My Lords, in moving Amendment 207 I shall speak to the other amendments in the group. The amendment covers a point I have made before—that it is essential that the whole sector should be represented in these organisations, not just the bits that the old universities like.
Amendment 392 would extend the Secretary of State’s access to information to anything they may be required or interested to know under any enactment, rather than just under the Bill.
Amendment 395 would appoint HESA—I suspect it is HESA being talked about at this point—to take an interest in people who intend to become students, not just people who become students, because a lot of the data they produce will be used to inform people as to whether to pursue a course, which is not really of much interest to those who have already taken that decision. It is important that HESA should focus on the students-to-be as much as on people who are already students.
Amendment 400 is an alternative to Amendment 207. I do not blame the current HESA regarding the provisions of Amendment 401. It is a trap that UCAS has fallen into of putting money and its constituent institutions ahead of the interests of students. This is a difficult thing with all such bodies, such as Ordnance Survey and others: the money tends to become the focus of what they are doing. It needs government to pull them back to focus on the interests of the country as a whole and, in this case, of students in particular. As long as the Office for Students has power to keep a body on the straight and narrow in this regard, I shall be quite satisfied that the Bill does not need this additional wording.
The anti-competitive conditions in Amendment 403 again look at the way UCAS has become a constraint on the way individual universities reflect students. Anti-competitive behaviour should always be subject to the very closest scrutiny by government to justify it. I would like to know that the OfS can keep its eye on that.
Amendment 407 goes with Amendment 395. I beg to move.