Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

My question to the Minister is—I am completely confused about this—is the only point of Clause 4 if somebody suffers material damage? This has been referred to by people in a much more sophisticated way than I can. Is it that these are just disputes where you will actually lose your job or directly suffer material damage? The reason I mention that is that in most of the free-speech disputes involving academics at universities, what actually happens is that it is not so much material damage as reputational damage that might well have an impact on your employment in future. You are described as a bigot for ever more, and you cannot escape having these kinds of labels attached to you. That is one of the things that, again very movingly, Professor Kathleen Stock found so demeaning: that somebody who is a lifelong campaigner for women’s equality would have that label used against her. So can Clause 4 resolve this? Is it only material loss or does that material loss have a greater, encompassing way of saying reputational loss that will undoubtedly affect your employment prospects in the future anyway?

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I first declare my interest as a former chairman of King’s College London. In that position I was a layman, not an academic—we have had a number of very informed academic contributions—and I am certainly not a lawyer. I regret that I was not able to be present for Second Reading; I hope noble Lords will forgive me for intervening at this stage.

I am very surprised that the Government have sought to introduce this Bill at all, and certainly Clause 4. I have not yet detected a single Member of this House who is seeking to defend Clause 4 as currently drafted; every contribution has wished either to delete or amend it. The noble Lord, Lord Johnson, is in his place. He introduced the higher education Act a few years ago when he was Minister for Universities. I admit that I opposed many aspects of that Act. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, himself described it this afternoon as having introduced a very powerful regulator in the Office for Students; I would say that it is too powerful already.

However, we do have the Office for Students, and I really cannot understand the justification for putting into the Bill a statutory tort as well as the existing arrangements we have for the regulation of universities. On the whole, universities are surely one of the sectors of this country that have performed outstandingly well over many, many years. We have some of the leading universities in the world. We are recognised as being in that position; our universities are admired. Rather like the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I think I am opposed to the whole Bill; but I am most definitely opposed to Clause 4.

We all have such respect for the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and I do hope that Ministers will seriously consider withdrawing Clause 4 as currently drafted. If it is still in the Bill when we reach Report, I shall certainly oppose it—as, I believe, will many other noble Lords.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow so many contributions from noble and learned Lords across the House. I declare my interests, first as a lawyer—unashamedly; we need to be loud and proud in these difficult times when we are so denigrated—but also my academic interests as listed in the register.

Like other noble Lords, I would prefer not to have the Bill at all, but this is not a Second Reading moment. It is a combination of virtue signalling on the one hand and “something must be done”, in the context of very difficult times culturally, with a polarised society, intergenerational disputes and so on. However, in a Bill that is not great, Clause 4 is the worst part.

Against myself, I would rather go back to a halcyon age where universities were largely self-regulating, as I think it was a rather good way of preserving their academic and free speech independence; but perhaps I am a dinosaur to think that universities could be self-regulating. I do understand that, when a lot of public money is being spent on universities, people will be concerned that they should not be totally self-regulating—and they are not, in existing law. But Clause 4 is problematic for a number of reasons that have been well drawn out—and not just by the lawyers, I might add; some of my asterisked and underlining notes are from the contributions of non-lawyers with practical experience of the academy.

To get into the “otiosity”—if that is a word—dispute between the noble Lord. Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, I am probably, not for the first time, with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. If Clause 4 were removed—incidentally, what is it about fourth clauses? I am glad that my noble friends on this side are giggling at that and are not upset. My reading of the Bill if it existed without Clause 4 is that it would give some further definition to the rights that already exist under Article 10 of the ECHR, which deals with free speech, and the duties placed upon public authorities to respect that duty in relation to those who would otherwise be deprived of their free speech rights in a university.

The noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, made an important point: it is one thing to say that a university regulator that already exists and has all sorts of duties relating to this publicly financed space will take on extra responsibilities and concerns around guaranteeing free speech, but another thing to have, alongside all that architecture, a new statutory tort that brings financial compensation into it. Those things stand in tension, which is why I also have sympathy with the noble Lords, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, who said, “Let’s at least try to define this new Clause 4 duty or look at what it is we want to achieve by it.”

My own understanding is that courts and employment tribunals should already be ensuring that people’s free speech is protected in the context of their employment and appointment rights. If that is in doubt, so be it: provide for that in the employment law system, the appointments system and the regulatory system. But to create a free-standing and wide-ranging tort, which by definition would bring financial compensation in a context where civil legal aid is virtually dead in our jurisdiction, is an invitation to think tanks and NGOs, including international ones, to do what some people call making mischief—although, as a lifelong mischief-maker myself, I perhaps should not bang on about that too much.

