Higher Education and Research Bill (Fourth sitting)
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debateThursday 8th September 2016
(7 years, 7 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesHigher Education and Research Act 2017 View all Higher Education and Research Act 2017 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 8 September 2016 - (8 Sep 2016)
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 11 - Question accordingly negatived.
Valerie Vaz
Thank you, Mr Hanson. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. My amendment is intended to be helpful; obviously, if Members do not like what I say, they can just trash me in the press. “Office for Students” is a misnomer. First, this body is not about being an office for students; as various clauses make clear, the body is about registration and regulation—a registration procedure—and not about students. It is certainly not about having students as part of the office for students.
Secondly, from the written and oral evidence given to the Committee, the situation of postgraduate students has clearly not been acknowledged or mentioned in setting up this body, and, with the new changes in the Government, we now have two responsible Departments. Postgraduates do a fantastic job of not only research, but teaching, so they are split between the two. There is a gap there, which has been acknowledged. Postgraduate students have to be somewhere in the Bill.
Furthermore, there is nothing about subject-specific support—the strategic and vulnerable subjects, which require a higher level of funding. That is why I say that this body is not about students. There is nothing about skills, the skills deficit or protecting the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths. I liken the office for students to the Care Quality Commission. This is like calling the CQC the “office for patients” when its responsibility is not actually about that, but about regulating healthcare providers.
The office for students appears to set up regulation and registration processes. We can see in the Bill a power to impose monetary penalties and a power for the suspension of registration. Higher education providers will have to pay for the benefit of being part of the register. If we continue to look through the Bill, we see clauses titled “De-registration by the OfS” and “De-registration by the OfS: procedure”. Higher education providers are going to be spending all their time on bureaucracy, and all that money will be taken away from front-line services—away from the students themselves. That is why I say, again, that it is not about students.
According to clause 2(2), the Secretary of State has to give guidance. Again, there is no clarity. We need to change that, because we now have two Secretaries of State. If the OFS was for students it would be about fees protection, because students who were having to face bills of £27,000 are now being provided with invoices for £45,000. It would also be about students’ wellbeing, the skills shortage, retraining, returners, and all those people who do not classify themselves as students as we imagine them to be. Our time as a student is actually a very short part of our lives. There are people who do not fit the student mould, yet who will be students at some stage during their lifetime.
I want to pick up on the Minister’s remarks earlier about my being the only one who wants to pause the Bill. I do so because I am a lawyer, and was a Government lawyer. It is important to have clarity on the face of the Bill. Currently, that is not the case. The Minister helpfully told us that he has been living with the Bill for 14 months. I sympathise with him on that, but there have been a lot of changes, not least the new grammar school policy that might be coming through. What happens at the early stages of education filters up. The abolition of the Office for Fair Access and what happens to young people as they go through the education system will have a great impact. I know that it is not part of the programme motion, and I have been told that we cannot discuss this, but what happened on 23 June is vital. I say again that the machinery of Government changes.
There is no clarity on the face of the Bill. “Office for Students” is a misnomer. I would prefer to work with the Minister to find another way to describe the body, not least because it is not about students.
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Joseph Johnson)
I echo the hon. Lady’s pleasure at serving under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.
I shall move straight to the points raised by the amendment, with which I fundamentally disagree. I do, though, appreciate the hon. Lady’s efforts to be helpful and am pleased to have a chance to address the points she made. The Bill sets out a programme of reforms for higher education that will improve quality and choice for students. It will encourage competition and allow for consistent and fair oversight.
As I said when I gave evidence to the Committee this morning, there have been several significant changes to the higher education system since the last legislation was introduced to overhaul the regulation of the sector, all the way back in 1992. The majority of funding for the system used to come directly from the Government, in the form of grants. We have now moved to a system in which students themselves fund their studies.
The regulation of the sector clearly needs to keep pace with developments if confidence, as well as our international reputation and standing, are to be maintained, so we need an HE regulator that is focused on protecting students’ interests, promoting fair access and ensuring the value for money of their investment in higher education. That has been a central tenet of Government reforms since the publication of the 2011 White Paper, “Students at the Heart of the System”. Ensuring that the student interest is at the centre of the sector’s systems and structures is a cardinal principle of our approach.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for giving way; it is probably the first of many occasions. I wonder whether he could not give some reassurance to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South on the issues she is raising by indicating that he views our amendments sympathetically. They would give life to what he just talked about—putting students at the heart of the system—by providing for effective student representation both at the top on the OFS board and throughout the system.
Joseph Johnson
Yes, I will certainly come on to that issue, which is the subject of a number of later amendments, but I will happily touch on it in answering the hon. Gentleman.
In its written evidence, University Alliance states that:
“As the organisation responsible for regulating the higher education sector, the OfS will need to ensure that institutions operate in the interests of students.”
That point was reiterated by Professor Quintin McKellar, vice-chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire in his evidence to this Committee, when he said that
“the Government’s idea to have an office for students that would primarily be interested in student wellbeing and the student experience is a good thing.”––[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2016; c. 22, Q31.]
