Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Viscount Younger of Leckie on 7 March (HL Deb, col 717), whether they will set out the bodies representing different groups of universities with which they have dealings; and whether they will indicate in each case the membership of the group.

The Department for Education (DfE) deals with numerous stakeholders in the higher education (HE) sector. The bodies representing HE providers are set out below.

Universities UK is a membership body that includes the vice chancellors of most UK universities. Its membership can be found at: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/about/Pages/member-institutions.aspx;

GuildHE represents a number of smaller and specialist HE providers. Its membership can be found at: https://guildhe.ac.uk/our-members/; and

Independent HE (formerly Study UK) is a UK membership organisation and national representative body for independent providers of HE (alternative providers) and professional training and pathway providers. Its membership can be found at: http://independenthe.com/members.

The DfE also deal with the following self-organised mission groups:

The Russell Group is an association of 24 long-established universities. Its membership can be found at: https://russellgroup.ac.uk/about/our-universities/;

Million+ describes itself as a university think-tank, whose members are mainly more recently established universities. Its membership can be found at: http://www.millionplus.ac.uk/who-we-are/members; and

University Alliance represents a number of post92 universities. Its membership can be found at: https://www.unialliance.ac.uk/alliance-universities/.