argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, in moving these government amendments, I look forward to potentially hearing contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Stevenson, about the amendments that they have proposed in this group. However, I believe the amendments we have tabled will have a similar effect to that which their amendments seek to achieve. The Bill is not as clear as it could be on exactly what types of providers can apply for what type of degree-awarding powers, and what awards this then entitles them to make. I believe this is why noble Lords tabled Amendments 242 and 243 The simplest way of dealing with the issues at play here is for me to explain the purpose of the government amendments. We listened carefully to the discussions in the other place and, as the Minister for Universities and Science promised, we have reflected on and re-examined how Clause 40 may have been read as impacting on the further education sector. Although there are over 30 government amendments in this group, most of them are consequential and there are really just two main areas that we seek to address. First, we want to remove any doubt that institutions within the further education sector can continue to apply for powers to award foundation, taught and research degrees. We believe that the amendment to Clause 40(1)—whereby what was subsection (1)(b) has been removed—will achieve this. Under that amendment, the definition in Clause 40(3) of a "taught award" clarifies that this may include a foundation degree. Removing what was Clause 40(1)(b) should help to remove any impression that providers in the further education sector that obtained powers under this route could not go on to obtain powers also to award higher-level degrees. As before, a further education provider must also be a registered higher education provider before it can apply for authorisation to grant awards under Clause 40 Secondly, these amendments should remove any doubt over which providers can award foundation degrees. While we wish to retain the current position where only higher education providers that are also further education providers may apply for powers to solely award foundation degrees, it should nevertheless continue to be the case that institutions that can award taught degrees should also be able to award foundation degrees. It remains the Government’s policy that a provider that wishes to be authorised to award foundation degrees only should be required to provide a satisfactory progression statement. We believe it is important that the provider in question can demonstrate that it has in place clear progression routes for learners wishing to proceed to a course of higher-level study on completion of the foundation degree. The amendment to Clause 43 is therefore to ensure that, were a variation of a provider’s powers to result in it being left with the powers to award only a foundation degree, that provider would need to be able to satisfy the Bill’s requirements in respect of a progression statement. I beg to move.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): I appreciate the contributions from noble Lords in the very short debate after I introduced the government amendments. As we are now proposing that a foundation degree award is covered by the definition of a taught award in Clause 40(3), this puts holders of foundation degree-awarding powers in the same position as holders of taught degree-awarding powers—which I assume was the intent behind noble Lords’ amendments. In addition, we plan to set out in guidance the relationship between degree-awarding powers and powers to award other higher education awards such as certificates of higher education. I hope that this will help to further clarify the position for providers. We anticipate that this guidance will be subject to consultation. I do not wish to dwell on Amendment 256A any further, as we have covered the argument in our discussions on the previous group, where I trust that my noble friend Lady Goldie offered some reassurance However, I will address a small number of the points raised. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, raised some issues about the post-16 skills plan and how this joins up with our proposed reforms. I confirm that we are carrying out two reform programmes, in higher education and technical education at the same time, which he is probably aware of and which gives us the best opportunity to ensure that they are complementary and for young people to benefit from the changes as soon as possible. This is not about diverting people from academic education into technical education or vice versa; we simply want everyone who can benefit from a tertiary education—whatever that might be and whatever their talents lead them to—to have the chance to do so I will address the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. One point focused on the clarifications of our framework in relation to these amendments, while another was on the responsibility of powers. I think it is best to write a letter on that. I was interested in the points raised about entryism by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, particularly on the position of overseas providers who might want to come in. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has received the letter I have just written, in which I thought that we had addressed those issues, but I suggest that we have a meeting with the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, and indeed any other noble Lord who might wish to join in, to offer full and final clarification.