Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-13
Topic: Education
George Young (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for his extensive work on this issue. I am grateful for his contribution to the round-table discussions with the QAA and his continued engagement on this matter. He touched on the problem of foreign students. The evidence presented in the QAA’s report on plagiarism indicates that cheating may be more prevalent among international students. However, we recognise that plagiarism is a wider issue, so our approach is to look at the sector as a whole. We will be working with the QAA and other sector bodies to develop a co-ordinated response across all students and providers As my noble friend Lady Goldie said in Committee, plagiarism in any form, including the use of custom essay-writing services, or essay mills, is not acceptable and the Government take this issue very seriously. Having said that, I am afraid that I am going to plagiarise much of the speech which my noble friend made in Committee when she dealt with this amendment. My noble friend announced that the Minister, my honourable friend Jo Johnson, would be launching a co-ordinated sector-led initiative to tackle this issue, working with the QAA, UUK, NUS and HEFCE. In response to the question just posed by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, this initiative has now been launched The Minister has asked sector bodies to develop guidance with tough new penalties as well as information for students to help combat the use of these websites as well as other forms of plagiarism. This new guidance for providers should ensure that a robust approach with tough penalties can be embedded across the sector. In developing the guidance, the Minister has asked sector bodies to bear in mind that, for any enforcement to be effective, the penalties imposed must relate to both the gravity of the offence and the likelihood of an offence being discovered. The new sector guidance and student information is expected to be in place for the beginning of the 2017-18 academic year As part of this initiative, the QAA has also been tasked with taking action against the online advertising of these services and to work with international agencies to deal with the problem. The QAA has already started to progress these actions, including making a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, asking it to investigate the essay mills sector on a project basis We believe this sector-led, non-legislative initiative is the best approach to tackling this issue in the first instance. We will, of course, monitor the effectiveness of this approach and we remain open to legislation in the future should the steps we are taking prove insufficient. If legislation does become necessary, it would be crucial that we get the wording of the offence right. In the amendment tabled, it is unclear who would be responsible for prosecuting and how they would demonstrate intent to give an unfair advantage. As currently written, there is also a risk that the offence could capture legitimate services, such as study guides, under the same umbrella as cheating services The effectiveness of a legislative offence operating as a deterrent will depend on our ability to execute successful prosecutions and we would need to take care to get it right. This was acknowledged by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, in Committee, who said that, "this should not be rushed and we should get it spot on".—[Official Report, 25/1/17; col. 766.] We do not believe that legislative action is the best response at this time, and I have outlined the steps that are being taken. Against that background, I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.