Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carrington of Fulham (Con)]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate but I have been encouraged to do so. First, I remind your Lordships of my interests as declared in the register: I am chairman of a sharia-compliant bank in London and therefore have some knowledge of the problems, but I have also spent my professional lifetime in sharia banking.

I encourage the Government to move ahead as rapidly as possible in providing these loans. Clearly, there are no real problems in doing so from a sharia point of view. All those problems are well understood and are easily addressed by conventional techniques in sharia banking. There are problems, however, in the way that the Bank of England treats those types of loans and in the way that the Treasury looks at them. I suggest that the Government really need to move ahead to resolve those issues as quickly as possible because the benefit to the Muslim community of providing these types of loans outweighs any difficulties I can see that the Government could face.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, with all the voices in accord around the Chamber it seems almost otiose for me to join in and add my support. I had a conversation with the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, just after he had tabled his amendment; I suggested that it was a rather weak amendment and he ought to sharpen it up because I thought there would be a lot of interest around the House. I have been proved right in that, to the point where a vote would perhaps be sensible. I am sure his intention in speaking today is not to force a Division on the House because the arguments are so all-encompassing and completely unanswerable.

I hope the Minister will be able to make a firm commitment, as previously suggested: first, that he supports the intention of introducing this measure as quickly as possible; and, secondly, that he will not allow the apparent problems with the supply line to hold up the provision of sharia-compliant loans. After all, a touch of competition from those experts in the field who might be able to step in might be a way for the Government to get themselves out of the hole. But it is a very sorry tale. The idea that students who could benefit from these loans cannot because of a conflict between faith and their ability to operate within the system that is currently available seems so utterly shocking that it just needs the Government to say that it will change.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, is to be commended for his continued work to emphasise the importance of the Government’s plans to put in place a viable system of alternative student finance. I know that he has had a useful discussion with the Minister, my honourable friend Jo Johnson, and my noble friend Lord Younger.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sheikh, who reminded us of the history of this commitment and the objectives of further opening access to higher education to more people who might be unable to access it at the moment. His points on the importance of Islamic finance in this country, particularly on the potential benefits of alternative student finance, are well made. We will consider carefully the correspondence that he has sent on to us. I am also grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen, for reminding us of the adverse impact of the current regime on women, and to other noble Lords who came in on this debate.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, who is worried that this might be more expensive, I have looked quickly at page 53. Clause 82(7) would insert new subsection (11), which says that,

“the person making the regulations concerned, achieves a similar effect to a loan under this section”,

so the idea is that it should be neither more nor less expensive than the equivalent finance under a conventional student loan.

During debate in Committee, my noble friend sought to assure noble Lords that the Government are fully committed to delivering alternative student finance. We are the first Government to legislate to make such alternative finance possible, and have legislated at the first opportunity. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has just reminded us there is no disagreement at all about the policy and the objective. Introducing alternative student finance is one of our priorities for the student finance system. We are working to expedite its delivery. We want this new alternative system to be available to students as soon as practicable. In response to the questions posed by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and other noble Lords, I can inform the House that subject to parliamentary processes, we are currently working towards it being open to applications from the first students within this Parliament.

I can see that there is interest in more information on our progress but I am afraid that a quarterly report, as required in the amendment, would be an unusual and unwarranted step. It would be onerous and, I suspect, of limited value to the people we are trying to support. The Bill is not the place to set out administrative processes around policy development; it is about the legislative framework needed to bring in alternative student finance. I am very happy to give an update on our progress here today, in the light of the clear interest shown. I have detected a note of impatience in the speeches we have heard this afternoon. Noble Lords will of course have an opportunity to hold the Government to account through the usual processes, whether by tabling questions or scrutinising the regulations that we intend to bring forward using the powers within the Bill.

Officials in the department are co-operating closely with counterparts in delivery partner organisations. Together, they are working through the requirements for the new alternative student finance system. We have started the process to engage dedicated experts in Islamic finance to work for the Government and support the detailed implementation of alternative student finance. We are also commissioning research that will explore the views of Muslim prospective students, and their non-Muslim peers, to help ensure that alternative student finance will meet their needs. I also assure noble Lords that we are actively considering how best to bring alternative student finance to the attention of prospective students in England in the run-up to its launch. We will want to ensure that we reach prospective students studying in a variety of settings, or indeed not currently studying at all.