Clause 4 will do the opposite of what is intended. What I believe to be intended is that we should once again be encouraging the clash of ideas, even when they are uncomfortable—even, occasionally, when they are offensive—in the academic space. To hand the right to litigate to people who should be debating, not litigating, is by definition to be handing it to some and not others. I have no doubt that that will have the opposite effect from what is intended.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, said, “Will it be just about financial loss or should it be about other kinds of loss as well?” One needs to be very careful about that in the context of free speech. I have been called a bigot. I do not think I am a bigot and it is not nice to be called one, but if people want to call me a bigot, they need to be able to challenge me on my prejudices, including in the academic space—and including in this Committee, where we are protected. Our free speech is protected in this place more than most people’s in the country and around the world, and we should be careful about imposing new duties and obligations that bring litigation in the name of free speech.

I have concerns about it still, but if this Bill must pass, let it be about regulating universities and empowering them to do better in the difficult navigation exercise that they have. Let it not be a recipe for more litigation, under a Government who are always saying that we have too many “activist lawyers” and human rights lawyers—do not get me started as this is the language of the current Home Secretary and former Attorney-General. What a contradiction it is to say, “There is too much activist litigation” and then to design a recipe for more and more of the same.

Schools Bill [HL]

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Report stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, in the unavoidable absence of my noble friend Lady Blower I shall speak to Amendments 33, 34, 37, 38 and 41, which are in my name and that of my noble friend. They are concerned with the process by which a school becomes an academy or an academy trust joins a multi-academy trust, and they essentially seek to ensure early consultation with staff and parents before any hard decisions are made.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on his amendment because I had a similar amendment in Committee and I am very glad he has taken it up, and because it is rather wearying to listen to the litany of academy successes when we know that it is a very mixed picture and that there are many fine maintained schools. We also know that the Government’s decision is to move to full academisation. That is the context in which we are now debating these matters.

What has been so striking for me watching the academy movement is how secretive so many of the arrangements have been, with parents and staff excluded until after the key decisions have been made, and an absence of meaningful consultation. What happens is that a decision is made by a governing body, which consults on it and then agrees that its original decision was the right one. That is not proper consultation. I seek to say that parents and staff deserve to be talked to at the beginning about choices and fundamental challenges and to be very involved, rather than essentially having a decision handed down to them.

The National Governance Association, for which I have a great deal of admiration, has briefed that it is particularly concerned about Clause 29, which allows local authorities to apply for academy orders for its maintained schools without governing body consent. It thinks that governing bodies are best placed to understand their schools’ contact and to take good decisions about their future. However, sometimes governing bodies seem to find it impossible to take staff and parents into their confidence.

I draw the Minister’s attention to the situation at Holland Park School and its basically enforced move into the United Learning academy trust against the wishes of many parents and staff. In the last year, Holland Park School has been undergoing what can be described only as a turbulent transition to new leadership in the wake of the sudden departure of its head teacher and many of the school leaders and the consequent falling away of an evidently problematic management style. The replacement governance team failed to bring the staff on side and, as a result of continued failings in governance and leadership, recently received a poor Ofsted report. When I read it, I found that the report focused mainly on poor governance and leadership as opposed to the quality of teaching, where Ofsted acknowledged that teachers “have secure subject knowledge” and

“benefit from good-quality training that supports them in delivering the curriculum.”

The irony is that the failing governing body’s obsession with forcing the school into a large and geographically widespread trust is the one thing that is being taken forward by the regional schools commissioner, because under the rules she now has to make a decision about what happens to Holland Park. She has quickly decided to recommend that it joins the United Learning trust. That is now going out to consultation, but who can have any faith whatever that it is going to be a proper consultation when the commissioner has already said what her preference is?

That has been done despite the local authority supporting the locally preferred solution of a local multi-academy trust, with Holland Park School joining Kensington Aldridge Academy, by making a £1 million loan available to support that. The decision has been made despite the local Conservative MP, Felicity Buchan, issuing a public statement referring to

“a strong preference amongst parents, teachers, RBKC Council, the MP and the wider community”

for Holland Park to join a local MAT. That is a reflection of what has been happening up and down the country, where these decisions are made rather high-handedly and then put out to consultation, and the last people to be involved are the people who should be involved in the first place: the parents and teachers at the school.

