Draft Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) Regulations 2018

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Gordon Marsden

Monday 16th July 2018 General Committees

[Mr Gyimah]

There are two points to make about that. If someone got a £3,000 grant in the previous system and then had to go to a bank to borrow, that would cost them a lot more than it does to borrow under the current loans system. The truth about the current system, which is obviously under review, is that it is a hybrid between a loans system and a contribution system. Opposition Members do students a disservice by pretending that it is similar to a loan from Lloyds bank. It does not go on their credit score if a student is not able to pay the money back, they will not have a bailiff knocking on their door, and there is the issue of their having a job in which they earn more than £25,000. That is very different from a commercial loan, and we do students a disservice by not explaining the system to them and pretending that it is something it is not.

[Gordon Marsden]

I am sorry to have to intervene on the Minister on that point. He accused the Opposition of not talking about the raising of the threshold. Let me put it on the record to satisfy him, for what it is worth, that we welcome the raising of the threshold. We have persistently and continually argued for the need to raise it, not least because of its implications for students in certain parts of the country who leave university and do not get a decent graduate premium immediately. They are in a very different situation.

However, I really must take issue with the Minister saying, “Oh well, they don’t have to pay it back.” I thought that this was supposed to be a fiscally prudent Government who wanted to look to the future, but the Minister is throwing around public loans like a man with no arms. We all know—surely the Minister has seen this too—that the resource accounting and budgeting figure for the debt that will be lain on future generations is going up and up. We cannot simply work on that basis.

The other point I will mention briefly is that the Minister says that it is much better to take up a loan, based entirely on the assumption that the cohort is made up of 18 to 22-year-olds. I am not sure that is even correct for them, but it is very different for older people—mature students in their 30s and 40s and those doing part-time courses—to take on a debt of the sort of amount we are talking about. The statistics are clear that there has been a catastrophic drop in the number of mature students and part-timers. Although we cannot say absolutely that the tripling of the fees is 100% responsible, it certainly bears a great part of the responsibility.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thought that was meant to be an intervention but it was a mini-speech. At the risk of drifting into a Second Reading debate on the student finance system, there is one clear difference between Government Members and Opposition Members: if university education was made free, which the Opposition argue for, the numbers would have to be capped. If it is free, it is capped; and if it is capped, it is the well-off who will benefit the most. The system we have introduced means that more disadvantaged students are going to university than ever before. We do not say that the system is perfect, and that is why there is a post-18 review with a wide-ranging remit looking at the issues, including the interest rate, which was raised by the Opposition. If the Opposition would make it free, they have to tell us whose child will not go to university under their scheme when they cut the numbers.

A number of other questions were raised. On the OfS and its capacity to register, it does have that capacity. A lot is going on, and it is on track to deliver in the timeframe that has been set. On new providers, the OfS is dealing with a number of inquiries from them. On EU students and whether the clarification regarding university students applies to FE students, I would like to put it on the record that it does.

The issue of part-time students is of serious concern. We have adopted a number of measures to support part-time and mature students. For example, in the next academic year, part-time students will for the first time be able to access full-time maintenance loans, and we are looking at a lot more support for such students as part of the Augar review.

The regulations must be introduced now because universities have to market their courses for the next academic year, but this is by no means the end of the matter as far as student finance is concerned. I thank Members for their contributions and I welcome the points raised by the Opposition. We must ensure that access to our elite universities is as open as possible, without resorting to any kind of social engineering, so that wherever in our system someone is educated, they are competitive and can apply and get into the top universities if they have the grades. That is a real focus and passion of mine, and I will say lots more about it in due course. I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Higher Education (Fee Limits and Fee Limit Condition) (England) Regulations 2018.

Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (Cooperation and Information Sharing) Regulations 2018

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Gordon Marsden

Monday 2nd July 2018 General Committees

[Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (Cooperation and Information Sharing) Regulations 2018 (S.I. 2018, No. 607).

