelling.

Of course, it has to be admitted that throughout the coalition Government we survived on, frankly, a series of fudges, which nevertheless enabled the out-of-date legislation to allow the sector to continue. So one could not say that the Bill is absolutely essential, but it does have some important tidying-up aspects. The importance of the Bill derives largely from a measure advocated by Universities UK, which was to have a single entry into the sector through a well described and well regulated register of higher education providers. Whether one calls that a “level playing field” or some other term, that is an important aspect.

If I understood the most recent question correctly, it asked whether the Bill might perhaps be too permissive rather than directive in terms of its content. We at Universities UK and in our member institutions do have concerns about that. There are some aspects of the wording of the Bill which could be interpreted to enable directions from the office for students, or indeed from the Department for Education, that would allow measures to be taken which we think would not be in the best interests of the sector. These may be allowed rather than prescribed by the Bill. We are very aware of the need to get the wording and the detail right to make sure that something which may not be immediately intended would not be allowed by incautious phrasing in the Bill.

[Mr Marsden]

Q Since the Government presented the Bill, and indeed since it came before the House, we have had two major seismic shocks to the British political system. One of them, of course, is the impact of Brexit. The other, although perhaps not as seismic as Brexit, is nevertheless important for us: the changes to the machinery of Government which have moved this subject to the Department for Education rather than the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I wanted to ask the panellists if they would give us their views.

The Government have made certain commitments to underwrite funding which comes from the EU, particularly in the area of research, but have made no commitments about where we are going from there. I know very well from conversations with many university providers how concerned they are about this—not simply from the research side, but because community-based universities are worried about loss of funding from the European Social Fund and other things. I wonder if I could take a quick snapshot of whether you think that the Government are on top of this and doing enough about it already.

Pam Tatlow: There are 120,000 EU students studying in the UK. We have a commitment to access to the student loan system only for this admissions year—that is, for students entering higher education in 2016-17. Ministers are, quite correctly, encouraging us to get on the Brexit bus, if I can put it that way. We are slightly worried that the best might leave before we have got all the commitments that we need in place. I think that my colleagues in Scotland also raised this with the Minister in Scotland. The commitments we need include the commitment to EU student funding beyond this academic year, however it is delivered in each Administration. Of course, there are also fairly major issues about how those students will be classified in the future.

The final point I would raise is that there are universities which are very engaged in structural funds. We talked with one principal last week, and there is now £50 million worth of structural funding in the west of Scotland. It is very important that the Government address these things, and that they are addressed not only in DFE but in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for International Trade and the Home Department. We need a joined-up approach.

Professor Simon Gaskell: We could have a long debate about the effects of Brexit, which I am sure would be inappropriate in this forum. Just to add to the list of concerns, as it were, clearly we are concerned about the loss of EU students. We are concerned about the polls that indicate that overseas non-EU students now find non-EU Britain to be a less attractive place to study. I am particularly concerned not only about the loss of EU students and EU staff, but about the loss of UK students and UK staff, who are not as enamoured of the system and the environment as they were before.

Clearly there are important financial issues, but actually what is more insidious is the loss of talent, the loss of networking and the loss of engagement with European partners. That will be much less easy to quantify but, unless we are very careful, it will become quite a damaging development over the next few years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Q This is about seeing if we can have new providers in the sector. Mr Proudfoot, what is your assessment of the level of demand for new providers?

Alex Proudfoot: The level of demand is clearly significant because already between 250,000 and 300,000 students are currently studying with alternative providers. I do not foresee a deluge of new providers opening up the day after the Bill passes. At the moment we have 700 institutions in the UK which are not considered part of the mainstream framework. We need to be able to bring them into the mainstream framework and provide effective regulation for the benefit of students and taxpayers and provide information that students can use to make choices between the providers.

I think there will be some new providers interested in coming into the sector and some interesting innovations. Already we have seen in the past few years, for example, large employers starting their own colleges and higher education programmes, simply because they were not finding the graduates they needed to take the jobs they had available. That should be encouraged and the opening of overseas higher education institutions could, of course, be a positive effect.

Professor Joy Carter: Current demand requires an environment where bold, innovative, new higher education flourishes. The Bill allows us to do that, but we have to maintain the reputation of UK higher education and the autonomy which leads to that reputation.

[Roger Mullin]

Q The way in which discussions about diversity have been confused with the need for new entrants has been very unhelpful. I come from a Scottish tradition where I would say that quality enhancement of existing institutions is the way to create diversity. When I look at the landscape in Scotland with everything from the University of the Highlands and Islands to traditional universities such as Edinburgh and newer universities such as Stirling, there is plenty of diversity through quality enhancement.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Do any other panel members wish to comment? No.

[Roger Mullin]

Q The clear concern is about some of the managerialist assumptions that are built into the Bill. Can the panel help me understand what they think the Bill will do to help their institutions enhance quality development?

[The Chair]

Any takers?

Sir Alan Langlands: I think having a national system of quality assessment is important and has proved to be important in recent times. It is only as recently as 2014 that the new UK quality code was published. I think it is a good model that works extremely well, within reason. It certainly creates within institutions a clear sense of responsibility for the quality of provision. People sometimes misunderstand the extent and depth at which institutions tackle this issue on a day-to-day basis. I come back to my point about standards. I do not think that interfering further in standards will help UK higher education at all. I think it will just be an extra administrative burden that will take us nowhere. Being content with the current benchmarked approach, as I outlined earlier, would from my point of view be a better way forward.

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: In the main, what the Bill does within an institution such as Cambridge is about the broad statements that are made. There is the implication of trust in the autonomy of an institution. There becomes a partnership between the institution and the Government in trying to deliver an end outcome that is done on the basis of trust and not imposition. That is something that is implicit and really important.

Another statement the Bill makes is that diversity is valued. If you have new ideas for new courses and new areas, that is now going to be lauded and supported. That matters. The fact of dual support, and the positioning that those who work in universities will not be subject to an institute-driven direction in research, are an absolute recognition of the fantastic contribution which British universities make to research diversity.

On UKRI, the capacity to establish a voice in some of the major decisions the United Kingdom has to make about capital infrastructure for large-scale projects and programmes, and the capacity to be overtly engaged in some of those debates and discussions, are the take-away areas. Above all else, even in an institution such as Cambridge, we are hearing for the first time that teaching is as important as research. That goes to every higher education institution in this country. There are some very important statements in the Bill in the round, but I think that the specifics will have much less impact.