Funding Higher Education

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute with you in the Chair, Mr Hosie. I had not intended to speak today, but I was interested to hear what the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) had to say, and I have obviously been inspired by his contribution.

I want to make a few, probably disjointed points, the first of which is about the sustainability of the sector. As has been pointed out, we have one of the best higher education sectors in the world. At a time of uncertainty for the country, we ought to build on our strengths, and not do anything to undermine them. When the Minister winds up, I hope that he will assure us on how the review will maintain, or indeed strengthen, the sustainability of the sector.

There is a fear that, because of the way that the debate has opened up, the Government may intend simply to mitigate the costs by constraining fees without replacing them with teaching grants, rather than looking ambitiously at how the system works, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. Clearly, a move to reduce fees in certain subjects could have the perverse consequence of leading people in a contrary direction to the one suggested by the hon. Gentleman. Likewise, a fee cut that is not replaced by teaching grants across the board, or in any other way, could really bring into question the sustainability of the sector.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend is making a really important point, which I hope the Minister can address. There is real concern among universities that the review could result in a huge loss of income. As I said earlier, the whole of the sector is not making a huge surplus. We want our university sector to thrive, compete globally, and give our young people and others the skills that they need to compete in the workforce. My hon. Friend has raised an important point, and it is one that the Minister needs to address.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Gentleman is right. As I said, those of us on this side of the House who were on the Bill Committee, such as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods), argued that a focus on teaching quality was right, but we needed to get the way that we measured that experience right.

The other metric that is problematic is employment outcomes. The current Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson), acknowledged that they were crude and, in a sense, unreliable metrics, but they were being used because they were the numbers that were available. I pointed out to the Minister at the time that there is not necessarily a relationship between teaching quality and employment outcomes. If a student had been to Eton and Oxford, like he had, and were from the right family and knew the right people, that person’s employment outcome was likely to be fairly good, irrespective of teaching quality. So when looking at the funding review, my warning is that we should make sure that we look at the educational experience of universities in the round. We argued that there should have been a statement in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 about what universities were for.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised the discussion we had in that Bill Committee about what universities contribute to our society in addition to teaching and education. They contribute to sports development, cultural development and social outcomes in our communities. They do a lot of voluntary work. Students from my own university, Durham, do a lot of voluntary work in the local community. If we are going to look at value for money, which I agree we should, we felt that the additional benefits that universities deliver to society should somehow be brought into the equation as well, and there was certainly a danger under that legislation of the wider benefits of universities being completely discarded in the Government’s TEF measures.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Clearly, we are at one on that issue.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I, too, think that BT has a number of strengths as a company, but it is yet to be determined whether it is very good at running a university. We will only know that in due course. If BT runs a university, I want to ensure that it is a university as we would commonly understand it, not simply a company that offers a degree course.

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) picked out the issue of five-a-side football, but does my hon. Friend acknowledge that there is a wider issue? This is the first major Bill on higher education for a generation, and it provides an opportunity to extend university title quite widely. Is not the nub of the problem the fact that no attempt is made to define what a university is?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I concur exactly with my hon. Friend. In Committee, the Minister said that he was setting

“a high bar that only high-quality providers will be able to meet.”––[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 11 October 2016; c. 410.]

Unfortunately, at this point in time we have absolutely no idea what is meant by that high bar. I am hoping we will hear from the Minister exactly what he means by a university and what will be in the guidance, and that the quality and breadth of offer of our universities will be protected and will not be got rid of by this Government.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 14th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Blomfield]

I very much agree: it is completely self-defeating. These are people who are going to make their lives here. The sooner they can start that process, the better. If it had not been for the Government’s move away from granting them refugee status, which in the past would have been the default norm, we would not be facing this problem.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. Some of these young people have had their education disrupted, tragically, by the whole conflict situation, and the sooner they can get back into full-time education, the better—not only for them, but for us as a country.