The implication of what is now happening, with essentially all schools becoming academies, is that they are going to have to be placed in a much stronger governance structure. I think that is the reason why the Minister’s noble friends behind her look so worried. Whatever she says about “freedoms”, it is abundantly clear that we will now have a system where the Secretary of State is responsible to Parliament for all schools through the multi-academy trusts. As someone who has spent years and years wrestling with governance and accountability in the health service, and the tension between national direction and responsibility and local freedoms, I say that the Minister has a huge challenge when leading the governance review that we referred to in the last debate.

My amendments try to say to the Government, when going forward with academy status for all schools and then translation into multi-academy trusts, please let us have a much more open process by which those decisions should be made. Do not present teachers and staff with a decision that says, “We have decided to go with this multi-academy trust and we’re going to consult on it”. There should be much more open consultation; there should be much more debate about which MAT an academy trust should go into. Of course, I hope that this will form part of the review that she will undertake over the next few months.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 42 in my name, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for signing it. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, also wanted to sign the amendment—unfortunately, she is not here today—but her email to the Bill office arrived a few moments too late. But to have two former Secretaries of State from different parties supporting the amendment demonstrates that this is in no way a party-political matter; it is a cross-party amendment.

It is, of course, a small amendment in that it applies only to a very limited number of specialist schools. The Bill in general affects thousands of schools, but at the moment I believe there are only about eight maths schools and a similar number of music and ballet schools in the music and dance programme. They are all centres of excellence; they take children purely on their talent in that specialisation. A high proportion of the children come from disadvantaged households and ethnic minorities. In the case of the maths schools, all the children get high grades at A-level and all go to leading universities. King’s Maths School, of which I am patron, recently celebrated being named by the Sunday Times state school of the decade. I was sorry that, in the end, the Minister was unable to come to that celebration. She would have seen how incredibly important it is to preserve that and other maths schools.

The music and dance school I know best is the Royal Ballet School where, for 10 years, my wife was chairman. I can tell you that all the students from there, on leaving the school, were offered places in leading ballet and dance companies both in the UK and abroad.

The point is that these specialist schools are really worth preserving. I put down a probing amendment in Committee and I have re-read this morning in Hansard the response from the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, on behalf of the Government. She said,

“it would be wrong to exclude any schools in the maintained sector with a music, dance or maths specialism from the benefits of being part of a strong trust.”—[Official Report, 15/6/22; col. 1607.]

I realise that this statement was meant to reassure me and others, but I must respectfully disagree with two presumptions in it. First, it is not at all clear that there would be any benefit for those schools to be part of a multi-academy trust. Secondly, it is also far from clear that multi-academy trusts are all strong.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[The Duke of Wellington]

42: After Clause 29, insert the following new Clause—
“Specialist schools: power to retain status quoNo specialist school with or without Academy status may be required to become an Academy or to join a Multi Academy Trust without the agreement of the governing body and, where appropriate, the sponsoring institution.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would preserve the present status of such specialist schools as maths schools or music and dance schools, in recognition of their distinctive and national role.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I would like to add a clarification to the remarks I made earlier about this amendment.

There is nothing in the Bill or any existing legislation that would enable the Government to force a single-academy trust that is not subject to intervention to join a MAT. To be clear, when I talk about “subject to intervention”, that could mean, for example, that a school had been judged inadequate by Ofsted, where the normal existing powers would apply. Furthermore, there are no regulation-making powers in the Bill, or in any other legislation that I am aware of, that would enable us to set regulations to change that. So there is nothing in this or any other Bill, either in regulation or in any other aspect, that would allow us to force a single-academy trust to join a MAT, either specialist or mainstream. I know the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, spoke about the maths schools as specialist schools, but in our language a “specialist school” relates to children with special educational needs. We see them as mainstream single-academy trusts.

Earlier there was debate, and questions were asked, about whether the Government would take a power to compel schools. The decision was taken not to assume such a power. I wanted to take this opportunity to underline more clearly the legal position in relation to single-academy trusts.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for yet another conversation that we have had on this subject; I am afraid she has had to listen to me quite often. I am grateful to her for her clarification, and I hope it goes far enough to reassure the King’s Maths School and other maths schools that there is no danger of that happening. I am grateful for this assurance. I may come back to it in some other format in the future, but in the meantime I shall not move my amendment.

Amendment 42 not moved.

