Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what discussions he has had with higher education institutions about the potential effect of changes in the level of university teaching staff on casual employment contracts on the quality of teaching.

We have had no such direct discussions with higher education institutions.

In the 2016 Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) Grant letter we asked HEFCE to look into the two issues of (a) the contractual status of academic staff and (b) teaching intensity/weighted contact hours across different subjects.