We also heard from Alan Langlands, vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds, who concurred when he said:
“I think the Government have struck a reasonable balance, and putting students at the centre is sensible”.––[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2016; c. 27, Q41.]
The creation of the office for students is about putting students at the heart of the system. It has been a consistent theme of Conservative and, formerly, coalition policy for a considerable time. The OFS will, for the first time, have statutory duties focused on the interests of students and equality of opportunity when using the range of powers given by the Bill.
In addition, unlike appointments to the HEFCE board, the Secretary of State must “have regard” to the desirability of the OFS’s members having proven experience of representing the interests of students when appointing the OFS board. That goes straight to the point that the hon. Member for Sheffield Central raised. Schedule 1 of the Bill captures the intent of many of the amendments that have been tabled for later clauses. We feel that schedule 1 fully meets those intentions of ensuring that the OFS board has people with the experience of representing student interests.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
May I repeat my delight in serving under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson, and that of Sir Edward? On the very specific reference that the Minister has just made, some might say he is just trying to defend the indefensible. It is “Hamlet” without the prince, but we will come on to that in a moment.
Is it not the case that the specific phrase “have regard” offers the minimum in draftsmanship, not the maximum? We have to legislate not for the best universities—I am sure the Minister will in due course become part of them—but for the most unexcellent. Just saying “have regard” will not be sufficient to give the guarantees that students need.
Joseph Johnson
I completely agree that for the OFS to function effectively in students’ interest, they should be represented properly on it. We have had a crack at that in schedule 1. I am certainly receiving a lot of representations from Opposition Members and from student unions and so on saying that we have not gone as far as we might in entrenching that core principle with which we are in basic agreement: students need to be properly represented in the governance of the office for students.
I have understood the messages we are being sent, but I point out that at board level we will be recruiting those with experience of representing or championing the student interest. A critical feature of the OFS as it is organised is that overall it must have members with experience of representing the full diversity of the sector, including students. It is essential that the individual appointed can act on behalf of the wider student interest. That reflects common practice: board members are typically appointed for their breadth of experience and representation.
OFS members will have significant responsibilities in taking decisions, many of which will ultimately impact on all students, so it is essential that each member brings more than an individual perspective to the decision-making process to ensure that the diversity of stakeholders is fairly represented.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the Opposition are focusing far too much on the institutions themselves? The whole point of the Bill is to focus on students. By calling for such a change, the hon. Member for Walsall South is missing the entire point of the Bill.
Joseph Johnson
I thank my hon. Friend for his point. That is right. HEFCE is a brilliant body. As we discussed this morning, it was set up in 1992 as the successor body to the Universities Funding Council. It is in the tradition of being a funding council at a time when the Government no longer principally funds the universities, so it is doing its job in a regulatory environment that reflects a bygone era. We need a regulatory structure that reflects the fact that students are now the primary funders of their education through the student loan system. This is a market, as recognised in law, so we need a market regulator. The office for students is the body that we believe is best placed to do that.
A change of name of the kind that the hon. Member for Walsall South suggests would go against the main principles that we are trying to achieve through these reforms. I note that none of the stakeholders who gave evidence to the Committee on Tuesday or today asked for a change of name.
As a regulator, the OFS will need to build relationships across the sector. Part of its duties will be thinking about the health and sustainability of the HE sector. However, that does not change the fact that the new market regulator should have students at its heart, and I believe that the name of the organisation needs to reflect that. For that reason, I ask that the hon. Lady withdraws her amendment.
Valerie Vaz
The stakeholders may not have asked for it, but that does not mean that people cannot have an idea of their own, take soundings or look at the face of the Bill and see what strikes them. I have not missed the point, as the Minister said, because clause 2(1)(b) says that the OFS is needed
“to encourage competition between English higher education providers in connection with the provision of higher education”.
Anything to do with students, universities or higher education is also about collaboration and public good. I wanted to flag up the fact that the name, as it currently stands, does not incorporate the idea of putting students at the heart of it, for reasons that I will not go through again. It is open to very clever civil servants to come up with something that reflects this debate. With that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 1
The Office for Students
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under you again, Mr Hanson. I hope that this is not a private fight, and that the Committee does not mind a Scot intruding in this debate, which would seem rather strange to anyone who has been in receipt of university education in Scotland, because universities in Scotland have had students at their centre, in different ways, for centuries. Indeed, the amendments are extraordinarily modest in their intent.
Some may know that for centuries ancient universities in Scotland—the four ancients, as we call them—have had elected rectors. Only the students have been able to vote to elect rectors, who are chairs of the court. That has not led to an utter collapse in the system. Indeed, the other day we heard a professor saying how proud he was that his university was ranked 19th in the world. Over the years there have been some aberrations; in the early 1970s in Edinburgh, they elected a student as rector, who did go on to No. 10: a Mr Gordon Brown, I believe, who also used to be able to get elected as MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, but no more.
Having worked in the education sector at times, I know that students can show remarkably wise judgment: students elected me honorary president of Paisley University in the early 1970s for two years. More recently, when I was doing some work at Stirling University, I was invited to chair the students’ association as an external person. The engagement has been great, and there are many platforms for student engagement.