Schools Bill [HL]

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

We need to ensure that the religious authority has the ability to seek change for the good of the whole family of schools, not simply on an individual school basis. The Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church provide one-third of state schools in England. One reason I believe these are schools that are often sought after by parents is that we have been on the block a long time—more than 200 years—seeking to provide free education for the children of this land. It is essential that those authorities have the same power as outlined for the local authorities, to ensure that they have the ability to function as a strategic partner with the state in this way. I beg to move.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 60A and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for countersigning it. It is a probing amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, who I am pleased to see is in her place, said so correctly last week in Committee, this is a very difficult Bill to amend. My amendment was the only way I could find to stimulate a discussion on the point that I raise in the amendment. What is absolutely clear from the debates at Second Reading and the two days of Committee so far is that this Bill gives very great powers to the Secretary of State over any school that receives funding from the taxpayer. The concern that I and others have is how a number of very specialist schools will be treated in future.

I realise that there are many matters in the White Paper that are not included in the Bill and will probably be in another Bill in the future or in regulations. However, it is stated government policy, as I understand it, that all schools should become academies and all academies should, by 2030, join multi-academy trusts. I am particularly interested in two types of schools which may not fit into this standardised structure. As I said at Second Reading, I am a patron of the King’s Maths School. There are four maths schools in England and two more will be launched next year. They are all sponsored by universities and have impressive statistics for numbers of girl students, percentages of students from ethnic minorities and numbers on free school meals, and all the students get into leading universities.

These schools have been a huge success, both academically and socially, and we should have more of them. However, their success comes from their direct and close relationship with the sponsoring university.

I am very grateful to the Minister for two discussions that I have had with her on this matter. As I understand it, the Government’s view is that putting a maths school in a multi-academy trust would spread some of this academic excellence around a number of other schools, but I suggest to the Minister that this is not what they maths schools were created for. The country needs, and the Government at that moment—Michael Gove, I think it was—recognised, that we need many more mathematicians and others who wish to study engineering at university. All students at these maths schools do A-levels in maths, further maths and usually physics as well. The ethos of the schools leads to high levels of achievement. If they were to join multi-academy trusts they would certainly lose this ethos and are likely to cease performing at this excellent level.

I therefore ask the Minister to confirm that these maths schools will not be forced, either by the Secretary of State or any other authority, local or otherwise, to join a multi-academy trust without the consent of the governing body and the sponsoring university. These schools have a very special status and an amazing track record.

The other schools referred to in my amendment are the music and dance schools. Of course, they are very different from maths schools. Here I declare an interest, as my wife was, for 10 years, chairman of the Royal Ballet School. There are, I believe, eight schools within the music and dance programme. They are independent but receive taxpayer support under the music and dance scheme. The students are all selected for their talent. They come from diverse backgrounds, and many are from very low-income households. The graduates go on to perform in orchestras and dance in ballet companies all over the world. These schools must retain their independence and they will always need considerable taxpayer support.

The powers being vested in the Secretary of State through the Bill are so great that I hope to receive from the Minister an assurance that these very special and specialist schools will be allowed to retain their present status and will not, by future regulation, be forced into a multi-academy trust. They must remain independent. They must continue to receive taxpayer support directly from the Department for Education.

The Bill appears to be changing, very substantially, the structure of education in England. There may be many schools—more than the ones I have referred to—that will not fit in to the new Department for Education standard structure. My amendment simply seeks to protect the independence of two particular types of school, and I hope the Minister can allay my concerns and give reassurance to specialist schools.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the arguments just made by the noble Duke about maths schools. I am not sure what the Minister will say—maybe she will solve the problem. I am not arguing that they need to be more independent than any others; the argument about the MAT is about the nature of the partnership the school is going into. I value partnerships—they are really important—but I can see the argument that maths schools need different partnerships from other secondary comprehensive schools that might go into MATs.

This is because we are not likely to have a whole host of these maths schools throughout the country. They are few in number, a bit like the music and ballet schools. Whatever you think of them, their aim is to take the most able children in that subject and support them to reach as high a level as possible. We will never aim to have thousands of them, so I worry that, if you make their key partnership in future—if you do not want them to stand by themselves—to be part of a MAT, you give the ownership of that scarce resource to that MAT. Just as we have competition between stand-alone schools, I am absolutely certain, because it exists at the moment, that we will have competition between MATs. They will not all share their resources; they will compete with each other. That is what they are doing now and will do in future. I am just not confident that the competitive environment in which MATs exist—trying to get more kids and the best results—will lead to them sharing the special skills in the maths schools in the way they should.

