Higher Education and Research Bill

Stella Creasy Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

There are two areas in which the Bill can particularly help. First, it will provide transparency and give us a clearer sense of who is entering and going through our university system. One of the functions of the office for students will be to improve transparency, which will help us not only to improve access but to widen participation. Secondly, some of the financing changes will free up opportunities for people who find it harder to go to university because they cannot get the finance for a course. The Bill will allow us to take those two steps forward.

We are going further than Labour ever did to strengthen access agreements. Under the Bill, institutions wanting to charge tuition fees above the basic level will have to agree plans that look at participation as well as at access. We want to ensure they are doing everything they can to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds throughout their course to reduce the number of drop-outs and help all students into fulfilling careers.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I join other hon. Members in welcoming the Secretary of State to her new post. On enabling students to access higher education, there is one group that has not been able to access it—Muslim students whose religious beliefs prevent them from taking out a loan. I know she will point to the new provisions in the Bill on sharia-compliant loans, but why does she believe that this specifically requires legislation? Many of these students have been waiting years, if not decades, to be able to go to university. Why is she making them wait even longer?

[Justine Greening]

The Bill puts in place the powers that we need to take a more flexible approach to funding. As the hon. Lady says, some students are less likely to want to take out a conventional student loan. We need to respond to that if we are to widen participation, and that is precisely what the Bill does. It will actually achieve the aims she talks about.

We will have transparency, which will require higher education institutions to publish application, offer and progression rates by gender, ethnic background and socioeconomic class. Across all its functions, the office for students will have to take into account the need to promote equality of opportunity across the whole lifecycle for disadvantaged students, not just access.

Academic autonomy is the bedrock of success for our higher education sector. The Bill introduces measures to safeguard the interests of students and taxpayers, while protecting academic freedom and institutional autonomy. It enables the OfS to be independent of Government and the sector, as a regulator should be. It will be an arm’s length non-departmental public body, just as the Higher Education Funding Council for England is now.

The office for students will operate a risk-based approach to regulation by concentrating regulation where it is needed and ensuring the highest standards are maintained across the sector, while reducing the regulatory burden on the best performing institutions. If a university is doing well, it should not have to worry so much about bureaucrats peering over its shoulder.

However, one important aspect of such risk-based regulation will be a more flexible approach to degree-awarding powers. We will move away from the one-size-fits-all approach, which currently requires smaller, specialist institutions to demonstrate that they can award degrees in any subject, and requires new providers—including some of the very best overseas institutions—to spend four years building up a track record in England, irrespective of a long record of excellence elsewhere in the global academic world.

The provision to vary degree-awarding powers will enable specialist institutions to gain such powers only in the subject areas in which they have an interest or a need. It will enable the office for students to give degree-awarding powers on a probationary basis to institutions that can clearly demonstrate their capability and have a credible plan to ensure they meet the full degree-awarding powers criteria after three years. As part of that, the OfS will require clear and robust protections for students when granting probationary degree-awarding powers.

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[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is obviously a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), although I would caution her against letting “Game of Thrones” influence her understanding of the wonders of the north.

Aristotle once argued:

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

Unfortunately, the Bill leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and I want to try to explain why using three particular issues. The first is access and my particular concerns about the provisions regarding sharia-compliant loans. The second is cost and the vexed question of social mobility. The third is about voice and how the Bill will ensure that students are equal partners in shaping the future of the courses that cost them so much to take.

Many colleagues have already set out our grave concerns about the context in which this legislation comes forward, in particular the challenges facing our higher education sector following this country’s decision to vote for Brexit. The sector has already been battered by this Government and now it will be buffeted by Brexit. Whether we voted to remain or to leave, we all recognise the responsibility to ensure planning for what comes next, but it is unclear what Brexit means for our HE sector and just how it will hit funding. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), sadly no longer in his place, put it well: how will EU students respond? Will we see a rush of English students to Scottish universities? Will EU students get loans?

Furthermore, what will happen to science funding? While sitting here today, I have sadly missed a session of the Science and Technology Committee. We recently went on a wonderful visit to Manchester to look at the National Graphene Institute. Investment in our higher education institutions through European partnerships is absolutely paramount, so to bring forward legislation at such an uncertain time for our HE sector is a source of real concern for Opposition Members.

Returning to the three issues I want to discuss in the short time available today, I will start with sharia-compliant loans. Do we need specific legislation or can we right this wrong straight away? The 2012 legislation raised real concerns within Britain’s Muslim community because of the introduction of £9,000 fees and the ability to bear interest on student loans. Before then, many families in my community were able to subsidise their children to go to university without a loan, but £9,000 a year fees put that goal beyond the reach of so many. The Bill is supposed to aid social mobility, so it is worth looking at what sharia means. Sharia-compliant loans are about the interest rate, and many Members will know I have a particular concern about what interest rates do to people’s behaviour. Under sharia, money has no intrinsic value—it is a medium of exchange. People who abide by sharia principles on finance believe that it is forbidden to make a profit by exchanging cash. Sharia products respect that principle, enabling Muslims to access finance by sharing the risks and rewards equally based on the principles of Islam.

Like many parts of any religious code, sharia is open to interpretation and challenge, but there is something basically good about being able to respect such issues. I have already talked about it on Twitter today and the response reflected the difficulty that we face in society. I have been called a jihadi for wanting the introduction of sharia-compliant loans, but I suspect that that was by somebody who does not quite understand religion or, indeed, decency.

