Higher Education and Research Bill (Seventh sitting)

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Committee Debate: 7th Sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 15th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Gordon Marsden]

The question of what is or is not a secret is a matter for a lot of discussion, no doubt. What is not a matter for discussion is the fact the Government did not put the mechanism for this increase in the Bill until the last day before the summer recess started. In my view, they did that quite deliberately in the hope it would be smothered in public interest by the other 28 statements that went round. It is a common practice of Governments to do that, but it is reprehensible. It is particularly reprehensible when we now know that the consequences of it are that a number of universities have implemented it for existing students, and not simply for students enrolling from 2017-18.

As this subject is clearly irritating and frustrating the Minister quite a lot, I will move on to talk about the issues that affect the relationship between teaching quality and fees. We are going to talk about the detail of the TEF in regards to clause 25, so again I will comment in more general terms. The National Union of Students has made it clear that it firmly opposes statutory links between teaching quality and the level of fees being charged for that teaching. My hon. Friends and I made that clear on Second Reading. I remind colleagues of what I said in the summer Adjournment debate, when I came to inform the House that this had been done in what I regarded as an irregular manner. I said:

“I think that the way the Government have dealt with this matter is thoroughly reprehensible…We engaged in a vigorous discussion”

on the Bill, as to

“whether it was right to link fees to the Teaching Excellence Framework, but at no time during that process did Ministers take the opportunity to say anything about the issue.”—[Official Report, 21 July 2016; Vol. 613, c. 1056.]

I am saying that today because I want it to be put on record that we are talking about the discrepancy in procedures.

It is a question not just of increasing the fees, but of increasing the loans by 2.8% to match that increase in fees. That will have all the knock-on effects on students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Apart from the principled point that the NUS is making, as the Minister knows there is at least a degree of scepticism about the outcome for universities of linking the TEF with tuition fees, and scepticism on the part of one or two or them about linking it. Inevitably, however, students are on the hard end of this and they want to know what the evidence is for the measure.

The NUS rightly says:

“Since tuition fees were trebled in 2012, there is no evidence”

as a direct result of that process

“to suggest that there was a consequential improvement in teaching quality.”

It goes on to say that, broadly,

“There has been no change in student satisfaction with the teaching on their course, while institutions have instead been shown to spend”

in many cases

“additional income from the fees rise on increased marketing materials rather than on efforts to improve course quality.”

We will want to return the question of what this money will be used for when we talk about the obligations laid on new providers. Of course, if they sign up for the full-fat version of the fees, they will have to abide by the teaching excellence framework as well.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the ability to increase fees based on improving excellence is a massive incentive for institutions to do exactly that, by putting on better courses?

[Gordon Marsden]

There we have it—the consumer-obsessed view of Government Members. That is not to say the consumer element is not an important part of the Bill—it is—but they are obsessed with the idea that consumerism and competition are the be-all and end-all of the way in which these fees will be raised and judged by university students. Actually, there is a very strong case for saying—a number of universities have already said it in their evidence—that linking the TEF with fee increases is pernicious because there is no evidence base that it will improve quality and because of its controversial nature. Certainly this year the Government have allowed an inflation-rated increase of 2.8% that is not linked in any meaningful form—this is no criticism of higher education institutions—with any major evidence of teaching quality improvement.

I think back to the general election of 1918, when Lloyd George famously issued a coupon to candidates to say that they were bona fide and to be voted for. The way in which the Government have tried to take this forward reminds me of that.