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. Thank you for your radical innovation, although I will keep my jacket on out of respect for the Chair.

I welcome the opportunity for the Committee finally to discuss the regulations, because, as may be apparent in what I say, they have caused considerable concern in respect of student protections and in particular the way in which they rather blithely appear to allow the sharing of private data, particularly with private companies. That is not easily explained by the so-called explanatory memorandum, although I await enlightenment from the Minister, and the purposes for which the data may be used remain rather open and vague.

Last autumn, the then Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries, who is now the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, spoke about the importance of giving the public more control over their data under new UK data protection laws, with the introduction of the Data Protection Bill. However, the lack of transparency in the regulations does not indicate that that was even considered, at least in spirit, by the Department for Education, or indeed the Universities Minister, who is here to respond.

Just weeks after the Government made a fanfare about the new Data Protection Act 2018, which was supposed to give people more control over their data and how it is used, they are passing regulations into law that could ride roughshod over students’ data rights. The regulations were to have been rushed through Parliament in three weeks—including the Whitsun recess—under the negative procedure. In fact, this statutory instrument came into effect without scrutiny, which is not uncommon in this House, but on the whole ought to be avoided, particularly in such sensitive areas. Only when the Opposition tabled an early-day motion to pray against the regulations and the shadow Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) raised the matter at business questions did we finally get this debate.

It is disappointing that the Government tried to force the regulations through using the negative procedure, because as paragraph 7.1 of the explanatory memorandum confirms:

“The enabling legislation for HEFCE did not restrict cooperation or information sharing in the same way as the Act does for the OfS.”

Given that the Office for Students will operate a very different structure from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, why did we not have an automatic right to debate the regulations?

On 13 October 2016, at the 12th sitting of the Higher Education and Research Bill Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) and I raised significant concerns about how students’ personal data might be handled under the new structures. In discussing what at the time were clauses 71 and 72, I said:

“these clauses would give the state access to all university applicants’ full data in perpetuity, for users who would only be defined as ‘researchers’ and without ‘research’ being defined at all; that might be capable of being changed under the direction of the Secretary of State. Therefore”—

this is the generic point that I wish to address in the context of the regulations—

“there are significant concerns that the safeguards need to be stronger to ensure that the clauses are not misused by others and that scope changes are not made in the future.”

I went on to say that, under those proposals,

“there is a possibility that the entire nation’s education data from the age of two to 19 could be joined to university data, which of course is then joined to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs”,

and so on.—[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 13 October 2016; c. 455.]

I also said during that sitting that this is a complex and difficult area, but if there are genuine, legitimate concerns, the precautionary principle should generally apply. I still hold to that principle. However, the Government are underpinning the regulations without that automatic assessment. They are passing the regulations seemingly without doing a data protection impact assessment or a human rights assessment, which would have considered privacy. Will the Minister confirm that the regulations will go through a privacy impact assessment and an assessment of their impact on human rights, and if not, why not?

Our questions over the regulations are particularly important in the current climate, in which the public have high concerns around personal data exploitation by large companies and publicly produced assets being passed into commercial hands. The lack of limitation in the type of data that may be shared under the regulations runs contrary to what 37,000 students told a UCAS survey in 2015. Applicants’ responses showed an overwhelming preference for remaining in direct control of their personal data, with 90% agreeing—more than 20 times the number who disagreed—that they should be asked in some shape or form before their personal data was provided. That number is likely to have increased in the time since the survey, given that concerns about data sharing have been spread more widely across the mainstream media. It is therefore no wonder that the vice-president of higher education at the National Union of Students, Amatey Doku, has expressed his concern that

“a decision for OfS to share students’ data with third parties was being snuck through parliament.”

