Higher Education and Research Bill (Third sitting)

Wes Streeting Excerpts

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

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Q I want to pick up on student representation first, because several amendments have been tabled that seek to address the lack of it. Given that it has been such a powerful way of getting students’ voices heard and has been used as a tool for quality enhancement, why is the NUS proposing to boycott the national student survey?

Sorana Vieru: At the national conference in April this year, an amendment was proposed to the education zone motion, which was looking at tackling the increasing marketisation of higher education and promoting students’ interests. Because the NSS was to be a metric in the teaching excellence framework, the amendment, proposed by a students union, mandated the NUS to look at boycotting or sabotaging the NSS in order to campaign against the teaching excellence framework.

[Wes Streeting]

Q Given that there are few ways for policy makers to get a national picture of student opinion, or for student unions to have some quantitative data to take to their institutions, and given that dozens of student unions seem to be concerned about the policy, I wonder whether decisions made by the national conference, which potentially have a detrimental consequence for all students, are a case of the NUS being led by its activists, rather than by its students.

Sorana Vieru: The spirit of the motion was in debating the usefulness of the data of the NSS itself—I am not debating that. It was proposed as a particular tactic, as the NSS is a metric considered in the teaching excellence framework. I have taken steps to ensure that we are carrying out a full consultation with our members. We have not made a decision about the next steps of the campaign. So we are seeking to maximise the number of responses from the student unions and the campaign and response will be structured in such a way as to mitigate any downfalls of the campaign as well. All those concerns are very high on my agenda.

[The Chair]

I remind Members that questions must be within the scope of the Bill. While “students” appeared in the question, it was slightly outside the scope of the Bill.

[Wes Streeting]

The NSS is linked to the TEF, which is within the scope of the Bill.

[The Chair]

You have to be clear about that.

Again, a number of Members wish to speak and we have limited time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Howlett]

Q What benefit will this Bill have for the most disadvantaged in society?

Joseph Johnson: In many, many ways it will help the most disadvantaged in society. First of all, we are introducing significant reforms on how we deal with transparency in the sector. Universities will be under an obligation to publish full information about their admissions processes and their offer rates, broken down by characteristics such as socio-economic disadvantage. We are putting a duty on UCAS to publish its data in a way that has not fully been available to researchers before. The teaching excellence framework will encourage institutions to focus on how much support they are giving to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and we are strengthening the powers of the director for fair access, widening his role to participation too.

[Wes Streeting]

Q Looking at the evidence of the amendments, what do you think now are the weaknesses in the Bill that you would like to address in Committee and on Report?

Joseph Johnson: We are always keen to hear from Members of the Committee and broader stakeholders with a strong interest in the Bill on how we can strengthen it and make it better. That is what this is all about. I have been working on this for 14 months.

[Wes Streeting]

But what are the areas that you would like to see strengthened through that process?

Joseph Johnson: We are open to all ideas. You have already submitted 150 amendments as a Committee on the first two or three clauses. I think many of them have interesting proposals and we are keen to—

[The Chair]

We will reach those very shortly. I call Mark Pawsey.