The serious point I would like to make about the nature of student engagement, however, is that we should look at some of the problems that we have on boards, not just in the education sector, but more generally in society. Look at what happened when the banks crashed. The Government regularly point out that part of the problem is group-think on boards—in other words, nobody on the board comes from a different perspective, able to challenge.
Although I respect many of the contributions we heard in evidence in the past two days, it strikes me that many of the people were talking with similar assumptions and in similar ways. We are just as likely to get group-think among well suited academics sitting together in a room as we are on the board of a bank. Student representation can provide a type of challenge, which is important. It is not even a problem if challenges are wrong, as long as there is challenge. To avoid group-think, there should always be someone willing to provide that challenge. That is where I think student representation has a particular role to play. If I correctly understood the hon. Member for Blackpool South to say that he intends to put his amendment to a vote, we will be happy to support it.
Joseph Johnson
I will respond to amendments 2, 122 and 3 together, as they all relate to student representation on the board. As I said earlier, students’ interests really are at the heart of the reforms. They are hard-baked into the Bill. They are clearly and explicitly, in black and white, in schedule 1, in which, as has already been made clear, the Secretary of State must have regard to the desirability of the OFS board containing people with experience of representing students’ interests.
We will continue to engage with our partners as the implementation plans are developed. That will include ensuring that the student perspective is represented on boards and decision-making bodies. That is why, for the first time, we are setting up an office for students, with the intention, set out in primary legislation, that its members will, between them, have experience of representing such interests. I think it is fair for the Committee to acknowledge that that is progress. The current legislative framework, which was set up in 1992, did not have any requirements for the board of HEFCE or its predecessors to have experience of representing the student interest. It is also fair to acknowledge that putting students at the heart of the governance of the main regulatory body that will oversee the sector is a significant step in the right direction, even if that is not quite as hard-baked as the hon. Member for Blackpool South would like, in terms of prescribing the specific number of people on boards who are capable of representing the student interest, or prescribing that those involved be current students.
Mr Marsden
I entirely acknowledge what the Minister says about the provision not existing in 1992 or subsequently, but that, while not exactly being a lawyer’s argument, is a slight straw person, if I could put it that way. We might as well say, “We have near-universal suffrage in the UK today; they didn’t have that 200 years ago.” It is not a very strong line of argument, I would suggest. The Minister talked about experience of representing the student interest; most of us here have that experience, so I wonder if either he or his officials could give us a definition of that, and say whether it includes or excludes existing students.
Joseph Johnson
It could easily include students who are presently at university, but we would not want to put that in the legislation, because that might exclude people who are quite capable of playing that role. Many NUS executives, for example, could occupy the position, but they are often not actually studying, as I understand the NUS’s arrangements. They take leave of absence or years out from their university. They sometimes perform these important functions shortly after they have stopped studying. Putting in legislation the kind of requirement that the hon. Gentleman wants would prevent many of those kinds of people from contributing their valuable experience. We would not want to exclude them by putting in a requirement that they be existing students. It would perhaps not be in the student interest to do so, because we want to make those skills available.
It is essential that the individuals who are eventually appointed be able to act on behalf of the wider student interest that I spoke about. Students are a highly diverse group, and we want representatives on the OFS board who can represent the rich diversity of the student population—mature, part-time, minority ethnic and distance learners, as well as many other forms of learners. We want the OFS board members to be able to represent more than one type of student. It is very possible that we can recruit members with several of the criteria that we are looking for.
Dr Blackman-Woods
May I help the Minister out by suggesting that he looks at having the president of the NUS, or an immediate past president of the NUS, as a member of the board—somebody with a very up-to-date knowledge of a wide range of issues relating to students and the higher education sector more widely?
Joseph Johnson
We have made it clear that we want the student voice prominently represented in the governance structures of the main regulatory body. We would not want to set out in legislation that the holders of particular positions in the NUS or other student unions had ex officio places on the board of the office for students. That would tie the hands of the board of the OFS in a way that would be entirely undesirable in primary legislation.
I want to pick up on one or two points that the hon. Member for City of Durham made. She said that the way in which the higher education market had evolved to cause students to be regarded as consumers was regrettable, and she also regretted the withdrawal of the state from the financing of higher education. I would like to point out that that is not true: the taxpayer still makes a considerable contribution to the funding of the system. Taxpayers fund it directly, and also often subsidise the loans that underwrite students’ studies. That is a critical feature of a progressive higher education system that has enabled many people from disadvantaged backgrounds to go to university and benefit from it.
As I was saying, schedule 1 is progress. It includes a requirement that is not found in current legislation. The student voice and the student interest will be represented in the main regulatory body; that has not previously been the case. The Committee should welcome that, even if some want the types and specific characteristics of the student representatives to be set down even more clearly.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the Minister for giving way again. He has explained his aspiration to engage students. The first OFS board will set the tone; it will set an operating framework that will be maintained over many years. Under the Bill, would the Minister expect that first board to include a current, or at least very recent, student, so that that particular experience could complement its work?
