Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Baroness Brown of Cambridge and Lord Jopling

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 35 and 37 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Wolf. In doing so, I want to support the intent of Amendment 33 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. As we have heard, universities are, by their nature, highly competitive; the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, commented on this on Monday and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, reinforced the point today. They compete for the best students, the best academic staff and research funding, and they compete particularly fiercely for positions in the large range of existing ranking and league tables, and in particular for positions in the National Student Survey.

Much of this competition benefits students. For example, the importance of doing well in the areas of the National Student Survey that concern assessment and feedback has meant, in almost every university in the country, that students now have their work marked and returned much more quickly than they used to a couple of years ago. There is now a real focus on doing that in a timely manner so that students get good feedback on modules in which they are weak so that they can use it for revision and to ensure that they are well prepared for examinations. Clearly, competition in many forms strengthens the student experience.

Collaboration between institutions is also hugely important. Let me give noble Lords some examples. When I was director of engineering for the marine business at Rolls-Royce, we made use of a modular Masters in marine engineering and technology that was developed by a group of very distinguished universities, mainly in the north-east of England. Students could register at any one of the institutions for their degree and assemble a bespoke course, with specialist modules across the institutions. It was a collaboration that worked for industry and for students.

Collaboration and the sharing of best practice in the area of efficiency and effectiveness, as reported in Professor Sir Ian Diamond’s reviews, has enabled universities to reduce back-office costs, share access to expensive teaching facilities and invest in new infrastructure in recent years. Again, this is of direct benefit to students. Birmingham City University, Aston University and the University of Birmingham—all the universities in Birmingham—continue to collaborate on a joint outreach programme into schools across the city. It is a collaboration that supports widening participation and university access for some of Birmingham’s least advantaged children.

I argue that students, employers and our economy will benefit directly from this type of collaboration—and we want to see more of it, not less. To focus on competition in the absence of collaboration could slow the rate of improvement and innovation in our higher education system. I urge the Minister to ensure that the Office for Students has regard to the need to encourage both competition and collaboration between HE providers. This will be in the interests of students, employers and our economy.

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, over the past 30 years, I have spent a good deal of my parliamentary time involved with international bodies such as the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, with which I am still quite heavily involved. I have become, at those organisations, exasperated sometimes by the capacity of members to put down a series of amendments to motions that amount in many ways to decorating a Christmas tree—I have always described it as such and have had my leg pulled about it. Looking at the two paragraphs in Amendment 33, I question whether the main part of what they are driving at is already covered in the various subsections of Clause 2.

It may be that on reflection the Government will feel that way about some of these amendments. For instance, I would have thought that a great deal of,

“the need to promote collaboration”,

was covered by subsection (1)(b) on encouraging competition—not all of it, but most of it. Again,

“the need to promote innovation”,

is largely covered in subsection (1)(a), which refers to,

“the need to promote quality, and greater choice and opportunities”.

Rather than making this clause a sort of Christmas tree, I hope that the Government will look at these amendments to see if anything useful can be added to the Bill—but if they are not necessary, please do not bother.