argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to colleagues for raising so many points that came up in Committee which particularly exercised me with regard to part 1 of the Bill. Because of the shortness of time, I will restrict my remarks to two issues concerning students and staff in higher education I welcome Government amendment 21 on student representation on the board of the Office for Students and the fact that the Minister has listened to the huge number of representations he has received from members of the Bill Committee, from student unions and from higher education sector leaders, who really value the contribution students make and want to see students on the board. It would have been perverse to have a regulator whose purpose was to protect the interests of students and that had the word "students" on its door and headed paper but did not have students around the table on its board. I am glad the Minister has moved on that particular point As the Bill progresses to the other place, I hope the Minister might consider moving further on the issue of student representation. In Committee we raised the issue of having student representation on the board of the designated quality provider and in drawing up the quality code, and also ensuring that students have representation in what, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) pointed out, could be a wide range of private providers. Whether an institution is a traditional university, a modern university or one of the new private providers, it is absolutely crucial that students’ rights are protected and their voice is represented at the top of the institution I also ask the Minister to address how he sees the issue of student representation playing out on the board of the Office for Students. The wording in Government amendment 21 is not quite what I proposed in Committee —that was slightly more prescriptive, specifying that the representative should be either a student, a sabbatical officer of a students union or an officer of the National Union of Students. I am slightly cautious about the amendment the Secretary of State has tabled, because we could define someone with "experience of representing … students" quite loosely. For example, a number of Members of this House, myself included, have experience of representing students, but I am sure that we would not expect to find ourselves, years later, on the board of the OFS. Perhaps the Minister will sketch out what that representation might look like.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): I certainly do not think that we will be able to find a typical student to sit on the board of the OFS because, as others have said from their perspectives, no such thing exists. That leads me on to where I wanted to direct the Minister, in as far as I can. We should value the skills and expertise that representatives of students develop through their roles in student unions, precisely because there is no such thing as a typical student or a typical student experience. We should value and champion the role that the officers of student unions play in developing their skills and experience as representatives to make sure that student unions champion the broad diversity of students at their institutions; whether students are full time or part time, or are doing part of a course on a credit-based approach, whether they are living at home and commuting to university or have moved away from home, there are a wide range of student experiences. The challenge for anyone who seeks to be a representative is to make sure that they genuinely draw on that broad range of experiences, just as we have to as constituency MPs I hope that, when the Minister appoints one of these representatives, he appoints one who is a students union sabbatical officer, for example, because we are lucky in this country to have a means by which students can develop a good base of skills and expertise. Many of the country’s leading chief executives of voluntary sector organisations have been students union sabbatical officers, as have many Members of Parliament and people in all sorts of professions, because the experience and skill sets that it gives them are genuinely valuable beyond the scope of representing students during their time at university. I hope that that is the sort of person the Minister has in mind and that we will not drag people back from beyond to dust themselves off from retirement.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Mark Phillip Hendrick (Labour, Centre-left): Although I agree with everything that my hon. Friend is saying, I think that the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) was perhaps referring to distance learning students, mature students and people who follow a less usual course to obtain qualifications. Certainly, when I have met the presidents of my students union over the years, they have been sympathetic to the needs of such students. Will my hon. Friend perhaps address the hon. Lady’s point?
