Higher Education and Research Bill — House of Lords, 2017-01-09
Topic: Education
Susan Garden (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment for all the good reasons that we have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. The Office for Students takes on powerful responsibilities to approve and disband universities and other higher education organisations with speedier timescales and lower thresholds. It is only right that criteria for these new organisations should be clearly set out. One reason given for the legislation has been that it is 25 years since the last Higher Education Bill in 1992. We do not question that some updating is necessary to reflect developments and to ensure that teaching has the same status as research, but we question whether 119 clauses and 12 schedules are necessary for this purpose. Could it be that our universities have flourished and retained world rankings because they have not been subjected to government interference? Within education, schools and colleges have suffered from changes imposed by different Governments and by the churn of Ministers seeking to make their mark, regardless of advice from professionals in the sector. Universities for some years have been relatively free of such assistance, and they have flourished as a result The importance of setting out the functions of universities is all the more crucial, given that increasing the numbers of universities and opening up new commercial providers sits oddly with other government policy. The country faces acute skill shortages: we need more builders, engineers, carers and technicians. The Government have ambitious plans to increase the numbers, quality and status of apprenticeships. How can that be achieved if they are also set on increasing provision of degrees, in whatever discipline—probably mainly business and other cheaper-to-run programmes—from an expanding range of organisations whose skills could be better focused on training and reskilling for real jobs in real shortage areas? In the interests of joined-up government, could the Minister say what discussions have taken place with the Skills Minister and his team over the unintended consequences for raising the profile of much-needed skills of implying, through this Bill, that degrees are the only game in town Without this clause, the first reference to universities comes in Clause 51. Not long ago, universities were pretty well the only option for higher education. Many of the expansions into higher education by colleges, for instance, have been welcome responses to demand and to opening opportunities for non-traditional students. This Bill brings to mind attempts to create corporate universities in the 1990s. There was British Aerospace’s Virtual University; Unipart U, which is now a virtual U; and the University for Industry—the misnomer of all time—which came into its own only when it abandoned any claims on the title of university and changed its name to learndirect. But those initiatives morphed into closer collaboration between academia and industry, to the benefit of both, and with both contributing their different skills and ethos. Encouraging more such partnerships would surely be better for students, employers and the country than trying to widen and potentially weaken the range of higher education providers. The criteria in this amendment provide safeguards that the core functions and values of British universities will be protected. It would be sadly ironic if the Bill produced a double whammy of undermining efforts to raise the standing and importance of skills, while damaging the standing and reputation of UK universities. There is much at stake in this Bill. We look forward to working with Ministers to ensure that market forces, competition and red tape are not allowed to damage our world-ranking universities. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope that he feels able to accept the amendment.