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are not talking about very many people at all. It is a tiny number, but the opportunity to rebuild their lives after the tragedies they have lived through is extremely important to them.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 12th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. The Open University is clearly a hugely valuable reference point in this given its world-leading success in part-time education. Its assessment of the collapse in part-time student numbers and evaluation of the 2012 reforms was:

“Since the reforms, prospective part-time students in England are giving greater consideration to the whole learning pathway they are going to take. They must now consider the end qualification they are aiming for at the very outset of their HE learning journey if they want a loan (given loans are only an option for those with a stated intention to study for a degree or other HE qualification). Prior to the reforms, part-time students were more likely to try out higher education and perhaps study on a module-by-module basis, and at a lower intensity, without committing to a degree or other HE qualification.”

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne make a powerful case on how disgracefully students have been treated by the Government. The Open University had to change the way in which it deals with part-time students by making them register for a course in order to be able to get student loans. That seems to be the height of inflexibility and not the flexibility that the Minister says he wants to usher in. Perhaps one of the things he could do this afternoon, in addition to reversing all the changes to maintenance loans and so on, is to put much more flexibility into the loans system.

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Minister could give serious consideration to such a proposal; I very much hope that he will.

As the Open University illustrates, all the evidence shows that shifting towards the requirement for loans to be given for a whole-course commitment was one that tipped too many people over the edge. The change in the arrangements that my hon. Friend has just outlined tipped too many people over the edge and contributed enormously to the dramatic decline in part-time student numbers. This issue is about widening participation. It is about the discussions we had earlier on credit accumulation and transfer. It is about giving people different entry routes into higher education. As the Minister keeps making the point validly, it is about having a more creative, more innovative, more wide-ranging view of our higher education system, but that requires exactly the sort of flexibility that my hon. Friend talks about, which the Open University was driven away from. I do hope the Minister will give serious consideration to the proposal in new clause 11 for module by module loans.

I will speak briefly to new clauses 13 and 14. I have the privilege of representing more students than any other Member of Parliament—I regularly make that point; I can see the weary faces—and it is a great privilege. I was hit with a wall of outrage when the Government introduced the retrospective changes. They were met with outrage and incredulity from many of the 36,000 students that I represent. Rachel Mercer wrote to me:

“I have been at University since 2014 and think it is completely outrageous—if true—”

because she did not believe the Government could do something like this—

“that my loan may be rewritten....I have not seen anything which confirms these rumours...but the students I am friends with are all very worried and very angry!”

Emily Reed wrote:

“During my time”—

Higher Education and Research Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 9th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 286, in clause 25, page 15, line 17, at end insert—

‘(3) In making arrangements under subsection (1), the OfS must, after a period of consultation, make—

(a) an assessment of the evidence that any proposed metric for assessing teaching quality is in fact linked to teaching quality; and

(b) an assessment of potential unintended consequences which could arise from an institution seeking to optimise its score on each metric, with proposals on how these risks can best be mitigated.

(4) The assessment under subsection (3) must be made public.”

This amendment would require an assessment of the evidence of the reliability of the TEF metrics to be made and for the assessment to be published.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I hope this is a proposal on which we can find agreement across the Committee. With this amendment, I am seeking to reflect the recommendation made unanimously by the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, when we looked at teaching quality in our recent report. There were some areas where we robustly did not agree, but this is a matter on which we did, and I am sure that if I deviate from that consensus, the hon. Member for Cannock Chase will pick me up on it. Although we fully endorsed the Government’s focus on teaching excellence, in the light of evidence we heard we were concerned about getting the arrangements right. The metrics being proposed were not, as the Government recognised, measures of teaching quality; they were rough proxies.