We now have the opportunity to look at what is actually being said. In that context, part 5 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 removed horizontal data-sharing safeguards between Government Departments or bodies, meaning that, once students’ data has been provided, via the course provider, to Pearson or the OFS—both are named in the regulations—that data may be shared with any number of other bodies. How is a student or staff member supposed to be able to understand where their personal data has been processed? Under the general data protection regulation and the new Data Protection Act 2018, what is it within their rights to know? I would be grateful if the Minister could explain that relatively briefly and, if he cannot, perhaps he will write to members of the Committee.

It is to the Minister’s credit that he has made a great play of being the Minister for students since he came into post. He went on a listening tour of universities—

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

It is ongoing.

[Gordon Marsden]

I apologise. I look forward to further details of the Minister’s travels through the summer and into the autumn. However, the point is well made. The Minister has been on that listening tour and has said that he wants to engage with students about all their concerns, yet he has failed to engage with one of their concerns—student data protection, as I have just described —when arguably the effect of the regulations will be to leave that data open to exploitation. The Committee needs proper and clear assurances on that.

In view of those concerns, I tabled a series of written questions on the implications of the regulations last week, even before the Committee had been scheduled. The Minister replied that section 63 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, to which the regulations refer,

“does not place limitations on the type of information that may be provided, and therefore it could include personal data.”

That is extremely concerning and has the potential to be misused. The response went on to say:

“These regulations allow data sharing, they do not oblige it. In practice, the OfS considers that it is unlikely that personal data would routinely be shared with non-government bodies under these regulations. They are in place for circumstances where the OfS or the organisation has identified serious concerns (such as fraud or malpractice) by a provider or its students.”

The particular examples that were listed are reasonable, but frankly that is not enough to ensure that the general principle holds. It is not adequate to say, “As you were.” This is a new organisation that is still finding its feet and it is not operating to HEFCE criteria, as the explanatory memorandum explains and as the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson), was at pains to emphasise throughout the passage of the Bill. Safer and stronger safeguards are needed.

I was also disappointed at the answer the Minister gave to a further question I asked about whether his Department had consulted universities, student bodies or UCAS on the powers relating to confidential data that are conferred under the regulations. Despite my being quite specific in that question, the Minister and his civil servants—who presumably drafted the answer—failed to answer it. They responded:

“Policy officials have worked closely with colleagues in the Office for Students (OfS) to determine what historical, and new, information sharing requirements may be required to ensure the OfS can do its job well, including protecting the interest of students and taxpayers. Officials and Ministers have regular meetings and interactions with universities and student bodies, and work closely with UCAS.”

Observant members of the Committee will note that there is no causal relationship between that last sentence and the previous one. I hope my concerns are unjustified and that I am being ungenerous on this occasion, but will the Minister let me know if his Department specifically consulted UCAS or the NUS on the issues in the statutory instrument before passing it?

When the Minister was made aware—if, indeed, he was made aware—of the strong concerns and sentiments about student data, he could have instructed his officials to redraft the statutory instrument to list the specific types of information that may be shared with each organisation listed. What specific guarantees is he prepared to give now—or in writing to the Committee, if he wishes—to assuage the strong legitimate concerns about this process? Surely the processes and purposes should be explicit, necessary and proportionate, and should have regard to the capacity of the organisation. For example, Pearson is a provider of higher national certificate and higher national diploma exams. It should be specified why the weights and measures body will receive information and what information it may receive. The Student Loans Company and HMRC are also named in the schedule as relevant persons to receive this data. Similarly, it should be set out explicitly why that is a necessity. Can the Minister assure us that the data will be used for narrowly administrative purposes, or will it be available for other uses?

As the responses to my written questions also noted, the collaboration agreements have not yet been published. Will the Minister tell us when they are likely to be published? There seem to be no plans to publish the data-sharing agreements, as was confirmed in the answer to written question 156351. Why is that the case? The crux of the matter is that it should be fundamental to transparency that if there are no commercial consequences of the statutory instrument—as I understand officials have tried to reassure people—the Government do not have the usual excuse or option of praying in aid commercial confidentiality to conceal the agreement.