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Gordon Marsden (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister might wish to comment specifically on new clause 4, but will he tell us why the Government are so reluctant to allow a process that has served the HE sector well since 1992 to be read across into the new arrangements for the OFS? I refer to the degree-awarding powers committee proposed in the new clause.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister is talking about the affordability and sustainability of systems. Does he acknowledge that when the proposals to change the student funding system were put to this House back in 2012, it was on the understanding from his predecessor, Lord Willetts, that the resource and budgeting charge—the uncollectable level of student debt—would be at around 28%? That prediction was rubbished by many experts in the sector and from the Opposition Benches, and gradually, over the lifetime of the Parliament, the percentage went up into the 30s and the 40s, to the point where it became unsustainable. The unsustainability of the system that the Government created was then dealt with by imposing that burden on students by varying the charges and the deal on student loans in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) described.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): I anticipated that the Minister would point out how permissive the terms and conditions were, which is why I suggested that student loans should be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The sad truth is that I agree with him. As new clause 6 suggests, Members of both Houses should have a role in shaping the terms and conditions, but Ministers, whether in the Treasury or the Department for Education, have shown that they cannot be trusted to keep to their word. That is the indictment and that is why the amendment was tabled.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): I have a constituent in just that position. They went through school, they did well, they were ready to go to university and they had a university place secured, but they were told that they had not yet met the residency requirements. They are going to be sitting around for another year or two, waiting until they do meet the residency requirement. That is a waste of their time, a waste of their potential and a waste of everybody else’s time. That is the perverse situation we are in, isn’t it?
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Gordon Marsden (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak to Labour’s new clause 5, which would revoke the Education (Student Support) (Amendment) Regulations 2015, which moved support for students from a system of maintenance grants to loans. I also rise to speak to Labour’s new clause 6, which follows on from the excellent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) on new clauses 2 and 3. At a time when the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission reported only last week that our nation is facing a crisis in social mobility, it is a travesty that I have to stand here today to talk about the problems caused by scrapping maintenance grants and replacing them with a further loan, disproportionately affecting students who come from a low-income background. As this House knows, students in the UK already face the highest levels of student debt in any European country. Figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that the average student in the UK will leave university saddled with £44,000-worth of debt, and the Sutton Trust has suggested that the figure could go even higher. This figure is only the average; for students from low-income backgrounds, it will be much higher, and these changes will make it higher still Labour Members have pledged to bring back the maintenance grant. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), in the Bill Committee and recently at the Labour party’s north-west conference, gave powerful testimony as to why that is. It is not just because we cannot afford to lose these people from our economic process, or just because it will help to aid social mobility generally; it is because by doing so we will empower hundreds of thousands of people who will otherwise lose their life chances, or be in danger of that, under this process. There were half a million students in the last year before the Government scrapped the grant, many of whom were in higher education in further education colleges. If a significant number of those students do not take out loans because, for a variety of reasons, they do not wish to do so or are unable to do so, we will increase still further the progressive weakening that this Government have put on to the higher education and FE sector, which is currently servicing some 34,000 students who got the grant in the last year before the Government scrapped it, including a significant number of people in my own constituency pursuing higher education at the excellent Blackpool and The Fylde College The Government—I give credit to them for it—have put into the Bill the ability for FE colleges to have their own degree-awarding powers, and Blackpool and The Fylde College is one of those, but it is rather perverse then to introduce something that will weaken the support for such colleges. The Government seem not to think in holistic terms about further education. Taking people in higher education in further education colleges out of the equation will weaken the economic and social base of those colleges. The Government do not give anywhere near enough attention to that.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Gordon Marsden (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady must be a mind reader because I am just coming to on that issue Bringing back the maintenance grant would help to enable over half a million students from low and middle-income backgrounds to go on to higher education. Rumour has it that in the autumn statement this coming Wednesday, the Chancellor is set to announce a further cut in corporation tax, helping only those at the top. We are asking the Government to reconsider this position. Our policy, which has been costed, of bringing back grants would be the equivalent of a rise of less than 1% in corporation tax. Do the Government not believe that this rise would be more beneficial to our nation as a whole—