I have been pushing the Government on this matter for many years because I have seen in my community the impact on many students of our not being able to make such a small change to how a product is delivered. These students have bright young futures and could contribute great talents to our communities and our country but, because we do not respect their religious wishes, they have not been able to go on to higher education. Let me be clear: introducing sharia-compliant loans is not an endorsement of sharia itself. Just as we can challenge the bible’s teachings on homophobia while recognising and learning respect from the Christian community, we do not have to dismiss sharia principles entirely. For me, as a Co-op MP, the questions of mutualism at the heart of sharia finance are particularly apposite. I also recognise the practicalities, as being able to be accommodating in this way could make a big difference to many.

The crucial question for me is: why is this taking so long? I have been petitioning the Government since 2011 about the introduction of sharia-compliant loans. Although it is welcome that the Government have now accepted that it is right to do this, my concern is about whether we need to wait for this legislation, with all the problems that it will bring to the HE sector, to introduce these regulations. The Government already have the power to introduce loans and to change their terms, but tying the fate of these students to waiting for this Bill and refusing to publish a timetable for when this kind of product would be available is holding too many students back. Why this is taking so long raises a question in terms of the Government’s responsibilities under the public sector equality duty. We are asking not for preferential treatment for these students, but for equal treatment. We are asking for equal access and the reasonable amendments it would take to how this product is provided to secure that. I would like the Government and the Minister to clarify why they feel they cannot do this today, so that students who are studying now and wish to go to university—at the very least in 2017—could have confidence that they could do that. The Government sometimes rely on the small print in the student loan terms and conditions, which state:

“The regulations may change from time to time and this means the terms of your loan may also change.”

That is allowing them to change other parts of our student loan system, yet they seem resistant to doing this to help Muslim students access our HE system at all. I ask the Government to set the timetable and give our students that chance.

The second issue I wish to raise is the wider one about cost and the concerns that many of us have about this Bill opening us up to higher costs in higher education. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), who, sadly, is also not in his place, is right to say that productivity and getting our young people into FE and HE is crucial to addressing the biggest challenge our country faces. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham is no longer here, because he was absolutely right in his coruscating remarks about transparency. Transparency means little without action; it is a bit like telling somebody that they are tied to the train tracks and what time the train is coming. If we really want to open up access to university across our society—to be truly committed to social mobility—we have to go much further. The question for me is whether this Bill takes us further or could take us back.

We know that loans and more debt at a time of economic uncertainty are a luxury few in our society can afford. The biggest division in our society today is between those who are able to turn to the bank of mum and dad, and those who are not; university education and the possibility of higher fees is simply a bigger part of that picture of whether we may end up crushing talent, rather than developing it, if we do not act. Nothing in this Bill will change that. Nothing that this Government are doing will change that problem of all 18-year-olds being held back by not having the bank of mum and dad—I refer not just to those who want to go to university, but to those who have fantastic business ideas and those who want to go into FE. A truly socially mobile country would seek to work for 100% of 18-year-olds, not just 50% of them. It would recognise that the debt they might incur might affect not only their choice of whether to go to university, but their ability to get on the housing ladder and the ability for their families to look to the future. I say that as someone who represents too many families who have £10,000 to £15,000-worth of unsecured debt hanging over their heads as it is. If the Bill does not address that issue—indeed, if some of its changes are making it even more likely that these people will incur higher debts—we will lose that talent, to the detriment of us all.

The Bill has to be seen in that context of what this Government are doing truly to open up opportunity. We must hold them to account for their failure to recognise the mistake they made when they got rid of child trust funds; the child ISAs will simply not replace the opportunity that those were providing. Tying university fees to the university rather than to the ability to pay is a retrograde step, in a way that a graduate tax would not be. This is taking place in a country where a rising number of middle-income families are now in rented accommodation because they simply do not have the savings even to begin to get on the housing ladder. We are asking them to take on more debt, and potentially to subsidise more debt for their children, and this will hold too many back.

I say to the hon. Member for Taunton Deane that we need to be clear about these figures on social mobility, because this issue is clearly at the heart of this debate. Yes, there has been a 40% increase, but let us look at what that increase is; we are going from 3,105 students in 2011 to 4,040 students in 2014 from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. In the context of our higher education system overall, that is just 3% of disadvantaged children in our country going to those Russell Group universities, compared with 21% of children from the most advantaged backgrounds. Let us have transparency in this debate if we are truly serious about social mobility.

The final point that the Bill has to address, which has not been discussed so far, is student voice. The Bill does not tie up with the provisions of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that were extended to students, so that students now have consumer rights because they pay tuition fees—a right to a reasonable service at a reasonable time in a reasonable place. Many law students will probably have a field day with those provisions, once they work out that those do apply to the quality of the course provided to them. The Bill does not take account of those provisions or of the value of student voice—the value of students as active consumers, acting to drive up standards.

The National Union of Students has called for student representation on the office for students board. I believe that the Bill must go much further and integrate the rights of students. Indeed, we need a Bill of Rights for students, who are being asked to pay thousands of pounds on the basis that their courses are good enough to get them into a high-paid job afterwards. Those are claims that any trading standards board could look at, but which we have no way of resolving within our current education system.

In conclusion, we know that all legislation coming before the House must pass the stress test of Brexit and what it means—the uncertainties and risks that we must now all tackle, whether we supported the leave or the remain campaign. We know that the Bill falls at that hurdle. We know, too, that it falls on those three powerful metrics—access to further and higher education, the cost of further and higher education, and the voice within further and higher education. I urge the Government to think again, press the pause button and work with the sector and with businesses and the finance sector to make sure that the Bill is not the retrograde step that it may inadvertently become.

Opposition Members are right—there are many potentially good things about the Bill, but there is at present too much that could take us backwards. The talent that lies in all our communities needs and deserves nothing less. Many students are now graduating, but they would look at this Bill and say, “It’s time for a re-sit,” and that is what the Government must offer us today.