As the organisers of the lobby group DefendDigitalMe said prior to this Committee, data-sharing agreements made in secret with the Department for Education do not have a recent good track record. The data-sharing agreements that were made secret in July 2015 were discovered only by civil society campaigners, who had to fight for their release for six months. They revealed the monthly arrangement that still continues—the sharing of children’s names, home addresses, gender and dates of birth for the purposes of immigration enforcement and specifically to support the hostile environment. I say that not to imply that the regulations will be used in any shape or form for those purposes, but it demonstrates why there should be a low level of trust in how Departments use such personal data.

Despite the Information Commissioner having told the DFE that collecting governors’ nationality data, which began in 2016, was excessive, that it should respect the data protection principles of necessity and proportionality, and that it should end that collection, it continues to do so. I am obliged, therefore, to ask the Minister whether he or his Department has spoken to the Information Commissioner’s Office about the requirements for the regulator in respect of the types of data that may be shared through the regulations. If he has not, will he do so very soon so that the implications for all students can be known?

To preserve public and professional trust, the use of personal data from the sector must be transparent and safe, and alert to the future. We must prevent third-party prescribed persons from being exploited by mission creep by Government Departments, without any reference to safeguards. The powers in the information duties of section 64 of the 2017 Act permit the bodies to share data with the Government, and explicitly with the Secretary of State for Education. Will data be passed from Pearson, for example, to other Departments, and if so, which ones? What are the boundaries of the information? That should surely be set out in legislation. If the safeguards are not on a statutory footing, there is limited value in any assurance, whether from this Minister or any other Minister, that the use of potentially named records will not be changed at the whim of policy or by a future Government.

It is unclear whether what the Department is doing is necessary to create a new and very broad legal basis for the purposes of data sharing—compared with, say, a contract—or whether it is seeking to legitimise existing data-sharing practices around the denial of funding, which may previously have avoided scrutiny.

The other concern raised with us by DefendDigitalMe, a non-partisan data privacy and digital rights group led by parents and teachers, is that the track record in the US of Pearson, one of the organisations to which this information will be supplied, has included selling student data as part of company assets. Such data could be used in predictive tools to exclude certain students from certain UK institutions and courses, or unduly to influence applicants’ decision making and choices, based on Pearson’s corporate values and view of the world. That might not be a view that I or the Minister share, but it is a legitimate concern to raise.

People in third-party organisations and in the Government change and move on. What is left standing, however, is the legisation. How the information is used will depend not on what is said, but on what the legislation says. This knowledge could potentially give unprecedented commercial access to confidential student data, and with it knowledge of the potential access routes into education, course content, and completion and destination data. If that happens, it could constitute preferential treatment and give enormous commercial and competitive advantage over other companies. How will the Government prevent that in practice, having passed this statutory instrument, now and in the future? Why have other bodies not been afforded the same privilege?

Pearson has suggested that it will share personal data with the OFS when its stakeholders have identified red flags or serious concerns, such as fraud or malpractice by a provider or its students. That data sharing is from Pearson to the OFS. Why is a data-sharing agreement necessary and proportionate for that purpose?

I also have severe concerns about sharing data with the Student Loans Company, after its well-publicised problems in the past year. While I appreciate that there is a need for it in certain extreme circumstances where there is potential fraudulent activity, there are significant worries about its capability appropriately to handle this data. I think it is legitimate for us to raise continuing concerns about its capacity to handle further responsibility in the context of this statutory instrument.

The Minister will be well aware that the Student Loans Company has recently been subjected to a scathing report by the National Audit Office on its organisational and management failings. As far as I am aware, the Student Loans Company, despite the allegations about the management and leadership of the previous chief executive, whose contract was terminated, still does not have a permanent chief executive. Will the Minister update us on the recruitment process?