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Gordon Marsden (Labour, Centre-left): No, I will not—the hon. Lady has had one go. Let me proceed because we do not have a lot of time Do the Government not believe that that rise would be more beneficial to our nation as a whole than pushing ahead with a policy that benefits only a relatively small number of large corporations, and not even a big range? If the Government are serious about supporting social mobility, they need to do something about it. The Minister, in a rather Panglossian way, went on about all the terrible things that were predicted when loans were introduced not having come to pass, but that is actually not true, or certainly not true across the board. We have seen what a disaster the introduction of advanced learning loans for level 3 was for over-24-year-olds. Only 50% of the £300 million that was allocated for them was taken up, and that money has been sent straight back to the Treasury. Now, unabashed, the Government want to serve up the same recipe to 19 to 24-year-olds "Nudge" has been a fashionable word in the Conservative party in recent years—indeed, Lord Willetts wrote quite a lot about it—but it is possible to nudge people away from things as well as towards them. As the Minister well knows, the quality impact assessment on grants and loans let the cat out of the bag on the difficulties that would be faced by all the groups who desperately need access to higher education, such as women, disabled people, people from the black and minority ethnic communities, and care leavers. No wonder Ministers were so keen to bury this issue in a Delegated Legislation Committee. It took our efforts in bringing it to an Opposition day debate at the beginning of the year to have a decent debate on it The Government need to think again on this. I give notice that we will press our new clause 5 to a vote.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Gordon Marsden (Labour, Centre-left): That was a hell of a lot more than two seconds, but I forgive the hon. Lady. We need to look at this issue in the context of our proposal, to which I have already alluded New clause 6 deals with yet another regressive policy that has been highlighted during the passage of this Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North spoke about some of the significant issues in this regard. The students affected will end up having to pay more than they were loaned as a greater proportion of their income. To those who have, more will be given, because they can pay their loans back more speedily; from those who have not, more will be taken. The Government seem to have been disregarding in their education policy the fact that there is a regional and demographic dimension to this as well. Constituents of mine taking up a graduate job in the past 12 months will have had a more reasonable ability to hit a threshold that was supposed to be uprated on a regular basis. Students in parts of the country where starting incomes for graduates are much lower than in London and the south-east will be particularly badly hit by this proposal.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Gordon Marsden (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, as he is to make that point about the situation for students in Northern Ireland. When we discussed this matter in the Opposition day debate and again in Committee, we made the point that students in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland—the students of all of the devolved Administrations—would be affected by this process. It is nonsense for the Government to say that this will not make any difference. The Minister said to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) that the RAB charge was now okay, but as my hon. Friend said, it is only okay because this Government—the Minister and the rest of his colleagues—have created a Frankenstein’s monster that is going to cause problems for so many thousands of students.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Christopher Blomfield (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister has articulated exactly the sentiments shared by Opposition Members—for us, too, this issue is a priority—but does he not recognise that in reality the Government are failing in that objective? Around the country, we are receiving reports of EU academics saying, "Our future isn’t here, because we haven’t had the reassurances we need."
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Gordon Marsden (Labour, Centre-left): Our amendments 43 to 45 are on collaboration between the OFS and UKRI. I will come to those and the Minister’s comments on them in a moment, but shall start with amendment 42 Amendment 42 would allow Research England to co-ordinate with its devolved counterparts. Labour considers this an important principle to establish in the Bill. The Committee did not include members from Wales or, obviously, from Northern Ireland, yet, in both Wales and Northern Ireland, universities and higher education institutions will be significantly affected by the process. They will also be affected if the process with the new bodies is not universally seen, at this important time for our university system, to be fair in sharing out its attentions. Not to consider including such provisions in the Bill is a great mistake. Surely we should consider those interests when setting up a new research body This is highly relevant to the future of those research bodies. The Minister will be well aware that research bodies are generally still not entirely mollified by the various blandishments and reassurances given, particularly on the role of research councils. I am sure he will hear more about that when the Bill goes to the other place. While we have not pressed further any of the amendments that were proposed in Committee, because of time pressures, I assure him that our noble Friends in another place will want to scrutinise in detail what he has said and what he is planning to do These are not arcane arguments about technical details. One of the problems the Government face is that they have overlooked a vital factor. There is little sense of what the knock-on effects of all this will be on the importance of what I describe as the brand UK plc in HE—particularly so, in view of the further uncertainties that have arisen since the advent of Brexit. I am not the only person to make that observation; other commentators and academics have also done so.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Daniel Stephen Zeichner (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend will appreciate that a number of institutions are concerned—I suspect he was about to make this point—about this gap between teaching and research. I was quite surprised when my University of Cambridge told me that 89% of people who are involved in teaching at the university are also involved in research. That integration between the two is absolutely essential, yet it seems to be what is missing in some people’s eyes from the Bill. I believe that this is the force of the amendment that my hon. Friend is proposing.
Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Education
Roberta Carol Blackman-Woods (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to echo some of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) from the Front Bench. We can agree with some of the Bill. I do not think any Labour Member has a problem in principle with putting a teaching excellence framework in place. We think that it is a necessary corrective for many of our institutions to ensure that teaching gets the same level of applause as research currently does. However, even though we are on Third Reading, we do not have enough information about how the TEF will work in practice and whether it will measure teaching quality, or use proxy measures. We know that the metrics still have to be sorted. From now on, we will have to rely on the other place to scrutinise that matter and the issue of how the traffic light system will come into operation and whether it will be used in any way for the recruitment of students, particularly international students Other issues remain unresolved relating to the quality of new entrants, what they will do and the services they will provide to students in addition to their degree course. There are issues to be resolved about how UKRI and the OFS will provide holistic oversight to the sector and work together. There are issues about how higher education relates to the needs of part-time and mature students. There are a number of unanswered questions, which Members in the other place will have to examine in more detail, as they will student finance and the increasing demands that are being imposed in that regard. As my hon. Friend said, another issue is how all this is going to make sense to universities in the context of Brexit. Therefore, we are handing over to the other place quite a list of challenges, and I wish it well in further scrutinising the Bill Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Shale Wealth Fund — House of Commons, 2016-11-21
Topic: Energy
Caroline Louise Flint (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you for granting me this debate, Mr Speaker. I begin by welcoming the Government’s recent consultation on their shale wealth fund, to which I want to draw attention. It is only right that this House should have an open, constructive debate about this new Government-created fund and how it might be used most effectively. This may be the first debate about the new fund, but I hope it is not the last. Perhaps the Minister will confirm in her response whether the Treasury will be publishing submissions to the consultation. The fund is a new concept and exchanging the information and ideas that were submitted can only be good for policy making, so if the Minister is able to, I encourage her to make them available online I should perhaps say what this debate is not about. I have not secured this chance to bring the Minister to the House to debate the whys and wherefores of fracking. My views are well known from my time as Labour’s shadow Energy Secretary in the previous Parliament. With appropriate environmental regulations in place, shale gas has a role to play in the UK’s energy mix. It could assist the UK’s transition to renewables, replacing coal with gas, reducing dependency on imported gas, some of which is fracked, and reducing the UK’s carbon emissions. The Government could have gone further on the regulation, but that is for another day If shale gas exploration is proceeding, communities should have a fund for their use. Communities in my constituency of Don Valley have tolerated quarrying, but they have benefited from such funds, too. The fracking industry has agreed two forms of community benefit: a one-off payment of £100,000 per well; and a share of revenue from each well—currently set at 1%. Each should give communities dedicated funds for the lifetime of the project. In addition, local authorities will be able to keep 100% of the business rates that they collect from shale gas sites, which is the case with renewable developments This evening I want to advance the conversation about the best way of spending the revenues that the Government receive in the form of nationally determined taxes, levies and duties. Specifically, I want to discuss the proposal for an initial 10% of tax revenues to be deposited in a shale wealth fund—a sovereign wealth fund by any other name. The fund should be ring fenced for a clear purpose, such as improving the UK’s energy efficiency, using the proceeds from a fossil fuel to reduce our future dependence on those same energy sources.