The maths schools have a different set of partnerships. Unlike the MATs, they have very good relationships with universities and business. Progress-wise, they look up. So I am not fearful that they will fall prey to the problems of standing alone. I do not think they stand alone; they have a different set of relationships in their partnership. To take them out of that partnership and make them a legal part of the ownership of one MAT would make it far more difficult for them to share their skill across a geographical area. I can just bet which MAT they will end up going into—the one that already has the most high-performing children, because it will think that it can use them better than anyone else.

Go for the partnership, as they already have existing ones, but be really wary of treating them the same as any other academy, as they were never set up in that way. I hope that complements what the noble Duke said about independence; the nature of the partnership needs a great deal of thought.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I sought to confirm the point that was directly raised by the noble Duke about the powers within the Bill, and I have been given the reassurance that there are no powers within the Bill to force an existing academy to join a multi-academy trust. I will seek further, triple reassurance on that point, but I sought clarity on it before addressing this.

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her various replies. I am not nearly as expert on these matters as the many former Education Ministers who are Members of this House clearly are. Nevertheless, my concern remains that the way the Bill is constructed means there will inevitably be regulations and other secondary legislation coming forward, or indeed even possibly another Bill. I am trying to seek an assurance from the Government that these sorts of schools will never be forced into a multi-academy trust without the consent of their own governing body. In the case of the maths schools, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, so rightly put it, each of them has an existing partnership with a university. Therefore should a maths school ever be forced to join a multi-academy trust, or the Government of the day forces one, surely it should not be done without the consent of its own governing body and its sponsoring university.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I understand the reassurances that the noble Duke seeks. I reassure him that we understand the unique nature of these schools and we want to see them thrive. We think that is possible within a multi-academy trust model. However, I reassure him that in the Bill before us today there are no clauses or powers that would force an existing academy to join a multi-academy trust. I am afraid it is not possible for me to think about any future Bill that could come before this House. We have a stated policy aim—an ambition—but we have chosen not to put any powers in this Bill to force any academy to join a multi-academy trust. We have been clear that in pursuing that policy aim we want to bring schools and academies with us. That is the approach we would seek to take.

Schools Bill [HL]

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Wellington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my educational interests as detailed in the register. I am a governor of a leading independent school and was for nine years chairman of King’s College London. I am also patron of King’s Maths School, which I will refer to later. My wife also has various educational interests. She is a governor of another leading independent school, she was chairman of the Royal Ballet School, she is chairman of an independent prep school, and she is a trustee of a leading music academy.

I wish to talk about that part of the Bill which relates to academies, a type of school originally legislated for by the Labour Government 20 years ago. The coalition Government in 2010 embraced the concept and, indeed, enhanced it. Michael Gove, while Secretary of State for Education, asked King’s College London to sponsor and run a specialist maths school, a suggestion to which we readily agreed. We already had a building, which we were able to convert, and we asked the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf of Dulwich, to chair the board of governors. She in turn recruited an excellent headmaster.

When the school opened with 60 pupils in the first year—it now has 75 in each year group—44% of the students were from ethnic-minority backgrounds and 34% were girls. From the first-year intake, 20% were awarded places at Oxford or Cambridge and all the others went to leading universities. Today, there are still over 45% of the students from ethnic minorities, while 40% come from financially disadvantaged backgrounds and 30% from families where they will be the first to go to university. Each year about 25% of the students are awarded places at Oxford or Cambridge; indeed, already this year 40% hold Oxbridge offers, provided that they achieved their predicted grades.

In December 2021 the school was named best state sixth-form school of the decade by the Sunday Times school guide. In other words, the school has been an outstanding success from its inception. It has been exceptionally good value for taxpayers in terms of academic achievement and social impact. It has produced a good number of badly needed mathematicians and physicists, many coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, as I said, and many of whom go on to read engineering at university. So I suggest that we need more of this type of school.

In 2017 the Government announced that there would be more maths schools, but progress has been slow. Liverpool and Lancaster are now open but Cambridge University and Imperial College London will open only in 2023. In a briefing last week with the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, whom I thank, I asked whether there should be something in the Bill to create more maths or other specialist schools. She told me it was not necessary as the powers already exist, so I ask the Minister to tell the House how many more maths or similar schools will be created before the end of this Parliament.

There is another element of the Bill about which I seek clarification. It is now government policy that, by 2030, as stated in the White Paper, all schools should be part of a multi-academy trust. Although that may be appropriate and indeed sensible for most taxpayer-funded secondary schools, I ask the Minister whether she believes that specialist maths schools will also be required to go into a multi-academy trust. One of the reasons why the maths schools sponsored by universities have been so dramatically successful is precisely their close association with the university academic staff and undergraduates. To tamper with that structure would be a mistake. I hope the Minister can answer my concerns.