Joseph Johnson
I would not want that to be explicit in primary legislation. It will be for the Secretary of State to have regard to the duty to think about the desirability of student representation, but I do not want the Bill to be clear now as to whether it would be a current student or someone who had just finished studying. It could be either of those, or people with a number of other characteristics. The key thing is that there will be people on the OFS board who will be capable of representing the wider student interest.
Mr Marsden
Without trading lawyers’ words, the amendment says that at least one of the members should,
“at the time of their appointment, be currently engaged in the representation or promotion of the interests of individual students, or students generally”.
That is drafted quite widely, for the specific and practical reasons that the Minister outlined. It certainly does not say that a member has to be an NUS officer or official. There is a degree of latitude in the amendment.
Even at this stage, I shall make an offer to the Minister: if he is worried that the amendment is technically deficient—after all, he is Goliath and we are David in this matter; he has many officials to draft amendments, whereas ours may well be technically deficient—and he wants to suggest improvements to it, that would be a different matter, but he has not said that.
Joseph Johnson
I deal with the amendments that have been tabled. I do not choose which amendments Opposition Members table; I can deal only with those that are presented to me. The amendment as drafted would restrict student representation at board level to a current student. We think that is over-prescriptive. It is of course right that we engage directly students who are currently in higher education, but restricting the requirement in such a way would risk our not being able to appoint the right person to the role. It could, for example, prevent us from appointing a future full-time officer of a student representative body. For that reason, I urge the hon. Member for Ilford North to withdraw the amendment.
Wes Streeting
Having listened to the arguments, I am genuinely baffled by the Government’s reluctance to give way on the notion of student representation on the board of the office for students. I cannot understand how it could be reasonably argued that students’ interests lie at the heart of the office for students when there might be no voice around the table with current or recent experience of being a student.
Mr Marsden
I beg to move amendment 123, in schedule 1, page 63, line 20, after “have” insert “equal”.
This amendment would ensure all the related criteria are taken to be of equal importance and there would be no perception that a hierarchy exists between any of them.
Joseph Johnson
Ensuring that the OFS board members reflect the diversity of the HE sector is of the utmost importance to this Government. It is also essential that the board has the range of skills, knowledge and experience that will be required for it to be the market regulator of a sector that is of such strategic importance to the UK.
The current legislative framework requires the Secretary of State solely to have regard to the desirability of appointing HEFCE board members with experience of the HE sector, business or the professions. Over the years, that has given successive Secretaries of State from different parts of the House the flexibility to ensure that the HEFCE board has the breadth and depth of experience and skills that it has needed to deal with the priorities of the day.
The provisions in this Bill relating to the OFS board appointments take the same approach as the current legislative framework. In line with the OFS’s broader remit, we have expanded the number and range of areas to which the Secretary of State must have regard when appointing OFS board members. For example, those areas now include developing and implementing a regulatory framework, and promoting student or consumer choice. However, the basic approach remains the same. The Secretary of State must have regard to the desirability of appointing, but is not bound to appoint, people with certain backgrounds. The aim of the Bill remains to preserve the crucial flexibility for Secretaries of State to constitute the OFS board in the most appropriate way to address the challenges and opportunities it faces at any given time.
On amendment 123, it is extremely important that the Secretary of State has the ability to determine the overall balance of the board, and to decide where the OFS board needs greater strength and depth. While I agree that a balanced approach will be important, the amendment would inhibit the Secretary of State’s ability to make appointments that reflect current priorities. It risks having a board lacking the depth and breadth of key experience it needs to tackle the issues of the day, which may vary over time. The amendment would mean that the Secretary of State needed to have equal regard to all the criteria. It therefore implies that it would be desirable to have equal representation from all the areas on the list all of the time.
The process we have adopted for making appointments to the OFS board is based on that which has been successful for the HEFCE board over the past quarter of a century. The current legislative framework requires the Secretary of State to have regard to the desirability of appointing HEFCE board members with expertise in higher education, business and the professions. In terms of OFS board recruitment, the legislation expands the skills it is desirable to have. In purely numerical terms, the Bill lists seven areas, whereas the previous legislation mentioned only three, which means there will likely have to be some trade-offs between different types of experience that the Secretary of State will need to consider when making appointments. Furthermore, it is highly probable that some people will satisfy more than one of the criteria, and it would therefore be odd to try to pigeonhole individuals into a category for the purposes of satisfying the amendment, rather than making a judgment on the best way for the OFS to deliver its duties.
On amendment 124, I am glad that the hon. Member for Blackpool South has raised the important role of FE colleges in HE. Some 159,000 students study HE in a college, which is why I would like to highlight the support given to the package of reforms contained in the White Paper and the Bill by the AOC. The AOC says:
“We welcome much of the Bill’s content, as it has been one of AoC’s key long-standing policy objectives to make it easier and quicker for high performing institutions, including colleges, to achieve their own degree awarding powers”,
as the hon. Gentleman’s college in Blackpool has successful done recently. I will read another quote from the AOC that shows the support from colleges for what we are trying to do through our reforms:
“Choice, access and quality are the welcome watchwords of the Government’s long-awaited plans to open up higher education and to allow more colleges to award HE qualifications. This step change away from the country’s traditional university system will empower more people than ever before to access HE in their local area through a college. It will also provide a wider choice of courses that are linked to employment.”