The lack of proper co-operation between the SLC and HMRC has also led to significant overpayments of debts by students. That is part of an ongoing trend in which the amount being overpaid by graduates increases year on year. The Student Loans Company also left a number of student nurses in a difficult financial situation earlier this year. I make all these points, Mr Gray, because they reflect strongly on whether the safeguards in the statutory instrument are appropriate to all the various organisations. What guarantees can the Minister give the Committee about this process?

We do not intend to oppose the regulations, because we understand that there are aspects of them that simply cannot be brought to a halt, but we have grave misgivings about the way in which they have been presented and the rather cavalier way in which assurances have been given. We look to the Minister to come back with significant assurances, either today or subsequently. My final question to him is whether there is any proposal to review the effectiveness or otherwise of the regulations. I would have preferred it if there had been a sunset clause in the regulations, but we do not have the ability to insert one.

Freedom of Speech: Universities

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Gordon Marsden

Thursday 17th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) on securing the debate and thank everyone who has contributed to it.

Like the Joint Committee, I approached this issue with a fairly open mind. That said, I have a bent, so far as free speech is concerned. As president of the debating society at university, I was totally happy to countenance inviting a senior member of the British National party to come and speak, even though I found, and still find, his views abhorrent, because I felt that the only way to deal with them was to challenge him. I invited Tariq Aziz, who was then the Iraqi Foreign Minister, but he was no-platformed by the Home Office at the time, so my members had to make do with Mark Owen from Take That instead.

I came to this with an open mind, but I clearly started from a position that free speech should be encouraged. We live in an open society and open debate is particularly important. If our democracy is to flourish, someone having views that are offensive to someone else is not sufficient reason to prevent them expressing those views—but expressing them does not mean that they should go unchallenged. Rather than trying to stop that person expressing such views, what we want is open debate.

I also approached the debate very conscious that, today, a word or a couple of words in a sentence that someone utters can completely characterise and define their position. It is easy, as universities go through these issues, to get to a point where they might think that someone is an unacceptable speaker because of how their views have been represented. They react to how the views have been presented, rather than listening to the argument. For all those reasons, it is important to be cautious in how we approach the issue.

When I appeared before the Joint Committee, four or five weeks into this job, I carefully calibrated how I expressed my position: I not only expressed concern about a creeping culture of censorship, but suggested that measuring whether we have free speech on campus by events that happen is not in itself sufficient. We do not know about the events that do not happen or, more importantly, about the events that happen but in a different way from how they would have happened had they been able to go ahead freely.

As Universities Minister, I have been going around universities speaking directly to students. I found it slightly amusing that, before I spoke at one university—the Universities Minister doing a Q&A with students—they had to read out the safe space policy. I just had to smile. I visited another university to discuss a number of issues, including free speech, and it was suggested to my team that, if we really wanted negative headlines, we should go ahead. I said, “Why don’t you invite lots of students from other universities nearby? You have the Universities Minister, and it would be good for them to be involved.” They said that they couldn’t invite them because they thought they would cause trouble. They were going to manage the invitation list. A video had to be played at the start of the event. As I spoke to my team about it, I ended up asking myself whether it was really worth doing the event at all. That is how censorship happens. I could see that I was second-guessing myself and what I was going to say. I am the Universities Minister. I hope that I might have some controversial views, but hopefully none that are sufficient for me to be turned away from speaking at any of our universities.

It is based on that experience, and the number of letters that I now receive from students across the country, that I have come to the view that the Committee is actually on to something here, in two important respects. The first is the bureaucracy and rules around free speech, whether from equalities law, the Charity Commission, which regulates student unions, or a university’s own policies, or a particular student union’s own policies. At best, it is so confusing that a well-intentioned person could somehow end up seeing censorship as the way to promote free speech, which is a contradiction in terms. At worst, it is very easy for wreckers to use that bureaucracy to frustrate views that they do not agree with and do not think belong on campus.