The three key metrics are employment, retention and the national student survey. We discussed employment briefly under earlier clauses. In all the evidence we received, and certainly across the Committee, it was recognised that employment destination, although important, is not a satisfactory measure of teaching quality. That is an important point, and it is an issue that the Government are concerned about in relation to their work on social mobility and creating opportunities, on which the Prime Minister has put great emphasis. If someone comes from the right school and the right family and goes to the right Oxbridge college, it does not matter how well they are taught; they will probably end up in a good job; that is widely recognised. Employment destination is not a measure of teaching quality. The Select Committee were concerned that that is a flawed metric for measuring teaching excellence. That is not controversial; it is something on which we find cross-party agreement.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Even allowing for benchmarking, universities experience very different local labour markets that students can easily move into. Does he agree that that has not been sufficiently taken on board by the Minister?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend highlights a point made to our Select Committee: a simple, crude focus on people’s salary and employment outcomes fails to recognise the enormous difference between regions. As someone who represents a Sheffield constituency and both Sheffield universities, I am very conscious of that, and it is a point that has been made powerfully to me. We felt as a Select Committee that the employment metric was flawed.

On the retention metric, although the Committee celebrated the Government’s intention to focus on retention, in the work on access and widening participation the focus should be not simply on getting people to university, but on ensuring that they succeed there and have good outcomes after graduation. The focus on retention is welcome, but we were not convinced that it was right as a metric for measuring teaching quality. We have seen in school league tables and how we measure schools’ performance that such a focus can lead to unintended and perverse outcomes. The easiest way to up a retention score would be to ensure that the intake of students did not include too many people who would struggle to succeed. That clearly is not what the Government want, and it is not what any of us want.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

That runs completely counter to what the Government say their social mobility agenda is, because it will make universities less likely to take people who they think are higher risk—mature students, perhaps, or students who have a range of problems. That would be a really unfortunate consequence of the way the legislation is drafted.

[Paul Blomfield]

Our Select Committee was very focused on the Government’s welcome and ambitious targets to improve the representation of those from less advantaged backgrounds in higher education, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that this metric could lead to exactly those unintended and perverse outcomes.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I want to say briefly to the Minister that I do not think that it should be easy to get degree-awarding powers in this country. If we are really serious about upholding the quality and excellence of higher education, there should be a rigorous system and, because of the Minister’s remarks and the lack of safeguards for students and the public, I wish to press amendment 234 to a vote.

[Paul Blomfield]

I am sorry that the Minister sought to characterise our concerns in the way that he did. There are good examples in many countries across a diverse range of higher education providers, but he will also recognise that there are examples of unscrupulous operators who have caused real problems, not just in the United States—also in Australia. In the US, it has led the federal authorities to take legal action on behalf of students against some of the providers. All we are seeking to do is to ensure that a robust framework is in place to protect us from that situation in this country.

On new clause 9, I was reassured to some degree by the Minister’s comments on change of ownership, but I would welcome clarification on whether the review process that he would expect would be as robust as the initial regulatory entry. He did not address my concerns on the restrictions being imposed on providers in other jurisdictions, which is the second part of new clause 9, and whether that would also trigger the sort of review I am seeking through the new clause.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 8th Sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 15th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 178, in clause 13, page 8, line 17, at end insert—

“(f) a condition relating to the provision of access to a range of cultural activities including, but not restricted to, the opportunity to undertake sport and recreation and access to a range of student societies and organisations;

(g) a condition relating to the provision of student support and wellbeing services including specialist learning support;

(h) a condition relating to the provision of volunteering and exchange opportunities;

(i) a condition relating to the opportunity to join a students’ union.”

This amendment ensures that all aspects of a positive student experience are considered relevant to the inclusion of a Higher Education institution on the register.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. This amendment takes us back to the thorny issue of what a university is and how we ensure that the measures in the Bill do not allow for or enable the dumbing down of the sector as a whole. I want to pose a series of questions to the Minister about why clause 13 does not provide a list of the sorts of service and the range of amenities that the Minister might expect a university to have in order to be deemed a university. The amendment sets out a whole range of conditions that should be included in the clause, so that something called a university actually is a university. I will be interested to hear why the Minister thinks that is not important.