It is only by working hard to develop and deliver complex and detailed plans that we will be able to meet our policy objective—a shared policy objective—of supporting participation in education. This careful, sensitive and important work has to be done properly first time. It takes time but I reassure all noble Lords who have spoken that it is one of our top priorities.

As a final point of reassurance, I note that in Amendment 208 the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, has sought to ensure that his proposed new clause in Amendment 144 would be commenced on Royal Assent. I assure noble Lords that although the Government’s clauses enabling alternative student finance are to be commenced by regulations and not directly on Royal Assent, this is consistent with the rest of the Bill and should not in any way be considered as an impediment to the Government’s commitment to making alternative student finance available as soon as practical.

In light of the progress that I have set out here, and of the commitment that we have given about the timing of the introduction of this important new initiative, I hope that noble Lords will feel that a reporting clause in this legislation is not required. I therefore ask respectfully whether the noble Lord might withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is to try to help to ensure that higher education providers, including new ones, have adequate standards of governance, and in particular standards that support the integrity of the student loans scheme. The intention of the Bill is to permit a wider range of higher education providers to offer university education in England.

The novel term “English higher education provider” has a capricious definition: it is simply an organisation that offers higher education in England. It could be a public body, a charitable body, a company limited by guarantee or a for-profit company. It could also be an organisation with a single proprietor. In our debates so far, we have tended to speak of such providers as having governing bodies. This can sound reassuring and familiar, but there is nothing yet in the Bill that requires an English higher education provider to have a governing body that meets specified standards, let alone UK standards. The term “English higher education provider” is therefore somewhat misleading. We would not, I think, speak of a Chinese textile company that sells cotton t-shirts and socks here as an English cotton clothing provider. However, the English higher education providers that the Bill envisages are to count as English merely if this is a market for which they provide something.

We all hope the new entrants that the Bill when enacted may attract will offer high-quality university courses—ideally, courses that are not sufficiently available in the current spectrum of UK university offerings. For example, we might hope that some new providers would offer the quality of undergraduate education that the best American liberal arts colleges or the best technical universities in Germany or Switzerland offer. However, I think that that is very unlikely. The cost base for these institutions is extremely high. The US liberal arts colleges—I have in my time taught on five well-known undergraduate programmes of that type—require a four-year degree and charge extremely high fees. These institutions are typically part-supported by endowment funding and could not function without it. The cost of STEM provision, such as that offered by technical universities in Germany or Switzerland, is evidently also high, as it is for their counterparts here. Such institutions are not likely to see a ready market for their standard offering here, particularly as there would be very high competition from the best existing UK institutions.

At most, such institutions might offer a restricted, downmarket set of courses only in subjects that are cheap to teach but whose graduates are assumed to be well paid—typically law, business, accountancy or subfields of these. That approach to their franchised overseas provision has been taken in other jurisdictions by some prestigious US institutions. However, I am not going to name names, because I think that that would be unfair.

The major risk is that institutions of quite other sorts would seek to enter the market to provide higher education in England, lured by the prospect that their students might have access to publicly funded tuition loans. At present, somewhat surprisingly, there is nothing to ensure that those who seek to provide higher education will have even adequate, let alone high, standards of governance. We have talked rather cosily about the governing bodies of higher education providers, but that need not be the situation. Noble Lords who followed the story of the collapse of Trump University and the compensation settlement that was reached a few months ago will recognise the sort of risk that I am talking about. Noble Lords who have not yet had the enjoyment of following the gory story might start with Wikipedia. It is not an edifying tale.

The amendment seeks to address this problem by requiring incorporation under UK law for any English higher education provider whose students may gain access to publicly funded tuition loans. This requirement would allow the Office for Students to discover something about the governance, and therefore the finances, of any would-be English higher education provider that hopes to franchise its offerings in the UK. The OfS might even be minded to set a fit-and-proper person standard for members of such governing bodies and university leaders. We do this for banks; should we do less for universities? I beg to move.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, this is a golden thread in our debate that has been pursued with considerable vigour by the noble Baroness, who has on every occasion, I think, asked difficult questions. In fact, she has been quite free with her favours, asking questions of me and of other noble Lords around the whole Chamber when we have failed to measure up to her high standards of accuracy and precision when mentioning the words “English”, “higher” and “education” in sequence.