The Committee is not only on to something really significant here, but its work, which is even-handed and level-headed in its approach, provides a very good basis on which to proceed. It is a cross-party Committee and it has members from both Houses; it is not the Government party trying to use free speech as a wedge—that is the last thing I want to do. Free speech on campus should not be seen as a proxy for some of the wider culture wars in our society. If anything, it should be about helping universities with what they are best placed to do: fostering open debate and the free exchange of ideas. There are often clashes, but those clashes should be seen as positive, rather than something we want to rail against or stop.

I very much welcome the Committee’s report and its recommendations. I have been a Minister for a number of years now. When Ministers receive Select Committee reports, we often spend our time scratching our heads and thinking how to respond by doing the least we can and then moving on. However, this report provides a very strong basis for the Government to do what we can to promote free speech. That is why I held a summit, attended by the National Union of Students, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Office for Students and the Charity Commission, so that we could all work together to resolve this issue in a way that works for all our universities.

The Committee has thankfully come up with not only a set of recommendations, but its own guidance. We are looking to produce uniform and simplified guidance, and the Committee’s work means that we can proceed in haste to produce that for the start of the next academic year.

[Gordon Marsden]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister while he is in full flow. On the summit, which was advertised and which we are told went well, it would be helpful to both Members and the Joint Committee if he could provide a synopsis of what was actually agreed and who was tasked with doing some of those things.

[Mr Gyimah]

Absolutely. I will write to the Committee and I am willing to share that correspondence with the hon. Gentleman. It will include how the Government plan to proceed with the recommendations and the outcome of the summit. The Equality and Human Rights Commission holds the pen on the new guidance and regulations, so it will drive it, rather than Ministers or officials in Whitehall.

The Committee is on to something in highlighting overlapping and confusing regulations that frustrate, rather than promote, free speech. It mentioned the role of the Office for Students. Because the debate is almost out of time, I will set that out clearly in my follow-up correspondence.

I will mention something that I do not think the Committee touched on: the issue of culture. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) touched on the risk of a political monoculture developing on our campuses, so that, by default, certain ideas are seen as unacceptable. If free speech is to work, the same standards should be applied to all ideas, rather than believing that certain ideas should not be held because they are unpopular or unfashionable. Nigel Farage should be as welcome on campus as Jon Lansman, for example.

I also think that protest has a place. We want active debate, but we also want active and peaceful protest. However, protest becomes unacceptable when it is a deliberate attempt to prevent an event from taking place because the protestors disagree with the ideas that will be aired there. This is very difficult to solve, and it is one area that the Committee did not look at, but we really need to tackle it in order to ensure that our universities truly are bastions of free speech.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Freedom of Speech in Universities, HC 589.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Gordon Marsden

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Part-time students from the EU will be treated in the same way as full-time students from the EU. We have made our position on EU students clear. We will make announcements in respect of future years—2019-20 and 2020-21—in due course.

[Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not realise that since tripling HE tuition fees to £9,000 in 2012, Tory-led Governments have been a disaster for mature and part-time students in England? As my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) said, there has been a 59% drop in part-time student applications. That has left scores of continuing education centres in HE axed, while our iconic, world-renowned Open University, where I proudly taught for 20 years, is in crisis. What is the Minister going to do now—not after a wait for pittances in the 2019 review—to protect the OU, where students will not benefit from the loans he talks about, and others from policies that have become both socially and economically insane?

[Mr Gyimah]

Of the £1.3 billion of grant funding that the Higher Education Funding Council for England allocated to support teaching in higher education last year, £72 million went to part-time study. The Open University received £48 million of that, and 47,000 students have steady part-time courses there. We are supporting the OU. It is going through restructuring at the moment, but as I have often said, the review is looking at that and we will ensure that it continues to deliver excellent education for part-time students.

Funding Higher Education

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Gordon Marsden

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) on securing the debate. He spoke thoughtfully. We are both of the Kinnock generation, so I understand some of his points. He talked about his experiences in schools and people going to university. We must recognise the heart of the debate is not just the people who speak about what they might be deterred from, but the people who keep silent. The people who keep silent, whether they are older or younger learners, are being put off by the current financial structure that the Government have put in place.