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Philip Norton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I have Amendment 251 in this grouping. In opening, I stress that I do not have a problem with alternative providers in HE. I chair the Higher Education Commission and we are presently undertaking an inquiry into alternative providers. They are numerous and the nature of their provision varies enormously. I heard from some of them earlier this afternoon. Some cater to thousands of students, others to a small number in what are essentially niche subjects What is important is that arrangements are in place to protect students. Last week we discussed the provision for student protection plans. At issue here is the giving of degree-awarding powers and the need to ensure that such powers are conferred on bodies that have the proven capacity to maintain the required standards of a UK degree, and to do so for as long as they have such powers There is considerable concern about provision for "probationary" degree-awarding powers. If a probationary period is to mean anything, it is that the continuation of degree-awarding powers is not guaranteed at the end of the period. What happens at the end of the three-year probationary period if such powers are not continued? What happens to students still at the institution? What worth attaches to the degrees of those who have already graduated? Furthermore, what is the risk to the UK HE brand if probationary degree-awarding powers are conferred on bodies with no established track record of delivering high-quality education? My amendment seeks to protect the position of students and of the HE brand, by ensuring that the OfS may not authorise a provider to grant degrees, unless the provider has validation arrangements in place I appreciate that confining the provision to validation by existing HE institutions runs the risk of imposing uniformity, with established institutions not being too keen on validating innovative teaching methods and possibly not fully appreciating the value of the alternative provision. The way round that is to ensure that there is an independent validating body. Clause 47 enables the Secretary of State to authorise the OfS to be the validator of last resort, but I recognise the problem of allowing the regulator to have such a power. It is not a power that should be vested in the regulator. I would rather see an independent body, akin to the old CNAA, created. That deserves serious consideration. I thus favour amending this clause along the lines of Amendment 251 and the other amendments in this group, along with the later removal of Clause 47 and its replacement by a provision that would create a body equivalent to the old CNAA. That, to my mind, would inject the necessary protections while not deterring new entrants to the field.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Ralph Matthew Palmer (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friend Lord Norton’s amendment, which would be the ideal. Certainly, we have to move away from where we are in this. I do not find the idea of validation by the OfS satisfactory, with all its conflicts of interest, but universities which set and mark their own degrees are used to that sort of conflict. This sector seems plagued with such conflicts, but I would rather do without them. We have to get to a point where universities acting as validators are not permitted and are in some way controlled by the OfS—if we do not have the arrangement that my noble friend proposes—so that they do not indulge in competitive behaviour in the way that they have in the past. It is an extremely unsatisfactory process at the moment. Validation can last for three years only. That is not in the interests of students. They must have longer-term arrangements with the universities and the universities must be held to them, if that is what we are to go on with One can look at examples such as the London College of International Business Studies—a 150 year-old institution, one way and another—which has its degrees validated in Switzerland. It has gone to the altar three times with UK universities, each time being left in the lurch, although it got a QAA pass in the course of one of them. It is now engaged to the Open University and has high hopes of it. I wish it good fortune, but that is not a fair way of asking an organisation to get degree-awarding powers. There has to be good behaviour and consistent behaviour on behalf of the universities We also need to solve the problem facing Cordon Bleu. It is an institution operating in 20 countries, awarding degrees in most of them, and extremely highly respected. It cannot come to the UK because, under the validation arrangements currently in place, the validating institution gets a complete licence to use the validatee’s IP to do whatever it wants. Indeed, we have seen one of Cordon Bleu’s competitors pillaged in that way by a UK university. All its IP was taken and used to run that university’s own degrees. That cannot be permitted as a relationship between someone seeking validation and someone offering it Whatever we do, we must improve where we are. I am not particularly impressed by what is in the Bill at the moment, but I very much hope that between us we can reach something that will support the entrance of good organisations to degree-awarding in this country in a way that takes account of their quality and the good reasons that they have for thinking they might be allowed to award degrees. However, as others have said, the legislation must absolutely protect the reputation of degrees in this country. We cannot have a situation where substandard organisations get to award degrees.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Macroeconomics
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): There can indeed be quite a full debate on the causes of the changes and I hope that in previous debates I have acknowledged the changes in the marketplace. Our aim as a Government is to address these changes. I think that we are all on the same page on that. I am happy to speak to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, further on that particular issue—in other words, concerning the issues that are leading up to our reforms.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
Philip Norton (Conservative, Centre-right): My noble friend has dealt with the point about a body that is awarded a degree-awarding power on a probationary basis and then does not have that power granted at the end of the probationary period, where for current students a student protection plan would be in place. However, if it is a degree-awarding body it may have already awarded degrees. What value does he think would attach to those degrees?
