My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity on the first day back after the Recess to discuss our vision for universities. However, before I turn to the amendment I want first to thank noble Lords for their strong engagement to date. I have had time to reflect, as I am sure have other noble Lords, on the lengthy debate at Second Reading and I have been working hard over the Christmas period to consider the points that were raised and to engage on the issues, as we have throughout the passage of this Bill. I hope that noble Lords have received my subsequent letters. I and the team have been kept somewhat busy with the not inconsiderable number of considered and thoughtful amendments that have been tabled to date and I look forward to responding to each and every one of them. I also look forward to a good debate over the coming weeks and welcome the scrutiny that a Bill as important as this rightly deserves. As I said at Second Reading, we have been listening and continue to reflect, and I am looking forward to hearing the views and contributions of noble Lords from across the Committee. It is fair to say that we have made a pretty good start on this the first debate.
The Bill before us today is the product of lengthy and thorough consultation and consideration, from the 2011 White Paper of my noble friend Lord Willetts entitled Students at the Heart of the System through to the White Paper published by the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation in May of last year, supported by a Green Paper that received more than 600 responses. The Bill also incorporates recommendations from Sir Paul Nurse’s review of the research councils, the review undertaken by the Higher Education Commission and the report of Professor Simon Gaskell on the long-awaited and much-needed reforms to the regulation of higher education.
Our English universities are some of our most valuable national assets and are powerhouses of intellectual and social capital. We believe that our reforms will help them to continue to thrive into the 21st century and beyond. The noble Baronesses, Lady Wolf and Lady Warwick, and the noble Lords, Lord
Winston and Lord Krebs, have spoken authoritatively and passionately about their history from papal bulls to the Dearing report. I also want to assure noble Lords that we do not intend to stop consulting and listening. In fact, we have listened carefully to the concerns raised around the pace at which we intend to implement the reforms, and I would like to take a moment to set out how we now intend to respond to these valid concerns.
As stated in the White Paper, we are aiming for the Office for Students to be in place in time for the 2018-19 academic year. This new regulatory framework, rather than being overly regulatory, as the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, suggested, improves on the current piecemeal approach to regulation. It will reduce the overall regulation of the sector for a risk-based approach. However, like noble Lords, we recognise the risks to students and providers of taking forward the implementation of the new regulatory framework in a way that may cause unnecessary disruption and instability to the sector. It is also important that further detailed development of the new regulatory framework is driven by the OfS executive team rather than it being led by the Government and then handed over to the OfS to implement. The campaign to recruit a chair is live and we expect to launch the CEO campaign shortly. The Director for Fair Access and Participation recruitment process will follow shortly afterwards. Therefore, subject to the passage of the Bill, this will allow the OfS to consult on its new regulatory framework in the autumn of this year and to begin accepting and assessing applications from new and existing providers in 2018, in time for the 2019-20 academic year rather than in 2018-19. This allows more time for thorough consultation on the detail of the new regulatory framework and for the sector to be ready for the new regime.
The noble Baroness, Lady Garden, asked whether the Minister had had discussions on these reforms with the skills Minister and I can reassure her that this has indeed happened. Regular discussions take place and the Bill is also complementary to the Technical and Further Education Bill, thus carrying out two reform programmes in parallel. This gives the best opportunity to support young people, a point rightly raised by the noble Baroness.
Let me now turn to this proposed new clause. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has already quoted the definition that was set out by the Minister for Universities and Science in the other place and I agree that it is worthy of note. I note that several definitions have been made. Many of them carry favour.
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I think noble Lords would agree that there are many parallels between this description and what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, set out in his proposed new clause. However, I fear that the amendment imposes many more legal obligations on universities than it does government. Yes, it describes universities as autonomous, and, as I will set out in more detail, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. I believe the Bill contains numerous provisions that are entirely consistent with the need to recognise institutional autonomy.
However, I fear that the amendment would, rather than protect, undermine institutional autonomy by placing legal obligations on universities that some would fail to meet and that all should be wary of. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said that the Bill has nothing to say about universities. However, I remind the noble Baroness that a university has never been defined in legislation before. We are not aware that this has led to particular problems in the system. My observation is that towards the tail end of the debate further doubts have been raised about the efficacy of placing a definition in the Bill.
As my noble friend Lord Willetts said, the clause would for the first time see the Government prescribing in statute how an autonomous institution should approach its mission and provide in a uniform manner its purpose, form and functions. While I sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and agree with much of the spirit behind the amendment, higher education providers, including universities, are rightly autonomous institutions. They must continue to be free to determine how best to meet the needs of their students and employers, and to support wider society. It should not be for the Government to prescribe.