Here we are at the crunch point. The noble Baroness has put down a very specific amendment that would have quite strong repercussions for any body attempting to recruit English higher education students, because along with students comes public money. The main argument as I take it—and we look forward to hearing about it from the Minister—is that we are risking public money on bodies when we have no certain knowledge about where and how they are incorporated and what rights and responsibilities they have to the students. She could have mentioned several other areas and it is important to get them on the record. Under the Consumer Rights Act, students are owed a duty of care by the providers of their course. Specific issues must be supplied by the institutions and remedies for students lie in legal protections, which would be exercised in court. If the bodies are not incorporated in the UK, how are they going to manage that? I think the Minister should respond to that in a positive way.

We are also concerned with insolvency issues. It is quite interesting and instructive that most of the Technical and Further Education Bill—which is accompanying this Bill through Parliament—is taken up with measures that apply if a college of further education goes into insolvency or is wound up. There is a special education administration regime with particular powers for the insolvency practitioner appointed to ensure that students rank above all other creditors and that their courses will continue, if possible, or be transferred to a similar institution if not. Creditors, who in insolvency law—as I am sure your Lordships’ House is well aware—are normally given primacy, are relegated to second place. We have no such system for higher education institutions in the UK. There is therefore no provision for what happens when a private company, in particular, decides it no longer wishes to teach its students. Where will the students seek redress? The cases mentioned by the noble Baroness are relevant in this jurisdiction as well as abroad. It will be very interesting to see how students will recover their loans and their opportunities if there is no incorporation which allows them to do so.

We are discussing this when there has been a change of ownership of a very distinguished private provider, BPP. That situation is not nearly so dire as the one I have been discussing but nevertheless reflects a very major arrangement. The ownership has changed. The senior management have decided to not continue and there is still uncertainty about how the overall firm will be run. This is a real situation involving large numbers of students, lots of money and very difficult legal and jurisprudential positions.

The Government are taking this seriously. I had a letter delivered to my hand as I walked into the Chamber. It deals in four pages with some of the issues that the noble Baroness raised. I am not in any sense wanting to make slight of the letter because it is useful to have it on the record, but the Government seem to be broadly of the view that the existing arrangements under which the Office for Students—surely we will be shortly be calling it the Office for Higher Education, as we prefer—will have responsibilities under the registration and degree-awarding powers will make sure that nothing untoward happens. That is not sufficient. We need greater certainty about what institutions are responsible for our students, how they are responsible, in what way they are incorporated and what the legal position is.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, but I do not think that he will be able to measure up to some of the very strong critiques that have been made so far.

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has pointed out, we are in the strange position where one has far greater protection if one is studying for a higher education qualification in a further education college than if one is in a university, because there are very clear requirements, now going through this House, for what should happen if that institution becomes insolvent.

This issue has been raised on a number of occasions in this Chamber, where it has been argued that, although the Government have committed to a protection regime for students in higher education, it is not very clear or demanding, as far as we can tell. The amendment goes a step further, because it draws attention, as have my noble friend Lady O’Neill and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to a situation in which, over and above issues relating to the institution delivering the education, there is an issue of ownership. It may mean that, in extreme situations, it is unclear where students would seek redress, never mind how.

The Government are aware of the new issues that have come about as a result of creating a sector in which providers can be bought and sold. In 2015, they asked HEFCE to look at this issue and, as a result, there are now some new regulations about the treatment of degree-awarding powers in the event of a change of ownership or legal status. In that situation, HEFCE must discuss the potential implications for degree-awarding powers, including continued eligibility to hold them, and must be assured that the original institution that was awarded the powers is in substance the same institution in spite of the change of ownership. That is what is happening with BPP at the moment and there is no reason to suppose that the institution will not continue to be a distinguished provider of higher education.

I think that everybody in the sector who is providing good-quality education, whether they are private or not for profit, would agree with that. However, what the regulations do not get to the heart of is how, if an institution is owned by a company or body overseas—it may be somebody who has taken the entire institution into private ownership—the OfS will be confident that it can make sure that the institution complies with the conditions of registration. An institution may change hands regularly—I give the example of the University of Law, which in the three years after it moved from being not for profit to being a for-profit company changed hands twice. How in that situation will we operate if we find that students are in effect left without not only the institution in which they enrolled but any clearly identifiable body to which they can have recourse and which the OfS can—bluntly—bring to court and demand that it do what it should do?

