My Lords, I have added my name to amendments in this group as set out by the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. I also support Amendment 57, as introduced by my noble friend Lord Addington. They relate to the general duties of the Office for Students and reflect some of the concerns over the unprecedented powers of this new body. We have already addressed the issues in Amendment 41 to do with part-time study and lifelong learning.
Amendment 42 comes from MillionPlus, which is the Association for Modern Universities and has as much interest as anybody in maintaining confidence in the sector, which they have all joined relatively recently, and promoting the reputation which has been hard earned and needs to be protected.
Of the other amendments in the group, Amendment 43 is on the provision of higher education which meets the vocational and professional needs of the students. In the 20 years that I worked for City & Guilds, my work involved linking in with universities, professional bodies and the higher reaches on trying to gain transferability and acceptance for different types of awards. Anything that can be done to try to promote that transferability between types of qualification has to be commended—particularly, I suppose, in view of the degree apprenticeships coming up. Again, recognition of vocational achievement within an academic context there would surely be for the good.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, has introduced amendments on supporting and working with student representatives. As we have addressed previously, if the Office for Students is to live up to its name it would be quite useful if students had something to do with it. Amendment 67 suggests that they could even have current experience of being a student.
The amendments on the financial health and viability of the sector are all self-explanatory and seem good. My last comment is on the right reverend Prelate’s amendment. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, about the importance of diversity and how having providers with a denominational characteristic has to be a good part of the mix that we are trying to promote in higher education.