I support the Bill but, as the Government have decided to introduce the Bill first in the Lords, I am sure that the extensive knowledge and expertise of many noble Lords will be able to improve it further as it passes through the House. I hope the Minister will have some answers to the important reservations articulated so well by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Baker.

We all share a conviction that the standard of education in this country must continue to improve. It must therefore be right that the Government attempt to give a further lift to that endeavour.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Duke of Wellington]

62: Clause 26, page 16, line 10, leave out “give ratings” and insert “assess”

[The Duke of Wellington (Con)]

My Lords, I realise that this does not have quite the interest of yesterday’s debate on the withdrawal from the European Union. I declare, as always, my interest as a former chairman of King’s College London.

Clause 26 deals with the quality of teaching in our universities. All universities—and, I am sure, all noble Lords—accept the objective of wishing to continue to raise the standard of teaching in our universities, but the question is whether the metrics or the rating system will achieve that. The purpose of this amendment is simply to delete from the Bill the word “rating”. The teaching excellence framework is under way and will classify each university as gold, silver or bronze.

Times Higher Education recently published a table of universities with the highest international reputation in the world, and in the top 20 are 10 British universities: Imperial College London, Oxford, Cambridge, University College London, the London School of Economics, King’s College London, Edinburgh, Warwick, Glasgow and Manchester. The irony is that, when the ill-named Office for Students publishes its new classifications and some of these very same universities, as expected, are graded silver or bronze—in other words, graded as second or third-class universities—this will be despite their well-deserved reputation in this country and abroad.

The teaching excellence framework, as currently designed, will use ratings and, because Clause 26 requires the use of ratings, it will be legally necessary to continue with them until the next higher education Bill in 20 or 30 years’ time. However, if we change “rating” to “assessment”, a future Minister or “Office for Higher Education”, which I believe would be a better name, will have the option not to use a ratings system. Many noble Lords have voiced concerns and doubts about the gold, silver and bronze grades—as have many involved in, or interested in, higher education.

Ministers argue—indeed, on Monday my noble friend Lord Younger proudly announced—that 299 providers have joined the teaching excellence framework and that it has near-unanimous support. But in fact these providers had no choice. On the website of the University of Warwick, with which I have no connection, the vice-chancellor says that,

“we agree with the fundamental proposition that universities should provide high quality teaching, we don’t believe that TEF will measure that”.

He goes on to say that,

“the Government has us over a barrel. It has linked TEF to fees and potentially our ability to recruit international students. The risks are too high”.

So the Government must understand that there are grave concerns about the teaching excellence framework, about the metrics and about the gold, silver and bronze scheme. My amendment would allow, in the future, a different system of assessing teaching, and I very much hope that the Government will accept it. It is designed to be helpful. I beg to move.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I shall speak to Amendment 72 in my name and in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Garden and Lady Wolf. I thank them for their support and for the work that they have done on the Bill. This is the first time in my life that I have been wedged between a duke and a viscount, and it is appropriate to know my place as a baron in your Lordships’ House.

My interest in the Bill is both as someone who benefited greatly from higher education as a mature student and as someone who has taught and still teaches in higher education and has had a long-standing interest in quality as Secretary of State and beyond. I put on the record that I think that all of us in this House agree that it is right that we drive forward and drive up the quality of teaching and learning in our university sector. It has long been neglected, and the driving force of the research excellence framework has to be matched so that the experience in the classroom, in the lecture theatre and in tutorials can be properly evaluated and given the rating that it really deserves. That brings me to the nub of the Bill.

As the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, said, there are real issues about the nature of the metrics being used. The teaching excellence framework could well be undermined by a simple lack of confidence on the part of those who are crucially involved in it, both in teaching and as students receiving that teaching.

I have not spent as much time on this Bill in your Lordships’ House as I would have liked, although I have spoken on a number of occasions. However, I pay tribute to those who have spent and will continue to spend an enormous amount of time on it. I give credit to the Government for the way in which they have listened, reflected on and responded to suggestions so far, which has made a great difference to the quality of the Bill. My noble friend Lord Stevenson and other colleagues have spent hours not only in the Chamber but outside working on the Bill, and liaising and negotiating with the Government and colleagues. That has made a tremendous contribution and I hope that, whatever the irritations of the moment about the capacity of the House of Lords to bring about change in legislation, the Government will continue to want to listen and learn, in particular in relation to the metrics of the TEF.