As we all know, students do not only go to university to get a degree. Of course they go to university to get a degree, but along the way, they join lots of clubs and societies. They take part in cultural events. They might have a drama club. They often, as in the case of Durham University, have a theatre and put on performances—really good ones—that local people go along to. That is an incredibly important aspect of the cultural activities at Durham. At the weekend, we often go along to watch the university teams compete against other universities or in local leagues. It is incredibly important that students, particularly those who have done so at school, can take up sport at university.

Students join a whole range of clubs and societies that enhance not only their wellbeing but that of the wider community. In that respect, I point out the particular importance of providing volunteering opportunities for students, which can often help them with future employment and give back massively to the local community through community service. Indeed, I was at a luncheon club in my constituency just a couple of weeks ago that had been started up by students in a disadvantaged area of Durham. They have a volunteering rota to keep the club up and running.

We would normally equate those sorts of activity with the university experience, along with being able to join the students union, which I will not mention again because we discussed it a couple of days ago, but that is clearly a very important aspect of what students can do when they go to university.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the thrust of the Government’s policy here is enhancing the learning experience, and that the sorts of activities that she describes are not simply important in giving students the widest opportunities in their lives, but provide them with opportunities to learn team and leadership skills, and are very much part of that broader learning experience?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the way in which the wider experience of university contributes to the overall student experience. Indeed, a necessary part of that student experience is universities ensuring that there is adequate student support and a range of wellbeing services, and that specialist learning or special needs are met through the university learning support system. It seems a little odd, to put it mildly, that in the list of “other initial and ongoing registration conditions” in clause 13, there is absolutely nothing about the range of services that an institution should provide; it is all about regulation. It is important that the sector is properly regulated, but that is not sufficient.

A few months ago, I was standing where my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South is sitting now, questioning the Housing Minister about starter homes. I made the point to him—this is directly relevant—that a starter home was not affordable housing just because the Government legislated for it to be affordable housing or thought that it was affordable housing. Clearly, a £450,000 house in London, or a £250,000 house outside London, is simply not affordable. Alas, that Minister did not take my advice and went ahead with legislation that said that such houses were affordable, when clearly they are not. Now, of course, the Government are having to revisit that legislation and what they are doing on starter homes, because it was absolutely obvious that they could not simply legislate for something to be what it is not. I fear that the same will happen with the Bill, and the Government will say about a college or specialist provider, “It is a university if it meets these regulation conditions,” when in any other context it would be considered not a university but a specialist provider.

I am trying to help the Minister to avoid falling into the same trap of legislating for something that clearly is not what the Government try to make it out to be by suggesting that it would help us all in our deliberations—indeed, it would help some of us to negotiate our way through the clauses dealing with registration conditions—if the Minister clarified what he thought a university should be and the range of services that an institution should provide before it is able to use “university” in its title. We really do not want students to think that an institution provides a certain range of services when it clearly does not and has no intention of ever providing the range of services or opportunities that one would normally associate with a university.

It would be helpful to hear what the Minister thinks a university is and what range of services he would like to see universities normally provide. Can he reassure us that no institution will be able to call itself a university when it clearly is not one?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I do not wish to detain the Committee unduly, but the Minister will be well aware that Universities UK has, in its written evidence to the Committee and, I am sure, in person with him, expressed some real concerns about how the concepts of quality and standards are being applied in this legislation.

In the written evidence, Universities UK pointed out to the Committee that the way in which standards should be assessed is not being set out clearly enough, nor has enough clarity been given to the difference between what is meant by “quality” and “standards” throughout the Bill. Universities UK states:

“The quality of higher education provided is clearly a key consideration in the regulation of the sector, although at present the bill makes the relevant condition one which may be applied rather than one which is a mandatory condition of any institution seeking to be included on the register of higher education providers.”