This is a major issue. The amendment would make sure that there was a body to which students and the Government could address themselves if a catastrophic event, which I am sure would be extremely rare, occurred. Setting up a subsidiary company in this country is generally not a very complicated or time-consuming affair. It cannot be beyond the power of the Government and it would not distort the underlying objective of the Bill to ensure that any institution offering higher education to students receiving loans subsidised by the taxpayer is clearly identifiable in the case of students being left without an education and creditors being left without obvious recourse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I think that we are all very grateful to my noble friend Lord Dubs for bringing back this amendment in an amended form. We should also credit the Minister for arranging a meeting with his counterpart in the Home Office, the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, which was extremely helpful in identifying two things that allowed us to make progress. One was that the original drafting seemed to imply a much larger number and a much larger problem than could have been resolved within the scope of the clause as originally proposed and amended. After a very good discussion, we were able to get that down to a very narrow point. It seemed to be a point of considerable unfairness in relation to the people whom my noble friend mentioned. I also thank the Home Secretary, to whom reference has been made, for taking the trouble to see my noble friend Lord Dubs today to make sure that he understood the context within which the decision, which we hope to hear shortly, has been made.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for bringing forward this amendment and, with others, I commend him for his tireless campaign on behalf of a group of vulnerable people. This is an important issue and our short debate today, coupled with our debate in Committee, have demonstrated wide support and compassion for those who seek our protection. The UK has a long and proud history of offering sanctuary to those who genuinely need it. The Government take our responsibility in asylum cases very seriously.

Those who come to this country and obtain international protection are able to access student support and home fee status. Uniquely, those who have been granted refugee status and their family members are allowed access to immediate and full support. This includes access to tuition fee loans, living costs support and home fee status at higher education institutions. This is a privilege not extended to others, including UK nationals who have lived overseas for a few years or EEA nationals, all of whom need to have lawfully resided within the EEA for at least three years prior to commencing study.

The requirement for three years’ lawful residence was put before the Supreme Court only two years ago, in the case of Tigere. The Supreme Court upheld as fully justified the Government’s policy of requiring three years’ ordinary residence in the UK prior to starting a course. The Supreme Court also upheld the Government’s case that it was legitimate to target substantial taxpayer subsidy of student loans on those who are likely to remain in this country indefinitely so that the general public benefits of their tertiary education will benefit the country.

Noble Lords have expressed sympathy and compassion for people who have entered the UK under the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme and the vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme who are currently granted humanitarian protection. The Government share that sympathy and have taken a number of actions to support those on the scheme. The Government are not persuaded of the need to treat persons given humanitarian protection more favourably than UK nationals for the purpose of student support. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised some wider issues, and I confirm that we are looking at them in the round.

UK nationals arriving from overseas must wait three years before accessing student support, regardless of their personal circumstances, and so must nationals of British Overseas Territories. That is not a lack of compassion but a fair, objective and non-discriminatory rule to demonstrate the lasting connection to the UK upheld by the Supreme Court in the Tigere case.

Turning to the specific group whose cause the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, has championed, I know that the Home Secretary has met him to discuss how we can progress the issue of access to higher education and that she shares my sympathy for the matters presented by the noble Lord. The Government understand the importance of accessing higher education as soon as possible for those on the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme and the vulnerable children’s resettlement scheme and are looking very carefully at this issue. I hope that the noble Lord will understand that I cannot say more than that today. I know that he will continue to engage with the Home Office on this issue over the coming weeks to resolve some of the complexities in the determination of refugee status to safeguard the UK’s proud history of offering sanctuary to those who genuinely need it.