I have a great deal of time for Chris Husbands, the vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University. He is reviewing the trial of TEF 2, as I understand it is now called, and no doubt he will bring forward positive proposals for change. But if there is no proper way of taking forward that change, what guarantees does anyone have that the process will have a satisfactory outcome? Changing the nature of the way in which the TEF is being taken forward by the Government at the moment, and dealing with concerns about the narrowness of the metrics and about the process of how future change will be dealt with, explains why the amendment includes references to the role of Ministers and of this House and the House of Commons through statutory instruments. Providing for proper transparency and accountability is important; that is why we should have a continuing interest in and concern about what is taking place.

The nub of the amendment is that change must take place in the lecture theatre and through the process of learning, not from outside. It has to be driven by, and created and expanded from, what is taking place, and from spreading best practice in higher education generally. There is a great deal of good practice as well as some extremely shoddy and unacceptable teaching. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said in our debate on Monday, it is based on the presumption that this is about students. If it is about students, you would expect student bodies to be in favour of the proposals—but they are not. You would expect universities to be universally in favour of them—but they are not.

I just want to refer to the Faustian deal that Universities UK and the old HE body appear to have made with the Government. I have no idea how it came about. Much of what is in the letter sent out last week is highly commendable, but the timing and its presumption that the deal has been done are unworthy of those with the highest academic standards at their fingertips and the best interests of the sector at heart. So let us presume that we have made great progress, although a great deal can still be done. Let us hope that Ministers have the confidence to continue listening and reflecting so that they can bring to bear the wisdom that has been evident both in this House and beyond, and will be prepared to adjust and to deliver something that we all want to see: considerable improvement not only now but in the future so that we can provide the kind of support for teaching that has been evident for research for so long.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Perhaps I may move on to the NSS, in particular to the amendments spoken to by the noble Lords, Lord Bew and Lord Lipsey. I would like to reassure the House on some of the specific concerns that they have raised about the TEF in today’s debate, and I shall start with the NSS. While we recognise its imperfections—I did listen carefully to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey—we consulted with the sector, which echoed the types of remarks made jointly by Professor Anthony Forster, vice-chancellor of the University of Essex, and Professor David Richardson, vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia, who said:

“The National Student Survey (NSS) provides the most robust and comprehensive basis for capturing students’ views about the quality of their education and student experience”.


As I say, we recognise its drawbacks and we have put in place appropriate safeguards. For example, we use specific questions from the NSS that are directly relevant to teaching, not the overall satisfaction question, about which concern has rightly been raised.

I would also like to use this opportunity to do some further myth-busting about the TEF. First, the TEF is not just about metrics. Providers can give additional qualitative and quantitative evidence to the TEF assessors through their provider submission. My noble friend Lady Eccles alluded to the human element of the TEF, and she was right to do so. Secondly, the metrics are not worth more than the provider submission. The TEF assessors will consider both the metrics and the provider-submission evidence holistically before making a judgment. Thirdly, all assessors get contextual information about the providers they are assessing, including maps reflecting employment in the region and the make-up of the students studying at that provider. Fourthly, although I have made the important point that the metrics are not perfect, they are robust datasets which have been used by the sector for more than 10 years. This means that a TEF rating is not a box-ticking exercise and it is not an equation. It is a rigorous and holistic assessment process that is overseen by one of the sector’s most respected figures, Chris Husbands, vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University. I know that he has been given fulsome praise by many in the House today, including the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and my noble friend Lord Lucas.

Highly qualified assessors, vice-chancellors, pro vice-chancellors and other experts in teaching and learning, as well as student and employer representatives, weigh up and test the evidence they receive before reaching a final judgment, which again reflects the human element. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, suggested that we should not throw away information. We are not throwing away information. The OfS will publish all the underlying metrics and provider submissions. However, composite measures have value. Why else would the vast majority of universities represented by noble Lords today award their students a specific degree class? We have to think about that.

I remind noble Lords that the Government listened carefully in Committee and made a number of important changes to the TEF in light of the suggestions made by noble Lords. We have slowed the implementation timetable and we have committed to revisit key concerns raised by the House in the lessons-learned exercise. I reiterate that the lessons-learned exercise will consider the following: the way in which the metrics have been used by the TEF assessors; the balance of evidence between core metrics and additional evidence; whether commendations should be introduced for the next round of TEF assessments; and the number and names of the different ratings and their initial impact internationally.

The lessons-learned exercise will survey all participating providers. The Department for Education will also collect feedback from panellists and assessors and involve further desk-based research. I am sure your Lordships will agree that the department has responded to the concerns raised by planning a thorough exercise.