It points out that all the clauses subsequent to clause 13 that deal with assessing quality and standards should make the distinction between “quality” and “standards” much clearer.

On that point, clause 23(3) as drafted states:

“‘Standards’ has the same meaning as in section 13(1)(a).”

Clause 13(1)(a) states that

“a condition relating to the quality of, or the standards applied to, the higher education provided by the provider (including requiring the quality to be of a particular level or particular standards to be applied);”.

That does not seem to be a particularly helpful or clear definition.

Will the Minister, from clause 13 onwards and in clauses 23, 25 and 27, assist the Committee in its deliberations by agreeing to put more clarity in the Bill or in regulations?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is shared by the Russell Group in its evidence. It is concerned that the definition as it stands would require the OFS to be involved in decisions about appropriate standards that are properly for universities themselves to make as autonomous institutions? There is widespread concern, which the Government need to address.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. The Minister has had many representations on this issue. I have not yet heard from him how he will address those concerns, but I am sure I am about to.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I support the amendments in the name of my hon. Friends and my own amendment 164. This is a straightforward amendment to clause 9 which, in the first instance, seeks clarity from the Minister. I am not sure whether under subsection (2) the OFS will have to publish the information provided to it by higher education providers, or whether it is simply the institutions themselves that will have to do so. If it is the institutions themselves, it would be helpful if all the information was collated in one place. UCAS seems to be the obvious place to do that, if it is not the OFS. The point of the amendment is to ensure that somewhere, either through the OFS or UCAS, all the information is provided in one place. That would be much easier for the sector at large and for prospective students, rather than people having to trawl through every higher education provider’s publication.

[Paul Blomfield]

Amendment 176, which stands in my name, seeks granular information to assist the Government’s own ambitions in relation to the achievement of both applicants and those who are at different stages of the process through higher education. In the past, so much of our debate has been focused simply on getting people to university. The Government are right, in their ambitions for widening participation, to be looking not only at that but at how people achieve and are supported through their time at university. In that context we are looking for a requirement to publish further information, not just on those who have accepted offers, but those who accepted an offer and then did not begin their course; accepted an offer but did not complete their course; or accepted an offer and completed their course but with different levels of attainment. I expect the Minister agrees that that sort of information will be help the pursuit of our shared objectives in relation to widening participation, so I hope he feels able to accept the amendment.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 8th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I rise to support the amendment and the excellent case that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South has made. On Tuesday, we heard from the director of fair access, Professor Les Ebdon, about how important it is that the Bill protects the interests of not only current students but future students. I cannot overstate the importance of the Bill providing a robust framework for fair access to universities, and I am concerned that it may water down some of the director of fair access’s powers to hold universities to account on widening access.

That issue was raised by Professor Ebdon in his evidence, during which he said:

“The concern that I would have is around whether it actually gives more power to the director of fair access or not.”

He was speaking about the new role of director for fair access and participation. He added:

“At the moment, the director of fair access has the sole authority for deciding whether an access plan is sufficient and universities have done what is sufficient to promote and safeguard the interests of students. I know there would be a number of universities that, if they had somebody else—another chief executive above me—to go to, would take my decision to them, because they argue long and hard with me about the decisions I make.”––[Official Report, Higher Education and Research Public Bill Committee, 6 September 2016; c. 57, Q86.]

The point of the amendment—this may address the point made by the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds—is that it seeks to ensure that the final responsibility for decisions relating to fair access and participation rests solely with the director for fair access and participation, not with other members of the board or a chief executive who might be in the structure above the director. The amendment seeks to address the concerns expressed by OFFA by ensuring that responsibility for holding universities to account rests solely with the director for fair access and participation, and that universities cannot try to undermine the authority of the director by going above his or—at some time in the future—her head to a higher authority.