I agree that having board members who can represent a wide variety of students would serve to enhance the diversity of the board. However, a specific amendment to ensure that is not necessary, as the definition of higher education providers in clause 75(1) is broad enough to capture further education providers. The definition already includes any provider who is offering higher education courses, which reflects the definition used in the Education Reform Act 1988. That definition has been used deliberately so that it captures HE in FE as an important and valued part of the sector.
There is nothing to be gained by highlighting a distinction between higher education and further education providers as the amendment proposes. The Bill enables the necessary flexibility to select board membership that best represents a very broad range of student interests. The amendment would serve to restrict that flexibility. It is essential that the individuals appointed can represent all students, which reflects common practice, where board members are typically appointed for their breadth of experience and representation.
Mr Marsden
I have to say that the Minister’s response was an extraordinarily—this was possibly predictable—managerialist response written by his civil servants. It was a pretty poor response. On the specific point he made, I would have more sympathy with the technical position—I have no doubt that the civil servants have gone through the previous legislation—were it not for the fact that in the White Paper and the Bill that was presented, the role of further education colleges in delivering higher education was pretty non-existent. That is why it is important to include the phrase in the Bill at this point.
Joseph Johnson
I have made the point that including the phrase is simply unnecessary, because the definition of “higher education provider” that we are using, which is taken from the 1988 Act, captures the delivery of HE through FE colleges. It would be entirely redundant and confusing for people to see a new definition spring up at this point in the Bill.
Turning to amendment 125, widening access and promoting the success of disadvantaged students will be a key part of the office for students’ remit. We want to ensure that in bringing forward our reforms, higher education providers do not lose sight of their vital role in promoting social mobility and in helping some of the most disadvantaged young people in our society to benefit from our world-class HE system.
The integration of the remit of the director of fair access within the OFS signals our commitment to making fair access and participation a priority. The OFS will have a new duty that will require it to consider equality of opportunity in connection with access to and participation across its functions, so widening access and participation for students from disadvantaged backgrounds will be at its very core.
I understand the concerns expressed about the importance of considering experience of widening access and participation when appointing the chair and ordinary members, but just because it is not in the list in schedule 1 does not stop the Secretary of State from appointing ordinary members who have that experience. The OFS’s members will be drawn from a wide range of backgrounds to ensure that the body is supported by the knowledge and expertise critical to delivering its mission and informed by representation that reflects the diversity of the sector’s providers and students.
We have already signalled the importance we attach to access and participation through the duties we are placing on the OFS and through the creation of the director for fair access and participation post. The DFAP will, like other members, be appointed directly by the Secretary of State. The DFAP must have the skills necessary to fulfil the duties placed on the OFS in widening access and participation. The necessary experience will therefore be there within the membership of the OFS. The OFS members will operate in effect as a board.
Amendment 126 relates to HE staff representation. The HE sector is diverse. It includes: large teaching intensive institutions that operate on an international level; highly specialist conservatoires of music, dance and the performing arts; and small, very locally based organisations focused on giving the most disadvantaged groups access to HE. In the Bill we have already included measures that mean the Secretary of State must have regard to the benefit of having represented on the board experience of providing higher education and experience of a broad range of providers. Such experience could come from higher education staff involved in teaching or research, or from leaders of higher education providers.
The most important thing will be that the individuals can bring a broad range of experience and represent interests that go beyond their personal position. In any case, it would be difficult to get a truly representative cross-section of HE staff, even if they filled all 15 available places on the HE Board. It would be impossible to ensure anything like fair representation from the other stakeholders in the HE sector alongside having anything approaching even reasonable representation of HE staff.
In practice, we see no reason why many members of the OFS board will not, at one time or another, have worked in HE and be able to use the experience they gained there to represent HE staff, regardless of whether they are actually employed in HE at the precise time they are serving on the OFS board. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Mr Marsden
I have listened carefully to the Minister and, again, I have no reason to doubt his bona fides. But what he has said and, particularly during the discussion of the last two amendments, the criteria on which he has based the Government’s unwillingness to take them on board underline our concern about the direction of the Bill.
I mentioned earlier the need to have a Bill that is fit for the challenges of the 21st century and does not simply reflect the issues of the 20th century. I do not want to sound like a sociologist, but I am disappointed that the assumptions in the definitions of what the Minister has said are so extraordinarily hierarchical. In the context of the Bill, none of the amendments are mandatory. We are not saying there must be a cleaner on the board of the office for students—perhaps that would be a good thing—or a junior lecturer or X or Y. We are saying that when thinking about such things we should think broadly and outside the hierarchical box that has occupied, perhaps for too long, the attention of civil servants and Ministers. We are talking about a revolution in higher education in the 21st century, yet the very modest issue of not putting in the Bill indicators that show that the Government are thinking in a new, rather more creative and profound way instead of going back to the hierarchical models that have obsessed higher education in the past is extraordinarily dispiriting and disappointing.