Where we have not made changes we have done so with good reason. Following the Committee stage, we considered carefully the suggestion made by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, that all those in universities must have a teaching qualification. However, such a requirement would fly in the face of the points that noble Lords have made about institutional autonomy. Indeed, the amendment agreed by noble Lords on Monday covers the freedom of English higher education providers to determine the selection and appointment of academic staff.

The amendments in this group challenge the fundamental nature of the TEF. The words in the manifesto were carefully chosen to echo the way that the REF is described. It said that the Conservative Government would,

“introduce a framework to recognise universities offering the highest teaching quality”.

A framework that allows only for a pass or fail assessment offers no gradients. A framework that offers no opportunity to recognise the highest teaching quality simply does not meet the Conservative commitment. I do not want noble Lords to misinterpret these amendments as offering constructive tweaks. They strike at the very foundations of what we want to achieve.

However, I reassure noble Lords that the Government remain committed to developing the TEF iteratively and working with noble Lords to do so. Developing the framework to date has involved two formal consultations and thousands of hours of discussions with the sector and with students, and we have only just begun. Universities UK has offered to engage with any noble Lord who wishes to provide input into its feedback to the department as part of this lessons-learned activity.

Many of the concerns we have heard throughout the course of the Bill were made in the early days of the research excellence framework introduced by a Conservative Government more than 30 years ago. We are still iterating that framework now. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, suggested that the REF was bureaucratic and encouraged gaming. We have designed something substantially less bureaucratic than the REF and have put in a number of safeguards at every stage to prevent gaming. I am sure the noble Lord has read the fact sheets, which I hope help him with his view on that.

The TEF has already started to change sector behaviour for the better and, given the same opportunities as the REF, will propel the quality of higher education teaching to new heights. I hope that this House will be able to look back 30 years from now with pride at what the TEF has achieved. I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

[The Duke of Wellington]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in this debate about various amendments. Every noble Lord who has spoken has criticised the gold, silver and bronze proposal. The Minister said that it will be reviewed after a year. However, Clause 26 requires a system of rating, and the spirit of my amendment was to delete the word “rating” and put in “assessment”. If the Government had been prepared to accept my amendment—I regret that they did not—it would have drawn the teeth of much of the opposition in this House to Clause 26. Other amendments go much further than mine. Therefore, sadly, I hereby beg leave to withdraw Amendment 62.

Amendment 62 withdrawn.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Duke of Wellington Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Duke of Wellington (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chairman for nine years of King’s College London. This has been a good debate, with many good points made. I particularly agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, and the noble Lords, Lord Waldegrave, Lord Giddens and Lord Patten, said. They were all excellent contributions to a debate on a Bill about which I have several concerns. However, at this late stage of the evening, my duty is to confine myself to three points.

First, on regulation, in the other place on 19 July the Secretary of State for Education said that this Bill would,

“contribute to this Government’s deregulatory agenda”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/7/16; col. 707]

However, I cannot see how it does that. In fact, it has all the appearance of doing the very opposite, because surely it is creating a new super-regulator. Indeed, in a letter sent to colleagues by Jo Johnson—someone said he had left, but he has still got the stamina to listen to this debate in the Gallery, for which we should all thank him—he said:

“HEFCE’s ability to regulate effectively by attaching conditions to grants is weakened. We are therefore setting up a new market regulator”.

It seems that even the Government intend that this should be a greater degree of regulation.

Secondly, on autonomy, which has been mentioned by several noble Lords, removing the Privy Council, the question of removing royal charters and the extensive powers of the Office for Students all suggest that there will be less autonomy. In the excellent Universities UK briefing, the subtle point is made that,

“over-regulation of ‘autonomous’ institutions through overly bureaucratic accountability mechanisms”,

reduces autonomy. That must be right, and I think that Ministers should look at it.

Finally, on the teaching excellence framework, I have real concerns, as do other noble Lords. It is the metrics that are the problem, as I understand it. A system that is likely to produce the result that neither Oxford not Cambridge will be guaranteed to be gold and the four London colleges—UCL, Imperial, King’s and the London School of Economics—will all be bronze, surely cannot be what was intended. To attempt to raise the quality by reducing the reputation and classification of the leading universities in this country seems to me misguided. We all agree that standards in university teaching must continue to rise—that goes without saying—and we all want to see more students from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university.

One of the great strengths of this House is to scrutinise and improve the details of government Bills. I really hope that, as this Bill passes through the House, it will be substantially amended so that our universities are allowed to remain among the best in the world.