Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-03-06
Topic: Education
James Younger (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, before I discuss fees, I would like first to be clear that the Government welcome genuine international students, and to reiterate the confirmation that I offered in Committee that we have no plans to cap the number of genuine students who can come to the UK to study, nor to limit an institution’s ability to recruit genuine international students, based on its TEF rating or on any other basis As well as the link to student numbers, this amendment would remove an important principle at the heart of the TEF: the link to fees. The TEF is intended to rebalance the priority given to teaching and learning compared to research. Funding for teaching is currently based on quantity, whereas research is funded on quality. It was a Conservative Government who first introduced early versions of the research excellence framework. Over the past 30 years, the principle of linking funding to quality has incentivised the UK’s research base to develop into the world-leading sector that we have today. We want to apply the same principle that has driven such continuous improvement in research to teaching. Linking fees to the TEF will provide strong reputational and financial incentives to prioritise the student learning experience It is important that high-quality institutions can maintain fees in line with inflation if we are to ensure that the sector remains sustainable. As I pointed out in Committee, the £9,000 fees introduced in 2012 are worth only £8,500 today and will be worth less than £8,000 by the end of the Parliament. If we want to provide the best-quality education in our universities, and to compete with our global rivals, universities need the resource to invest in their teaching facilities. This is why the Universities UK board unanimously supported the link between an effective TEF and fee rises. Some 299 institutions have voluntarily applied to take part in the TEF this year out of about 400: that represents a big majority. This includes the majority of the established higher education sector, including all the English Russell group universities. I think that noble Lords will agree that this represents a very encouraging and excellent endorsement of the current scheme Furthermore, as GuildHE said: "The link between the TEF and inflation increases in fee and loan caps makes sense ... When the £9000 fee cap was introduced in 2012/13, the BIS spending review assumption was that it would rise by inflation each year. Instead, the price has been held flat for four years. Without an increase to take account of rising teaching costs, the ability of institutions to invest in the quality of the learning experience on offer will, inevitably, decline" However, there will be no something for nothing. Make no mistake: if this amendment is enacted the sector will lose £16 billion over the course of the next 10 years. This is the value of the funding we intend to make available for institutions through the TEF. We will not allow universities to raise their fees unless they can demonstrate, through the TEF, that their teaching is of the highest quality.