I was not at the meeting which the noble Lord attended earlier today, but if he came away from that meeting with a spirit of hope and optimism, it is no purpose of mine to do anything to take away from that. In the light of the ongoing discussions that are under way with the Home Office, and against a background of the spirit of hope and optimism mentioned by noble Lords, I hope that the noble Lord might feel that this is not an amendment that should be pressed to a Division at this stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord O'Donnell (CB)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I declare an interest as a visiting professor at LSE and UCL, and my first job was as a lecturer in economics at the University of Glasgow, where I saw at first hand the joys of teaching a diverse group of students. I take all the points that have been made about education and the economy. However, I want to speak as a former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury. Far too rarely in this House do we pass amendments that have the effect of helping the Chancellor and reducing the deficit. Undoubtedly, this will do that, so could the Minister pass on that message to the Chancellor? It is a very good reason for accepting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, which I support.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

Follow that. My Lords, this has been a terrific debate. We have rightly taken our time over it, taking perhaps a little longer than we should have done, but it has been worth it. We have explored the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, wished us to and come to a resounding conclusion on all sides of the House—apart from the noble Lord, Lord Green. He stated in parentheses that he was not in a majority on this occasion. My noble friend Lord Blunkett put the case rather well, and I have to say that the noble Lord, Lord Green, is never in a majority on this issue. However, I am glad that the arguments have been made so that we can knock them down.

At the heart of this debate are relatively straightforward issues to do with counting, reporting and transparency. The point was made rather well by the noble Lord, Lord Broers—by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, rather. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Broers, who also made a very good speech; I am in no sense comparing the two, but it is the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, that I want to pick up. The Government are in a quandary over this. When introducing his amendment in the previous group, my noble friend Lord Dubs said that he was trusting a single government voice. Perhaps more in hope than experience, he has agreed to go with the Government and trust them on that. This amendment, however, is one on which the Government are speaking with many voices. We are going to get the Government’s view tonight, but I am afraid that it is not going to be the view that many in the Government would like to see. The fact that we got as much support from the Conservative Benches as we did from elsewhere in the House suggests that this is not an argument that the Government can win.

I urge the Government to agree that we have before us a straightforward set of amendments that would solve the problem of students coming here to study being treated as economic migrants when they are not, help with the staffing issues that are going to be so important for our industrial strategy and our future post Brexit, and provide a common sense, no-brainer solution, as so many speakers have said. We have covered the economic, industrial, cultural, educational and local perspectives on why having overseas students here is good for us in every respect. We have been told how much money is involved. However, at the end of the day, as many have said, it is about perception.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, quoted the Prime Minister of India, who said: you want our trade but you do not want our students. It is about the perceptions that have built up. I am sure that when he comes to respond the Minister will say that there is no cap and that every overseas student who is qualified to do so can come. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, said, the signal being sent out to the world, and which the world believes, is that we do not want students to come here. We have to take a stand and make our case absolutely clear to the world. The fight back can start now. This is a flag that we should all be waving. We must join together, around the House and across the country, to say that this is something that we want to happen. I leave it to the Minister to say that he agrees.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My Lords, for the second time I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and to my noble friend Lord Lucas for providing your Lordships with an opportunity to discuss the issue of international students. I also send my best wishes to my noble friend Lord Patten, who cannot be with us today. I say at the outset I am left in no doubt about the passions expressed in this debate by noble Lords around the Chamber. As I have previously indicated—and as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, indicated—we have indeed said this before. But I will say it again so that the House is in no doubt. The Government very much welcome the contribution that international students and academics make to the United Kingdom’s higher education and research sectors and we have sought to nurture and encourage that.

I will deal first with the amendment from my noble friend Lord Lucas. I entirely share its goal of ensuring maximum transparency. I am pleased to say that there is already a wealth of information in the public domain about the contribution of international students. Provisions in the Bill will add to this. As I have previously indicated, the Bill already includes provisions requiring the Office for Students to monitor and report on the financial health of higher education providers. This can be done only if the OfS understands the types of students and the income they bring to the sector. Clause 9(1)(b) requires all registered providers to give the OfS such information as it needs to perform its functions. This will ensure that the OfS has the power to gather the information it considers it requires on international student numbers.

Furthermore, the Higher Education Statistics Agency already publishes detailed information about international student numbers, along with a breakdown of the countries they are travelling from. We envisage that these arrangements will continue. This amendment would also require information about the proportions of visas granted when set against the total number of applications submitted by each institution. The Home Office already publishes a breakdown of tier 4 visa applications, including the number granted and the number refused.

