Higher Education and Research Bill

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

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

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I should have said at Second Reading that I am a member of the Council for the Defence of British Universities—whatever impact that might have. The government amendment seems to cope with the different layers of responsibility that exist in relation to access and participation. The director will certainly have responsibility for seeking agreements with institutions about access and participation. Then there is the question of whether institutions have fully performed what they agreed to, which becomes another responsibility of the Office for Students. Another aspect, which the noble Lord, Lord Willis of Knaresborough, mentioned, is the degree of participation open to a student who wants to move from one institution to another. There are a number of aspects to this duty, so the phrase chosen in the government amendment is appropriate at that level. I do not think that the director can be responsible in the same way for all the levels involved in this idea. To have oversight of the responsibilities that the Office for Students performs in this matter is perhaps the appropriate way to deal with the issue. Saying that the director is “responsible for” is certainly different from saying that he has “oversight of”, but that is more appropriate when there are more different levels of responsibility involved in access and participation than might at first sight appear.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish briefly to reiterate a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about primary education. As we know, universities are now taking great pains to ensure that they have relationships with senior schools to enable students to know more about going to university, giving them confidence to look at university education. As we also know, unless they have not only aspirations but good primary education, they will not be able to fulfil those aspirations in future. It is important that universities nurture relationships with primary schools so that primary school children have a vision of what they might want to aspire to in future. I know that there are some excellent organisations and charities, such as IntoUniversity, which work with primary school children to enable them to take advantage of all the opportunities that come in the future. Of course, we cannot mandate the director to do everything and he will not have the capacity, but I hope the Government are thinking about working with universities or asking the Office for Students to work with primary school children as well as those in senior schools, because that is where the flame—the aspiration—begins.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I want very briefly to endorse the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, on the role of access and engagement in postgraduate education and training, particularly in relation to taught and vocational master’s degrees, where there is virtually no funding from the Government any more and people have to rely on their own resources. However, if students from less well-off backgrounds are to benefit from their university education, for many career paths they will need to undertake a higher degree, particularly taught master’s degrees. I hope that we will hear something more about that from the Minister.