I am similarly wary of imposing wide-ranging obligations on universities of the sort the amendment proposes. As the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said, the danger is that, in seeking to set out in legislation what might otherwise seem highly desirable aspirations, we set legally binding standards in a range of areas that universities and other providers will find extremely difficult to interpret as a matter of law and, hence, to meet. This point was alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady Cohen.
My noble friend Lord Lucas made a very important point about the definition of a university and what it must do, and that it might create a path for abolishing Oxford. In response, if a student, disgruntled business partner or rival institution brings a legal challenge and convinces a court that a university does not offer, for example, an extensive range of high-quality academic subjects, is it no longer a university? Surely not, but that is what accepting the amendment might lead to. Arguably, it opens up a much greater intrusion into institutional autonomy.
I think we would all agree that we want to see providers of higher education getting on with the job. By having to put in place new systems or processes to monitor and demonstrate compliance with a raft of new and extensive legal obligations, we risk them being diverted from that path. If we impose binding obligations in the areas covered by the amendment, I worry about what would happen if a provider fell short, even perhaps to a relatively minor degree. For example, could a business take a university to court if it decided not to enter into partnership with it? The proposed new clause does not say so, so we cannot be sure, but there must be some consequence for not complying with a legal duty, otherwise that duty is meaningless. Again, what might on the face of it seem sensible codification might well have highly damaging effects in practice that we should be very careful to avoid.
Having made those general remarks, I turn to the individual themes that the detail of the amendment raises. I will first focus directly on academic freedom. As I said, I absolutely agree with the emphasis placed on the importance of academic freedom and independence. I hope that reassures the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and many others who have spoken this afternoon. I refer noble Lords to an article that the Minister for Universities and Science wrote for Times Higher Education in December. As he said:
“The freedom to interrogate, discover and learn upholds the UK’s prosperity and delivers breakthroughs that can change the way we live and work. Nowhere is this principle more revered and more vital than in universities”,
where their “independence and autonomy” has allowed the sector to stand the test of time and “become world leaders”. That is why this Bill contains numerous provisions which are entirely consistent with the need to recognise institutional autonomy and which explicitly protect academic freedom. I hope that this reassures noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Winston, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, who spoke passionately about this issue.
In this Bill, the Government have gone considerably further to protect academic freedom than in the previous legislation—that is a very important point that I want to make. The Bill defines explicit new protections for the freedom of English higher education providers. These protections are applied at every point in the Bill where the Secretary of State may influence the OfS: through guidance, conditions of grant and directions. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, raised the question of particular courses of study. We strengthened those protections through amendments on Report in the other place in response to concerns expressed about the Secretary of State having undue influence over the ability of higher education institutions to choose what subjects to offer. The Bill explicitly protects in Clause 14 the principle of freedom for academic staff to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial opinions without putting themselves at the risk of, at worst, losing their jobs.
Perhaps I may turn this argument around. Universities already have a legal duty to uphold freedom of speech. Under Section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, they must take reasonable steps to secure freedom of speech for staff, students, employees and visiting speakers. Universities must issue and publicise a code of practice setting out procedures to be followed in relation to meetings or activities taking place on their premises. The Bill does nothing to alter this duty and how it applies to universities and other higher education providers.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, spoke of the powers in the Bill to revoke university title. The Bill introduces refined and express powers for the OfS to revoke degree-awarding powers in university title to ensure that we do not allow poor quality in our system that would undermine the reputation of English universities—which I am sure we would all agree with—and put students at risk. Let me reassure the House that the powers will be rarely used but they are a necessary safeguard to protect quality. That is a very important point. The powers are limited and subject to rigorous safeguards: first, that they can be used
only where they are proportionate; and, secondly, any decision to use them can be appealed to a tribunal. There is also an affirmative process that has to be taken through Parliament.
Several speeches highlighted the importance of university teaching; for example, the development of critical or abstract thinking—the noble Lord, Lord Smith, put it rather succinctly, and many other speakers raised the issue—so I want now to focus on teaching quality. I, too, agree that universities must provide excellent teaching, with teaching informed and supported by scholarship and research which enhance the ability of their students to learn throughout their lives. As set out in the White Paper, Success as a Knowledge Economy: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice, only higher education providers that successfully gain full degree-awarding powers will be eligible to apply for university title.
As set out in the criteria for degree-awarding powers, a higher education provider must ensure that its staff maintain a close and professional understanding of current developments in research and scholarship in their subjects and, where relevant, keep in touch with practice in their professions. The noble Lord, Lord Giddens, raised concerns about for-profit providers. We hear that they will not act in the interest of students, but this is simply not true. That is demonstrated by the University of Law, which is a for-profit provider and came joint first for overall satisfaction in the most recent national student survey. We are streamlining processes and strengthening regulation and not lowering quality.