There is a danger that without the amendment, the good progress that we are making on widening access could be slowed down as universities delay taking action on failings in their access programmes, believing that they can rely on complaining or appealing to someone else to overturn what has been requested of them by the director for fair access and participation, and that they may not ultimately have to take the actions that he or she suggests.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. If he does not like the wording of the amendment, we would be happy for him to come back with another form of words that would ensure that there is no watering down of directives that might be given by the new director for fair access and participation.

[Paul Blomfield]

I rise to speak to my amendments, which in an extraordinary example of excellent co-ordination say much the same thing but in a slightly different way. Amendment 156 tries to address what I see as a flaw in the schedule as drafted, which makes the director for fair access and participation responsible simply for reporting. The amendment seeks to clarify that he or she is not responsible simply for reporting but for that function and reporting on it. I think that is a helpful additional drafting point.

Amendment 157 clarifies the point about delegation and that the director should not be bypassed by his or her responsibilities being delegated to somebody else. The way that we deal with the matter could set the tone for discussions over the next few weeks. There is complete agreement on trying to achieve widening participation and enormous progress has been made. The Government have shown commendable ambition to make further progress. With these amendments we are considering ways to help that along.

I am sure my colleague the hon. Member for Cannock Chase will acknowledge that when we considered this issue in the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills there were, despite the one area of disagreement, many areas of agreement. One was fair access. Changing the institutional architecture of the sector, which has merits, by bringing the Office for Fair Access into the OFS, also has risks unless we protect the autonomy and authority of that function within the office. That was a key recommendation of the Select Committee report, agreed by all Members. It also relates to the next group of amendments and I will say more about it then. We are simply seeking to ensure that that function has the authority to deal with universities, to get the sort of change of culture and practice that we are all trying to achieve.

I was a supporter of David Willetts’s appointment of the current director, which was not uncontroversial at the time. That was a signal from the previous Government that there was an intention to see change and Professor Ebdon has assisted that process enormously. He has been a very impressive director of fair access and we should listen closely to the evidence that he gave us on Tuesday. He is clear that this sort of definition is required to ensure that the director has the authority to help the Government achieve their objectives in negotiating the deals with the universities.

I hope the Minister will say he is happy to bring back some different form of wording, if not to accept the amendments, picking and choosing between mine and those tabled by my Front Benchers. I hope he will be able to make an amendment that reflects that suggestion, in which case I would be happy not to press mine to a vote.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 8th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for responding positively to our request.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I also thank the Minister. This is an extremely positive step. I wondered, however, whether we could squeeze the session with the Minister, for whom I have high regard and with whom I am looking forward to having many debates, so that we could have more time with the NUS and the QAA.

Higher Education and Research Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q Would the panel accept that, if we are looking at another playing field, we should consider something beyond regulation and maybe have a set of expectations about what institutions are actually delivering, so that, if it is a level playing field, it goes beyond regulation?

Professor Simon Gaskell: We certainly favour inclusion in the Bill of a clause that indicates that there is a responsibility for the public good of institutions that wish to call themselves universities.

Pam Tatlow: This is properly addressed in terms of the general duties of OFS. For example, we have proposed a reference to confidence and the public interest. In other words, we know that Ministers are very clear that they want a more competitive market. The risk is that we just see students as consumers. Students, and we ourselves, see students as much more than that, and higher education has got a wider purpose.

One way to address the issue would be to knock off what I call some of the hard edges around the general duties of OFS to ensure that there is a wider commitment, which I am convinced Ministers actually have.

[Paul Blomfield]

Q Can I press a little further on the regulatory framework? I think there is a consensus that we need a new regulatory framework and it is welcome that the Government are bringing forward a Bill to enable us to debate that. The Bill has also been brought forward in the context of trying to change the terrain of higher education and encourage greater diversity of providers. In that context, do you think that the regulatory framework as presented in the Bill is fit for purpose? Are there any risks involved in the proposals before us?