Another point should be made. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North talked about the impact of what we have had today, and I am sure debate on it will recur in other places at other times. We heard the Government using their majority on this Committee to slap down any suggestion of student representation in the office for students—[Hon. Members: “No!”] It is true.
The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Mr David Evennett)
That is rubbish.
Mr Marsden
No, it is not. The fact that you protest too much shows the weakness of your position.
Paul Blomfield
I rise to speak to my amendments, which in an extraordinary example of excellent co-ordination say much the same thing but in a slightly different way. Amendment 156 tries to address what I see as a flaw in the schedule as drafted, which makes the director for fair access and participation responsible simply for reporting. The amendment seeks to clarify that he or she is not responsible simply for reporting but for that function and reporting on it. I think that is a helpful additional drafting point.
Amendment 157 clarifies the point about delegation and that the director should not be bypassed by his or her responsibilities being delegated to somebody else. The way that we deal with the matter could set the tone for discussions over the next few weeks. There is complete agreement on trying to achieve widening participation and enormous progress has been made. The Government have shown commendable ambition to make further progress. With these amendments we are considering ways to help that along.
I am sure my colleague the hon. Member for Cannock Chase will acknowledge that when we considered this issue in the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills there were, despite the one area of disagreement, many areas of agreement. One was fair access. Changing the institutional architecture of the sector, which has merits, by bringing the Office for Fair Access into the OFS, also has risks unless we protect the autonomy and authority of that function within the office. That was a key recommendation of the Select Committee report, agreed by all Members. It also relates to the next group of amendments and I will say more about it then. We are simply seeking to ensure that that function has the authority to deal with universities, to get the sort of change of culture and practice that we are all trying to achieve.
I was a supporter of David Willetts’s appointment of the current director, which was not uncontroversial at the time. That was a signal from the previous Government that there was an intention to see change and Professor Ebdon has assisted that process enormously. He has been a very impressive director of fair access and we should listen closely to the evidence that he gave us on Tuesday. He is clear that this sort of definition is required to ensure that the director has the authority to help the Government achieve their objectives in negotiating the deals with the universities.
I hope the Minister will say he is happy to bring back some different form of wording, if not to accept the amendments, picking and choosing between mine and those tabled by my Front Benchers. I hope he will be able to make an amendment that reflects that suggestion, in which case I would be happy not to press mine to a vote.
Joseph Johnson
I thank hon. Members for their helpful and extremely interesting amendments. Although I was less able to be accommodating on previous amendments, I would like to signal that we are giving these amendments very careful thought. There is obviously agreement on both sides that social mobility is a huge priority, all the more so now for this Government. Widening access and participation in higher education is one of the key drivers of that.
I agree strongly with the hon. Member for Sheffield Central that the current director of fair access, whom I played a part in reappointing last year, has done a superb job and continues to be exemplary in the way he discharges his functions in that critical role.
Through our reforms, we are keen to ensure that promoting the success of disadvantaged students will be a central part of the OFS’s remit. Through the Bill, the OFS will bring together the responsibilities for widening participation currently undertaken by the director for fair access and HEFCE. Bringing those functions together in one body will ensure greater co-ordination of activities and funding at national level. That should allow greater strategic focus on those areas identified as a priority. In establishing the OFS, we have been clear that we are creating a single body, whose members will, in effect, operate as a board responsible for a range of functions, including access and participation. It will be the responsibility of the OFS to ensure that all its functions are being fulfilled.
Let me reassure Members the intention is that the OFS will give responsibility to the director for fair access and participation for activities in this area. The intention is that the OFS will give responsibility to him for these matters. We envisage that in practice that will mean that the other OFS members will agree a broad remit with the future director for fair access and participation and that the DFAP will report back to them on those activities. As such, the DFAP would have responsibility for those important access and participation activities, including—critically—agreeing the access and participation plan on a day-to-day basis with higher education institutions.
Amendment 134 would place in legislation details of how the OFS members will operate when considering delegation of functions. It would not, however, be appropriate to put that kind of detail into statute. Rather, we would expect the OFS, once established, to confirm how it will operate and exercise its delegation powers taking account of guidance from the Secretary of State. However, let me repeat and attempt to reassure hon. Members that the intention is for the OFS to give responsibility for access and participation to the director for fair access and participation.
The work of the DFAP does not need to be separated from the rest of the work of the OFS. The reforms mean that access and participation will be considered in the context of everything that the regulator does, with the Secretary of State’s directly appointed champion in the form of the director for fair access and participation. The Government are serious about social mobility and that is exactly what the measures will help to drive. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Blackpool South to withdraw his amendment.
Mr Marsden
I thank the Minister for laying out the outline and broader direction so strongly. I am glad that he reflected on my comments and those of my colleagues, and indeed the exchange I had with the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds, because that was helpful in bringing out the tensions between day-to-day executive activity and broad strategy and policy. He referred to that in his comments.
