Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of universities deducting wages of staff that engage in industrial action on levels of participation in industrial action in that sector.

The full impact of the marking and assessment boycotts will not be known until the end of June 2023, which is after the exam boards are due to have convened. This is because some institutions will not know until then whether their staff are participating in the boycotts.

The Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) has surveyed its members to gain an estimate of the impact of the marking boycott. 58% of its members responded, to outline that:

• Half of the institutions who responded were confident that less than 5% of academic staff would partake in the marking boycott. 22% reported that between 5% and 10% of academics were likely to be taking part.
• 38% of institutions who responded were unsure of the level of impact.
• Half of the institutions who responded expected that less than 10% of students would be impacted.

Universities are taking a variety of measures to mitigate the impact of the marking boycott and minimise the disruption, including by reallocating marking to other staff members and hiring external markers. The specific mitigating actions will be different for every institution, as each institution will be impacted in different ways.