The hon. Gentleman made a number of interesting suggestions about graduate tax and cutting the interest rates from 6.1%. There is consensus on that across the piece. We would have more sympathy with the Government if they had not been so intensely relaxed, and indeed complacent, when the interest rates were introduced. It was very clear that the previous Universities Minister—no doubt because he was a keen remainer—did not take into account in any shape or form the implications of Brexit in that respect. Two months before the referendum, inflation stood at 0.4%, but it is now 3.1% and rising. That is one of the reasons why the interest rate is 6.1%.

I welcome the thoughtful comments made by the hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer). He made very sensible points about governance in higher education. He rightly touched on the impact on post-1992 universities if fee aversion hits the disadvantaged students they cater for, and talked about his experiences with the two universities he is associated with—the University of Northampton and the University of Derby. I support all that, but I remind him and the House that fee aversion is an issue not simply for students but for the taxpayer. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) made exactly that point in response to last week’s statement. The Government have tried to make a virtue out of necessity by saying, “Oh, you don’t really need to repay all this money,” but we are irresponsibly laying burdens on future generations and on the tax system now. The Government should not be complacent about that in any way.

[Mr Gyimah]

I look forward to hearing the hon. Gentleman outline the Labour party’s policy. His concern is burden on the taxpayer, but there would be an even bigger burden on the taxpayer if higher education were made free—that is my understanding of the Labour party’s policy—unless places were rationed.

[Gordon Marsden]

There were several completely unproven assertions in what the Minister just said. He would do better to stick to this debate, which is about his policies rather than—

[Mr Gyimah]

rose—

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

Well, the suggestion from the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), was that somehow we have pursued policies that are damaging higher education and the aspiration and prospects of our young people as far as the university sector is concerned. On the contrary, we have pursued policies that have put no cap on aspiration.

[Gordon Marsden]

rose—

[Mr Gyimah]

I will take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention in a second.

I will end this myth-busting section by focusing on Scotland, where controls on student numbers continue to restrict the aspiration of young people. The Sutton Trust recently stated that Scottish 18-year-olds from the most advantaged areas are still more than four times more likely to go straight to university than those from the least advantaged areas, compared with 2.4 times in England. Audit Scotland has stated:

“It has become more difficult in recent years for Scottish students to gain a place at a Scottish university as applications have increased more than the number of offers made by universities.”

That is not an example I want to copy here in England.

[Mr Gyimah]

Audit Scotland clearly does not share the hon. Lady’s view.

[Gordon Marsden]

The Minister speaks about rites of passage. Those are fine words, but fine words butter no parsnips. The truth of the matter is, he should be focusing on not just the number of people from disadvantaged backgrounds getting to university but what stops them staying there. He should also focus on the groups who never even think about getting there because of what his predecessors’ tuition fees policies have done, particularly for mature and part-time students.

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

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Gordon Marsden

Thursday 11th January 2018 General Committees

[Mr Gyimah]

I remember the exchanges I had with the hon. Member for Blackpool South on careers, and he has approached the scrutiny of these regulations with the assiduousness that I came to know when I was in the Department for Education before.

The hon. Gentleman asked a number of important and valid questions, starting with one about the consultation that was held just before Christmas. There were more than 300 responses, and it will come as no surprise to him that we will reflect closely on those.

The hon. Gentleman asked a substantive question about the process of implementing the 2017 Act. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there are a number of pieces of secondary legislation. There are 15 in total, six of which need to be enforced by 1 April to enable the OFS to operate during its transitional period and open its register to providers. The remaining nine will be required by August 2019. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that prior to the Christmas recess, we laid regulations for part 1 of the transition, for access and participation, for the mandatory fee limit condition and for the publication of the register. The remaining two, on part 2 of the transition and the transparency duty, are scheduled to be laid much later in the year. I hope that that gives him some clarity about the trajectory.

The hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions about the director for fair access and participation, including whether he would be approving the plans. The answer is yes. It is our expectation that the director will approve plans on behalf of the OFS, and we expect that function to be delegated to him.

In addition, the hon. Gentleman rightly asked about the power that the director will have. The Act ensures that the director will be responsible for overseeing the OFS’s performance on access and participation and reporting to the other OFS board members. It is right that the director takes advantage of the expertise of the board, rather than acting on their own. The purpose of a broad and diverse board for a statutory body that has quite a wide remit is that board members have lots of different types of experience to bring to bear.

The hon. Gentleman asked a number of questions on mature and part-time students, which is an important issue. Financial support is available for those who want to study part time. We are consulting on proposals to enable greater provision of accelerated degrees, to make that more attractive. We will be coming to that over the following months.

Equal access to some of the most selective institutions is of concern. However, there has been a lot of progress, with 18-year-olds from the most disadvantaged areas 50% more likely to enter HE in 2017 than in 2009. When I said that there is still a lot of work to do—to put it another way, there are no grounds for complacency—that was not just a standard ministerial caveat. From my own life experience, I know how important that is, and it will be a personal crusade of mine in this brief to continue to look at ways of improving fair access.

[Gordon Marsden]

I thank the Minister for giving that assurance. I entirely understand, support and celebrate his personal commitment in that area. He said that the director for fair access would be responsible for reporting to the board and would approve plans. What is the Minister’s view on the director’s ability to actually carry through the plans? Is it understood that, unless there are exceptional circumstances, those plans will be approved?

[Mr Gyimah]

The director, as I understand it, has executive responsibility for this area, so I would expect them to carry out those plans but, obviously, to report to the board. That structure is not unique to this organisation; it is widely used in many organisations in both the private and public sectors.

In terms of the substance behind going further on access to the most selective institutions, we have introduced the transparency condition, under which providers must publish data on their access record. We have also strengthened, as we have discussed, the access and participation plans.

Chris Millward, who is taking over as the director for fair access and participation, has already taken on in practice some of the responsibilities of that role, and we anticipate a smooth transition.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Gordon Marsden

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Careers advice has long been the punchline for a joke, and many people found that the advice that they were given did not make sense to them at all. In our careers strategy, we are focusing on real, practical employer interactions so that the world of work can go into schools, and so that children can see what is out there, have their passions roused, and work out what is best for them.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

The Minister will be delighted, because he has lost the punchline for his joke. He should go easy on the self-congratulation, given that the Government have presided over the disintegration of careers services for young people. Cuts have decimated council-led youth support and Connexions, and the Department has failed to include work experience in the curriculum. No wonder the CBI told it that the careers service was broken. Young people will need that help from the Careers & Enterprise Company to start repairing five years of damage. Will the Minister tell us what resources will be given to volunteer enterprise advisers—after all, only £17 million a year is going to the company—and just how many of them there will be for the thousands of schools and further education colleges that need them?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Gentleman talks as though there had once been a golden age of careers advice and service, but anyone could tell him that there has never been such a golden age. The missing piece in careers advice and guidance was employer interaction, and that is what the excellent Careers & Enterprise Company is setting up. As part of its strategy, it is rolling out enterprise advisers, and 30 local enterprise partnerships have signed up to be part of that. Every school will have an enterprise co-ordinator to link it to the world of work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sam Gyimah and Gordon Marsden

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I talk to the NDNA all the time. I am very much aware not only of its concerns but of the concerns of other players in the sector. We were the only party to commit to a review of the funding rate in the general election campaign. Today, I have announced that the review is under way. We will consult the sector and get its views not only on the exact rate, but on how to implement the 30 hours policy.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

6. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of current arrangements for key stage 4 students to access business and work experience.