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, I can speak to my noble friend outside the Chamber, but surely there is no change to the current situation. In an extreme position where a provider fails, a student who has a degree from that failed provider would have to take that with him or her. There is surely no change and no reflection in terms of what we are trying to do here.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall be brief as well. It remains our policy that degree-awarding powers cannot be transferred or sold. As now, if a holder of degree-awarding powers was involved in a change of ownership, it would be expected to inform the OfS and demonstrate that it remained the same cohesive academic community that had been awarded those powers originally. We need to maintain flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, so it is appropriate that these matters are covered through guidance, in the same way that the process operates currently. I hope that with that extremely short explanation, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to explain the provisions on the revocation of degree-awarding powers and university title. I make it absolutely clear that these powers are not intended for frequent use, as I have mentioned before. We see them as a rarely used but necessary safeguard for quality in the system. We know that these powers are significant and that is why we have endeavoured to include strong safeguards, including a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. We have listened carefully and will continue to reflect on whether there are further improvements that we can make, and we will no doubt discuss this matter further on Report Our higher education system is world-class and university title and degree-awarding power are valuable assets. It is the responsibility of those that have obtained these prestigious titles to uphold their reputation. However, without powers to hold such providers accountable, we risk undermining the reputation of our universities. Let us consider the impact if a university’s quality and standards were to drop to a wholly unacceptable level, to the extent that it was widely known that its degrees were not comparable to others and the provider in question had done nothing to address this. Would we really want such an institution to continue to benefit from the prestige of a university title?
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-23
Topic: Education
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, in view of the very brief comments made by noble Lords in this extremely short debate, I shall also keep my comments short. I am happy to write to noble Lords if they feel that my comments are too short I understand that my noble friend Lord Lucas’s amendment is born of a wish to protect students, but I reassure him that there are already strong protections in place. I also reassure noble Lords once again that on our student protection plans our policy is to ensure that students’ interests are protected if a provider’s validation agreements break down I will comment a bit further on providers declining to validate on quality grounds. We expect that the OfS’s commissioning process should be open and transparent, so that providers clearly understand what would be expected of them if they agree to extend their validation services to other registered providers in this way. In all cases we expect the commissioned provider would need to be assured of the quality of the provision that it agrees to validate. The OfS’s commissioning process should therefore allow providers to decline to enter into validation agreements on quality grounds. So we believe that this amendment is not necessary. I therefore ask my noble friend to withdraw Amendment 305.
Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-10
Topic: Law and Crime
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, first, I wish to take a moment to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for taking this Bill through the House and for the very constructive conversation that we had this week about it. I single out for special praise the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. It is always nice to hear men contribute to a debate that is mainly about women. I say at this juncture that the Government have given their full backing to the Bill and we wholly support its aim of ensuring that we deliver on our commitment to ratify the Istanbul convention We all recognise that violence is still far too prevalent in our society today, and that women still face a much higher risk of gender-based violence than men. Physical, sexual and domestic abuse affect women disproportionately: that is the stark reality, I am afraid. We also know that many of these crimes remain unreported—we talked about that at Question Time yesterday or the day before—leaving victims to suffer in silence and perpetrators escaping justice Our commitment to ratifying the Istanbul convention shows not only how seriously this Government are taking their responsibility to ensure that all victims are supported and that perpetrators are brought to justice but also our ongoing commitment to strengthening international co-operation in this field, which is vital This Government have put prevention at the heart of our approach. We have significantly strengthened the law since we first published our first call to end violence against women and girls—VAWG—strategy in 2010, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans pointed out. We have criminalised forced marriage and breach of a forced marriage protection order in England and Wales. The right reverend Prelate made an interesting point about forced marriage and girls being taken out of the UK for this reason. The joint Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office Forced Marriage Unit provides support and advice to victims, those at risk and professionals. The FMU’s most recent statistics were published yesterday and show that in 2016 advice or support was provided in 1,428 cases; 371 of those, or 26%, involved under-18s. The unit handled cases relating to 60—
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Dunlop (Conservative, Centre-right): There has been progress in the talks over the last period. Progress has been made on setting a budget, implementing a programme for government and improving transparency and accountability, and these have been part of the round-table talks that have been convened. But clearly, as we go forward, we need to step up the intensity and inclusivity of the discussions, and that is what the Secretary of State will be working towards over the coming days and hours.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Dunlop (Conservative, Centre-right): I have been asked that question in this House before and I will give the same reply that I gave then. We are committed to the Belfast agreement and the principle of consent. Northern Ireland remains a full part of the UK and joint authority would be incompatible with that principle of consent.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: Macroeconomics
Andrew Dunlop (Conservative, Centre-right): The funding of these voluntary bodies and the public services is absolutely at the heart of why we need to make quick progress and why this process cannot go on indefinitely. Measures are in place that allow the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Finance to allocate cash, but political choices need to be made and that is why we require a fully functioning Executive to be in place.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Dunlop (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I agree with the noble Lord about the importance of maintaining the forward momentum of the peace process. As the Statement says, and as the Secretary of State said in the House of Commons, we do not detect any appetite for a second election—the issues would remain to be resolved and it would merely prolong a period of uncertainty and disruption. On the involvement of the Prime Minister, as I have already said, she is actively involved and engaged, dealing directly with the Taoiseach. She and the Taoiseach have mandated my right honourable friend the Northern Ireland Secretary and the Irish Foreign Minister to take forward supporting and facilitating the discussions with the parties. That will happen over the coming hours and days as we seek a resolution to these issues.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Dunlop (Conservative, Centre-right): As the Statement sets out, the focus and priority are seeking to get the Executive up and running. Of course, should that not succeed, we will look carefully at all the options as we go forward.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: Government Operations
William Trimble (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I welcome the announcement by the Minister that he will be bringing forward legislation after Easter. I suggest that that legislation should be fairly comprehensive in providing for a number of scenarios. It might also be a good idea to do something unusual or a little different—the suggestion mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, is worth considering. The Minister might like to consider that the joint ministerial council is not a creature of statute and that it could operate with a slightly different membership than it has done hitherto.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: Government Operations
Andrew Dunlop (Conservative, Centre-right): I will certainly reflect on what my noble friend has said. As is clear from the Statement, our focus is on getting the parties round the table to agree the outstanding issues so that we can form an Executive at the end of this window of opportunity. That must be the focus of our efforts at present.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: International Affairs
David Arthur Russell Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, the Statement spoke about the parties coming together to deal with the Brexit situation. Is it, as a matter of fact, the position that the people of Northern Ireland still have the statutory right to organise a referendum on their constitutional position, unlike Scotland which does not have that right unless it is granted? Is that now the legal position? I declare an interest as a Minister who took the original Northern Ireland referendum Bill through the House of Commons in 1972.
Northern Ireland: Political Developments — House of Lords, 2017-03-28
Topic: International Affairs
Andrew Dunlop (Conservative, Centre-right): Under the Belfast agreement, arrangements are set out for the circumstances in which a border poll could be held. However, the Secretary of State has made it clear that the conditions for such a poll are not currently satisfied.