Gordon McKenzie: I think it is broadly fit for purpose. There are risks in some of the detail. Although I know the Government released some further information yesterday evening, which I have still to look at in detail, I do not think the Government are yet saying enough about how they will ensure that the new entrants to the market and sector are high quality.

I do not think the Government are yet convincing about their proposal that some people may be able to have the power to award their own degrees on a probationary basis, because I do not think that the Government have yet answered the question of what happens to the students if the provider fails probation. Who awards their degree? What have they got for their three years?

I think there are elements of the detail that require scrutiny. I do have concerns that at the moment the promised role of the office for students as taking an overview of the sector is not really there or enabled by the Bill. I think those things could be fixed—so it is basically fit for purpose, but with further work.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Blomfield]

Q You made a very powerful point, and contributed to the discussion that we have been having around the TEF and its metrics. I wanted to raise a different point which is around part-time students, because whatever the other impacts of the 2012 changes to fees and student funding, which we could debate, the consequences for part-time students have been devastating—I think everybody agrees on that. Do you see anything in the Bill that addresses that issue?

Dame Ruth Silver: It depends on who else you let into the sector. The Bill is predicated on a very traditional model of HE. It is not systematic or systemic reform. So bringing in new providers, particularly colleges, is quite important. It is easier for FE students locally to manage some of the costs. There is quite a gap to be caught up with since 2012, and it has been difficult for part-timers to do this. Full-timers are much easier to serve. So there is a real catch-up there, but this notion of “local is easier, flexible is easier, part-time is easier” will, on the whole, happen in non-traditional HE.

Neil Bates: I do not have the exact figures, but if you looked at participation at levels 4 and 5 in FE some 10 years ago, you would have seen large numbers of people who were in work, coming into their FE colleges in the evenings, attending twilight sessions to get their HNCs and HNDs and so on. That whole system evaporated as colleges were driven towards full-time students and away from workforce training. We are living with the consequences of that now.

Dame Ruth Silver: May I comment on the disconnect between the skills world and the reforms going on there? There are 3 million apprentices to be trained: those are high-level, in great part. The Institute for Apprenticeships is about to start as well. That is not connected to this. It is a traditional model but it is also a very closed system of higher education, and it is in the other areas where you find a more flexible, responsive curriculum on offer. That responsiveness is key to dealing with the long problem we have had here relating to technicians in the economy and also high-level skills qualifications.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Q I wonder if it is entirely accurate to categorise universities as boarding schools, having no links with business and not having employability as part of their agenda. The picture of HE is actually quite diverse, and that is creating a bit of a problem for the TEF. I wonder whether some of the issues that you are raising could be addressed by making employability, for example, central to the TEF.

Dame Ruth Silver: It depends which part of the UK you look at. I know you have got colleagues coming from Scotland where the third highest number of graduates come through the FE sector and come through a relationship jointly with universities called articulation at high-level skills qualifications. Wales is different as well. It varies; there are national variations in what is going on.

What has happened with all the reforms in universities is that today it is easier to take more and more bachelor degree, full-time younger people. There is an impact. It depends where you are looking for impact. I am very focused on access and social mobility and those are the things that universities are not strong at, certainly in England. They are very closely connected to employers in postgraduate roles and in research.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

It is interesting that we started this debate by being reminded that the Home Secretary was busy distancing herself from the disgraceful ad vans. It is just unfortunate that she has applied the same school of politics to developing the Bill, which is absolutely from the ad van approach to tackling immigration. In her own words, she was trying in the Bill to create “a really hostile environment” for migrants, and not just illegal ones—before the Minister intervenes. The narrative surrounding the Bill is creating a hostile environment for all migrants and a toxic background for a sane debate about immigration.

Let us look at some of the provisions. I will not go into the detail on appeals, because many others have, but what sort of approach is this? The reason we have too many appeals is that too many initial decisions are wrong. The majority of entry clearance decisions are wrong. The appeals system is a safety valve. What approach is it to take away the safety valve, instead of dealing with the problem at the heart of it?