However, while I agree that teaching should be informed and supported by scholarship and research, I have to agree with the changes made under the Labour Government in 2004. As my noble friend Lord Willetts explained, those changes to the criteria for university title removed the requirement for universities to need to award research degrees and also removed the requirement for a university to have students in five different subject areas. The amendment would be a regressive step. The changes were rightly made to allow for a greater diversity of specialist universities in higher education, and recognised that teaching is a legitimate primary activity for a university. If we place barriers in the way of new and innovative universities, we risk diminishing the relevance and value of our higher education sector to changing student and employer needs—becoming a relic of the 20th century while the rest of the world moves on.
There are many excellent institutions that match closely the description set out in the noble Lord’s proposed clause, but there are other forms of excellence that are equally valuable to students and to society. We want to set the groundwork for the coming decades: if we want to allow innovation to flourish, we must allow room for different approaches, perhaps ones that we cannot now even predict. In particular, the requirement for a university to offer an extensive range of academic subjects would not only conflict with international experience of excellent single-subject institutions, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, said, but would exclude current universities which are already making great contributions to the UK.
For example, Harper Adams University became a university in 2013 and focuses its provision on subjects that directly support the rural economy. It has an excellent international reputation and was chosen as the modern university of the year in the Times Good University Guide 2017. The Arts University Bournemouth has not only made great contributions to the arts but official statistics in 2013-14 showed that it had the highest percentage in the UK of graduates going on to employment or further study within six months of graduation, at 97.4%. Imperial College, perhaps the greatest example of all, became an independent university in its own right in 2008 but has a much longer and distinguished pedigree as a college of the University of London since the early 1900s, which I am sure I do not need to detail to noble Lords. It focuses on only four main disciplines: science, engineering, medicine and business. In fact, the amendment would prevent many of the prestigious colleges of the University of London seeking independent university status in their own right should they wish to do so.
I agree that our universities have a role to play in supporting local, national and international partners and the wider society. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, raised this point, and I agree with a lot of what they said. However, I disagree that all universities need to do this in a prescribed and uniform way. Universities should, and do, support the achievement of this aim in very different ways. Some will need to focus their limited time and resource on their locality to support economic growth in disadvantaged areas of the UK; some will want to focus activity regionally or nationally, to support access to higher education and promote social mobility; others may decide to focus activity across international boundaries to support important knowledge transfer. Universities should not have to do all these things in a way prescribed by government. A number of Peers made this point. For example, forcing a university that does not currently have an international focus to divert time and resource into doing so could quite easily be at the expense of its home students.
I also disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in so far as I believe that protections around academic freedom, teaching quality and freedom of speech must apply to all higher education providers, not only universities. Whether a student is undertaking their higher education course at a university, a higher education college or, indeed, a further education college, we expect that provision to be high-quality. Our reforms seek to set a framework to achieve this. I remind noble Lords that Clause 77 defines what a higher education provider is. I do not believe that we should define separately what a university is. It is not in the interests of students or wider society to create a two-tier system of higher education providers, where some benefit from the protection of academic freedom, or some are expected to deliver high-quality provision, and others are not.
In fact, I would go further and suggest that there is nothing in the criteria that the noble Lord has set out on the importance of supporting the student experience. The role of universities in looking after their students and taking an interest in their welfare is long established,
and is important in helping every student get the most out of their time at university and achieve their full potential—the so-called student experience. Universities also have an important duty to take steps to encourage applications from all those with the potential and ability to enter higher education regardless of an individual’s background. Widening participation in higher education helps drive social mobility and universities have a significant role to play.
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I therefore cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that the Government should best nurture the excellence, innovation and independence of our universities by requiring all universities to follow a single model set out by statute. In fact, I would again go further and suggest that, as demonstrated by my examples of the importance of supporting student experience, social mobility and widening participation, and as my noble friend Lord Waldegrave said, it is dangerous to try and define what a university is by prescribing a statutory uniform that a university must wear. Doing so would risk excluding and undermining the importance of other critical activities. This could never be comprehensive or stand the test of time.
Our international reputation for higher education has gone from strength to strength with each wave of sector expansion. New universities have not sought simply to replicate a single model but to innovate and develop their own unique contributions to their students and to national life. The success of higher education does not reflect a script written by government or Parliament but a complex system of interacting bodies and individuals: some public; some private; some within the scope of our legislation and some not. The Bill is intended to reflect this and to facilitate the development of our higher education sector to accommodate its splendid diversity. The Bill must protect institutional autonomy. It must also allow for the unexpected, for innovation and for diverse providers that reflect the diverse needs of students, researchers, businesses and wider society.
I ask noble Lords to think carefully about the way in which this amendment would undermine and not protect institutional autonomy and, furthermore, how a large number of existing high-quality providers would be likely to fall foul of it, if it were passed. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to withdraw his amendment.