As I explained in Committee, I do not support providing this information broken down by institution. If there is an institution which, for any reason, has seen its visa refusal rate rise, that does not necessarily make it a failing institution. Provided that it passes the Home Office’s basic compliance assessment, and there are no other compliance issues, no action will be taken against it by the Home Office. But I am sure that the institution concerned would want to make any changes to its system that it deemed appropriate out of the public spotlight. I dare say that any institution that finds itself in that position would support the Government’s position on this.

My noble friend and I both support transparency and the publication of as much information as possible. Much of the information that he seeks is already available and published, and the Bill will strengthen those arrangements. There are small elements of his amendment where, for the reasons of practicality or commercial confidentiality that I have given, I would not favour publication of the data in question. However, those cases are very much the exception, and I can assure my noble friend that the information in which he is interested will be collected and published for all to see.

I turn now to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. These topics, as the House will know, were covered at some length in Committee and I do not propose to repeat all that I said then. However, it is important that I put on record again that there is no limit on the number of genuine international students whom educational institutions in the UK can recruit. I make no apology for repeating that. Equally importantly, the Government have no plans to limit any institution’s ability to recruit international students. Likewise, as recently emphasised by the Prime Minister, the Government are committed to ensuring that the UK continues to be one of the best places in the world for science and innovation.

I previously pointed out that the United Kingdom has a very competitive offer when compared to other major recruiters of international students, whether you look at speed of visa processing, proportion of successful applications, work rights during study or post study opportunities. While, of course, there is no room for complacency, the United Kingdom continues to be the world’s second most popular destination for international students and we have welcomed more than 170,000 international students to the UK for the sixth year running.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, spoke eloquently, backed up by statistics, about the importance of overseas students to the UK. We continue to look for ways to promote the UK as an attractive place to come to study and we have a very generous offer for international academics who want to come to work in UK universities. The Chancellor’s recent Budget acknowledged that the continued strength of UK research and innovation depends on access to world-class skills, ideas and talent. It set out how the UK is investing in our industries of the future and that the Government have committed to invest more than £100 million over the next four years to attract the brightest minds to the UK. This will help maintain the UK’s position as a world leader in science and research. It includes £50 million ring-fenced for fellowship programmes to attract global talent and more than £50 million from existing international funds to support fellowships that attract researchers to the UK from emerging research powerhouses such as India, China, Brazil and Mexico.

In the tier 4 visa pilot, four universities are involved in a trial which involves less paperwork surrounding applications and a longer period of post-study leave. The noble Lord, Lord Bradley, mentioned a similar issue. This is an excellent example of taking sensible steps to try to ensure that the UK is as welcoming as possible for international students. It covers exactly the ground in the first limb of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I do not believe that a general statutory duty, which would be impossible to measure and bound to give rise to litigation, is the way forward here. The noble Lord, Lord Green, stated that these were not matters appropriate for legislation.

I turn now to the second part of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, which seeks to stop students being treated as long-term migrants. Incidentally, I have noticed that the noble Lord has moved from the description of “economic migrant” in his amendment in Committee to “long term migrant” now. However, I fear that, whatever the terminology, the difficulties with what he proposes remain the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I added my name to this amendment and spoke to it in previous stages of the Bill. I will be brief; in any event, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, set out a comprehensive argument as to why this is so important. Who would have thought that it was important in this country to champion freedom of speech? Sadly, obviously that has become necessary. We are living in strange times. We have heard tales of students closing down free speech, and universities have taken remarkably little action over some issues when freedom of speech should have been protected.

It is difficult. There are obviously grey areas between what is lawful and what is not. As the noble Baroness said, we must not in any way encourage hate speech or incitement to violence but university students should be subject to ideas they find uncomfortable and be in a safe place where they can address them without those ideas immediately being shut down. This amendment also includes students unions, so it should help activities and events organised by students to make quite sure that they too encourage freedom of speech. It is a precious and valued part of our national life, and it is currently under threat. This amendment would add powers to ensure that we preserve it.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, this is a very important debate. We are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for raising again with such powerful arguments the point she has been making consistently throughout Second Reading and Committee about the need to focus on this and get it right in the legislation. This issue is at the heart of what we really think about universities and higher education providers more generally. As the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, said, it is almost shocking to think that the understanding we have of what constitutes a university does not read across to what actually happens on the ground. The stories are legion and very unpleasant, and in many cases almost too awful to talk about in these circumstances.