I find the stuff on landlords curious because I thought that this was the Government who had launched the red tape challenge. Where are we now on the red tape challenge? We are creating a needless bureaucracy for landlords who, in large numbers, have said they do not want it. Who will train our landlords to become immigration experts? Where are people to live while they wait for a decision from the Home Office? The Minister represents the party that proclaims itself to be the party of the family. What about the family waiting for mum’s spousal visa? Where will they set up home? According to the Bill, the landlord would breach the duty if he or she entered into an agreement to allow a disqualified person to occupy a property whether or not that person was named on the tenancy agreement. This is ill thought out, with very negative social consequences.

I want to concentrate on NHS charges and on the proposals to introduce a health surcharge for non-European economic area temporary migrants. This was proposed before today’s research was published on the actual cost of NHS use by visitors and temporary migrants. Sadly, it is too reflective of the non-evidence-based approach that the Government are adopting to this Bill; the prescription has been set out before the doctor has diagnosed the condition. We have some of the facts now, but there are question marks over some of the evidence in the report which I would like to share with the Minister.

The report says:

“We have reviewed the medical literature to try to find evidence of how visitors and migrants use healthcare compared to the host population…The findings suggest overall that recent migrants are less likely to use UK primary and secondary care services than UK born residents…At this time, as a starting point, we have therefore assumed in the model that migrant propensity to use NHS services is equivalent to the non-migrant population.”

What does that mean? It means, “we have found one thing but based all our modelling on something else to exaggerate the costs.”

Similarly the independent assessment says that the health surcharge will generate £230 million a year. But we understand that the level at which it will be set is £200. On the basis of information that I have received from the Library this afternoon, that will apply to 552,000 people. The cost would be £110 million a year, less than half the level suggested in the report.

The figure of £2 billion for the cost of visitor and migrant use of the NHS in England includes EU and EEA nationals of course, but it also includes workers who already pay national insurance contributions and taxes, and students, and I will come back to students in a moment. Whatever it is, it is not

“The true cost of health tourism”

as the Daily Mail described it today and as, I am sure, a number of Government Back Benches would characterise it in their contributions.

I go back to the Home Secretary’s opening remarks, where she talked about the cost of those who in the words of the research

“conceal the fact that they have come to the UK specifically to use NHS services that they are not entitled to access for free”.

The Home Secretary said that that cost was several hundred millions of pounds. I hope she will take the opportunity to correct the record because the report says that the cost is “very uncertain” but is estimated to be about £70 million within a range of £20 million to £100 million, or 0.06% of the NHS budget.

Of course there are already rules on charging people who are not ordinarily resident in the UK for using the NHS. The evidence on how the system is working is patchy, but the NHS appears to be recovering gross income of about £15 million to £25 million, less than 20% of the estimated chargeable costs. Add in the costs of administering the current system—estimated at over £15 million—and the current overseas visitor charging system may be generating a small profit, according to the Department of Health’s own assessment. Does the Home Secretary look to improve the current system? No, she introduces a new one without a full impact assessment of how much it will cost. This really is dog-whistle politics at its worst, building policy on prejudice rather than on facts and setting it in the context of a falsely constructed debate around health tourism.

That is clearly illustrated by the fact that, according to the Office for National Statistics, the majority of the people who will be impacted by the health surcharge will be students. I was fortunate enough to host a breakfast seminar before the summer recess at which the guest speaker was a former higher education Minister in one of the Australian states. He said that he was delighted to be in the House of Commons because it gave him the opportunity to congratulate the Home Office on its work, which had led to a significant increase in the number of students choosing to study in Australia rather than in the UK.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that there is a danger that, by placing yet more strictures on potential international students, the Bill will send a signal that they are not welcome in the UK? This is such an important export industry for the UK, if I can put it like that, and it is important that the mood music—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order.