We will take the Minister’s assurances at face value. We need to do that because what Ministers say in Committee influences the interpretation of the final legislation. We will wait to see how that issue is dealt with—in another form, if that is what he wishes. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr Marsden
The generic points the Opposition Front Benchers would like to make in this area have been amply covered by my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield Central and for Ilford North. I will briefly touch on amendment 128. I say again that we entirely endorse and think it is of huge importance that that report should come to Parliament on a regular basis. Although this is not part of any of the amendments, it is taken for granted that it should also go to the relevant Select Committees. It is in that context of closing the circle that we wanted to clarify with a probing amendment that the director would report to the board members of the OFS on his performance.
To go back to the point that the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds made earlier, we do not want the director to sit in a bubble. I can imagine that the OFS board, once it gets going, will have myriad things to consider at its meetings and it is important therefore that we flag up that there is a regular slot for the board members to receive that report from the director for fair access and participation. That would be of benefit to the board as a whole and to the director in maintaining his strong relationship with it.
Joseph Johnson
Again, I thank hon. Members for their interesting amendments. Widening access and promoting the success of disadvantaged students will be a key part of the remit of the office for students. It will build on the important progress that has been made in widening participation in recent years. Hon. Members will have noted that the latest data for 2016 entry shows that the application rate for 18-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds is again at a record level.
We want to ensure in bringing forward our reforms that higher education providers do not lose sight of their vital role in promoting social mobility and in helping some of the most disadvantaged young people in our society to benefit from our world-class higher education system. The integration of the remit of the director of fair access into the OFS signals our commitment to making fair access and participation a priority. The OFS will have a new duty requiring it to consider equality of opportunity in connection with access and participation across all its functions, so widening access and participation for students from disadvantaged backgrounds truly will be at its very core.
There is a further protection in the arrangements because, as I have said, the DFAP will be directly appointed by the Secretary of State, but ultimate responsibility for access and participation sits with the OFS and it will be the responsibility of the OFS to ensure that all its functions are being fulfilled. As I said in my comments on the last group of amendments, the intention is that the OFS will give responsibility to the director for fair access and participation for activities in this area. We envisage that, in practice, that will mean that the other OFS members will agree a broad remit with the DFAP and that the DFAP will report back to them on those activities.
The OFS board will have responsibility for access and participation but, on a day-to-day basis, I envisage that that will be given to the DFAP. In particular, he or she will have the responsibility for agreeing access and participation plans, as is currently the case. I reiterate that because it is such an important point and I know hon. Members are focused on that issue.
The amendments would have the effect of requiring reports by the director for fair access and participation to be presented to the Secretary of State and to Parliament separately from other OFS reporting. As I said, that is an interesting idea, to which we will give some thought. We agree that it is important for the DFAP to report on their activities and areas of responsibility, so the Bill does require the DFAP to report to OFS members. As I have said previously, we are mainstreaming access and participation as a key duty for the regulator as a whole. As such, it will then be for the OFS members to report on that function.
The OFS members will operate in effect as a board, although they are not referred to by that term in the Bill. It will be required to produce an annual report covering its functions, and access and participation activities have been identified as a key function by virtue of their prominence in the Bill. That report will be sent to the Secretary of State and laid in Parliament. The work of the DFAP does not need to be separate from the rest of the OFS and its work should be reported to Parliament as part of the OFS’s overall accountability requirements. In addition, the Bill allows the Secretary of State to ask the OFS to provide additional reports on access and participation issues, either through its annual report or through a special report. Any such report will also be laid before Parliament and therefore made available in the Library. The OFS can produce separate independent reports on widening participation. It would not be consistent with integrating the role into the OFS to require separate external reporting from a single OFS member when the organisation will be governed collectively by all its members.
These arrangements ensure that effective reporting will be in place, so that the Secretary of State and Parliament can effectively monitor activity in this area. As I said, we are looking carefully at it, but in the meantime I ask the hon. Member for Ilford North to withdraw his amendment.
Wes Streeting
I listened carefully to the Minister, and I am grateful that he will go away and reflect. What he said about clarifying the reporting mechanisms reinforces my belief that the present arrangements do not go far enough. It is right and proper that the Secretary of State should be able to demand additional or more extensive reporting, either as part of the annual report or separately. That is to be welcomed, but it somewhat dilutes parliamentary accountability, which is separate from Government accountability. Many Members would welcome the opportunity to consider issues of access and participation through parliamentary scrutiny; it need not be burdensome, but it would be welcomed. I was particularly struck by the evidence given by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central.
Mr Marsden
The hon. Gentleman refers to another welcome precedent. Yes, Select Committees sometimes have this power but the devil is in the detail. I am reminded of what President Reagan said: in these matters one should “trust, but verify”. There have been discussions in the past about the powers of Select Committees. This is a new proposal, and it is a probing amendment, but it would do no harm if the Minister were prepared to say today that this is a part of the process that he would welcome.
