Higher Education and Research Bill (First sitting)

Wes Streeting Excerpts

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

[The Chair]

reminded the Committee that further witnesses could be heard on Thursday if an amendment to the programme order were tabled and accepted at the start of the sitting on Thursday morning, although it would be a starred amendment and therefore subject to the Chair’s discretion.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

made a declaration of interest as a member of the advisory panel for the University Partnerships Programme Foundation.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

asked whether there had been any discussions about how the change in the machinery of government would affect the Bill, given that it would be split between two Departments.

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[The Chair]

Thank you. We will open for questions, first from Mr Streeting.

[Wes Streeting]

Q Good morning. Thank you for coming to give evidence to the Committee. I have a really simple question to start with, and it would be good to get the views of each organisation represented, if not each panellist. Do you think it is right that there should be student representation on the governing body of every higher education institution, on the board of the office for students, on the board of the quality provider and the quality committee? Would you like to see the scope of the Bill extended to make that provision?

Professor Joy Carter: Absolutely. It has been a revelation to me to engage more with students in the delivery of higher education over the last decade. I think you make an important suggestion.

Pam Tatlow: Yes, we think it is important, but I do not think it is the only answer. We have made some proposals that all members of the OFS board, for example, should have some knowledge of social mobility, widening participation and student interest.

Professor Simon Gaskell: I think it is important to recognise the general point that students, quite correctly, see themselves as co-creators of their own education. That principle would suggest that their voice is extremely important. Your question covered everything from individual institutions to the OFS. As far as my own institution is concerned, we already have two student members on our governing body—one a member, one an observer, but the voice is very loudly heard. There are a variety of mechanisms for ensuring that the student voice is heard, often in conjunction with their own institutions. We can argue about the precise prescription of the extended membership, but the general principle of the student voice being first and foremost is absolutely the right one.

Alex Proudfoot: It is very important that the student voice is heard, both on governing bodies and on the office for students. I believe that the mechanism for that voice being channelled into the office for students is for Government to decide at this juncture. At the moment few alternative providers have student unions that are formally affiliated to the NUS, so I think it would be problematic if a directly nominated NUS representative was on the board, as I would have difficulty finding confidence in their ability to represent the views of the full spectrum of students.

[Wes Streeting]

Q Will you elaborate slightly on that final point?

Alex Proudfoot: Yes. I think student representation is an excellent idea, as long as the views of the full spectrum of students are represented. Students at alternative providers tend not to engage in formal student unions; they tend often to be professionals or mature students or to have responsibilities outside their studies. For that reason, it is difficult to require representation, but it should be encouraged.

[Wes Streeting]

Q Finally, I am interested in the panel’s views about the fairness of either institutions or Government being able to alter the repayment terms or the conditions of student loans—whether those are tuition fee levels or repayment terms and conditions—after a student has enrolled on a course or while they are still repaying the loan as a graduate. Do you think that enabling universities or Government to tinker with the terms and conditions has the serious risk that when students sign up as applicants, they do not necessarily know what they are signing up for? That has real risks for fair access and for basic fairness to consumers.

Gordon McKenzie: I think it is unfair to change the conditions after the student has taken out the loan. When the Government changed the repayment threshold and decided not to uprate it annually by inflation, GuildHE commented that it was unfair—we think it is unfair.

Pam Tatlow: I would distinguish between repayment and fees. Like GuildHE, we commented on and opposed the amendment to repayment conditions and indeed the proposal to abolish maintenance grants. In respect of fees, it has at times been the case under previous Governments that if fees increased by inflation, that could apply to the whole student body. We are dealing with a headline price, if I can put it that way, of £3,000. We might want to distinguish between fee levels and repayment levels. On repayment we have been very clear.

[Wes Streeting]

Q Is there a Universities UK view on that, Professor Gaskell?

Professor Simon Gaskell: The basic principle is that it must surely be right that students know what they are signing up to when they start their course. That places obligations on both institutions and Government. The general principle is that the terms of engagement, as it were, should not be changed after a student has started on their course and made a commitment to a university, as the university has made a commitment to them. The idea that the terms of engagement should not change seems to me to be a basic principle.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Q Professor Carter and Professor Gaskell said that student representation is important and beneficial. Can I ask you to give us a quick example of how student representation has been beneficial and why we should have it?

Professor Joy Carter: It is about not so much representation, but the holistic sense of student engagement, of which representation is a part. If I can answer the question from a more holistic perspective, in my own institution—to give you one example—we have a student fellows scheme. Students work in partnership with members of staff on projects of their choosing to enhance the quality of the higher education that they are receiving. At any one time in my institution we have got 60 to 100 of those enhancement projects—real partnerships between students and staff—going on. The quality of enhancement that is achieved is beyond measure.

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[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.

[Wes Streeting]

Q Mary Curnock Cook, you said it was important for applicants to know what they should expect when they apply to university. Do you think that that also applies to student finance? What challenges present themselves from the Government or universities being able to tinker with repayment terms and conditions after students have entered university?

Mary Curnock Cook: It does. You are absolutely right. UCAS goes to extraordinary lengths to make sure that students know how they can fund their tuition, and there are pages about this on our website. We are a UK organisation so obviously there are different arrangements in the four countries. It is not for me to comment on the tuition fees going up or down in line with the teaching excellence framework outcomes, but our concern is that we need to get the information early enough in the cycle so that we are able to tell students who are starting to apply for 2017 clearly what they are getting into. Right now—this week—we opened the UCAS application system for 2017. We need to be able to tell students about this so that they are making those choices and those applications with their eyes open. We just want to make sure that, whatever decisions are made, we know about them and we are told early enough to make sure that students make informed decisions.

[Wes Streeting]

Q Is it right that universities or Government should be able to alter the terms and conditions after a student has enrolled on a course or after they have graduated?

Mary Curnock Cook: I do not think that that is really for me to say, but as I said we are on the receiving end of decisions that are made and do our best to—

[Wes Streeting]

Q Nicely dodged. We have a few minutes left, so let me ask Professor Borysiewicz why the university council proposed to move in the wrong direction when it came to access and participation targets for low-participation neighbourhoods?

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: Sorry, that was based on a series of information from more than 10 years of data collection, and what we thought was a realistic target that was subject to discussion. The universities agreed a 13% target on POLAR—participation of local areas—one and two.

[Wes Streeting]

Q When the university council made its approach to OFFA, how did the target move from the moment you first engaged with OFFA to the agreement you reached? What was the difference, and how would you characterise that process of discussion?

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz: There was a productive discussion with OFFA over the issues that they saw as opposed to what the data indicated to us. As always, this was resolved by amicable discussion between OFFA and ourselves.

[The Chair]

I am afraid that this must be the final question.