Joseph Johnson
I think I can be of some help. There is no legal obligation for pre-appointment hearings to take place for OFS appointments, as currently none of them is on the Cabinet Office list of appointments subject to pre-appointment hearings—that is a technical point, and I do not want to be accused again of being overly managerial. Despite there being no direct legal obligation, I reassure the Committee that we fully intend to actively involve the Select Committee or Select Committees, as appropriate, in the appointment process, including the option of pre-appointment hearings for senior OFS appointments. I welcome the constructive role that Select Committees can play through pre-appointment hearings. I believe that that involvement will ensure sufficient parliamentary oversight.
For that reason, I firmly resist the suggestion in the amendment that a vote in both Houses should be needed to ratify the appointments. We need to ensure an appropriate level of ministerial involvement in the appointment to a key public role. Parliamentary ratification is not in line with normal practice and would be both burdensome and unnecessary. Furthermore, there is no precedent for parliamentary approval of such appointments. HEFCE appointments have never been subject to parliamentary approval, and the Cabinet Office general guidance on pre-appointment scrutiny states that it is for Ministers to decide whether to accept the Select Committee’s recommendation on an appointment. We are following the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments approved process and as such are working closely with an assigned public appointments assessor to ensure that all public appointments are fair and open. I therefore ask the hon. Member for Blackpool South to withdraw the amendment.
Mr Marsden
I have heard what the Minister has said. I am grateful for his endorsement of the overall principle. Heaven forfend that I should ruffle feathers in the Cabinet Office dovecote on this matter and provoke a constitutional crisis. On that basis, I am happy to take his assurance and to beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr Marsden
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, and of course we are all honourable Gentlemen and Ladies in this place and I hope we all act rationally, although there has been just a smidgen of examples in the past in which Ministers, on both sides of the House, appear not to have acted entirely so. [Hon. Members: “Surely not.”] Surely not. I take the point that the hon. Member for Cheltenham is making, but I feel that some movement—again, the Minister might not like the phrase “must specify”—away from a phrase that is redolent of Henry VIII powers would be helpful.
Joseph Johnson
I understand that the amendment is well intended, but I am afraid we are not going to be able to support it and certainly not as it is drafted. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to specify the reasons for removing a member of the OFS board from office and we strongly resist it. It would take us well away, quite clearly in the wrong direction, from the current legislative arrangements for HEFCE board membership. Such a requirement would be inconsistent with normal practice on public appointments, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham hinted, it would be unnecessary, as general public law principles require that the Secretary of State must act reasonably and proportionately in taking an action such as removing a member from the board. The specific terms and conditions of appointments would also have effect in that way.
The Secretary of State might remove a board member for a number of reasons, and in many cases it would not be appropriate to disclose the grounds for dismissal. I am sure hon. Members can understand that the removal might, for example, be because of personal or health-related issues and making those public could be an inappropriate breach of a member’s privacy. Disclosure of reasons for dismissal may have an adverse effect on the reputation or future employment of the member.
Schedule 1 to the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 currently empowers the Secretary of State to appoint HEFCE board members on such terms and conditions as he deems appropriate. For the past 25 years, Secretaries of State from successive Administrations have routinely attached terms and conditions to the appointment of HEFCE board members relating to the circumstances in which they might be removed from office. These have, for example, included conditions relating to the individual’s fitness to hold public office and record of attendance at HEFCE board meetings.
Mr Marsden
On that point, I appreciate that the Minister is trying to be helpful and I also appreciate there is a balance to be struck between transparency and the sorts of personal issues he talks about. I do not think I am going to agree with him that the Bill has got the balance right; I personally believe that there needs to be greater transparency in it. To be helpful, given that he is praying in aid HEFCE as the precedent, if he is not prepared to accept the amendment, will he at some point disclose the generic list of principles that would be appropriate to remove a member of the OFS board?
Joseph Johnson
As I have said, over the past 25 years Secretaries of State have routinely attached terms and conditions to the appointments of HEFCE board members. I gave a couple of examples of the conditions that have been common practice, including that an individual must be fit to hold public office and that they must have a strong record of attendance at HEFCE board meetings. Those are the kinds of conditions that are typical, the breach of which might lead to a Secretary of State deciding that it was necessary to remove a member. I have to say that it has never proved necessary to remove a HEFCE board member over the past 25 years. If it had, the Secretary of State would have written to the board member in question to explain his or her decision. That letter would have had to be clear about the grounds on which the Secretary of State was removing the board member, and the individual in question would have had every right to make that letter public if they had wished to.
The Bill draws on that successful historical practice. Schedule 1 makes provisions identical to those in the Further and Higher Education Act as regards the Secretary of State’s discretion to set such terms and conditions for appointing OFS board members as he or she deems appropriate. As I have said, that replicates current arrangements and provides that crucial flexibility for the Secretary of State to set a clear expectation, appropriate to the circumstances of the time, on appointing OFS board members. In addition, the amendment would be inconsistent with the arrangements that apply more generally across the range of public appointments. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.
Mr Marsden
We are not going to agree in principle on this issue, but I understand the Minister’s position. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mr. Evennett.)