My Lords, I strongly support the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Norton and Lord Kerslake. I preface my contribution to this debate by reiterating my concerns about the Government’s proposals to make it easier for alternative providers to award degrees and subsequently to achieve university title. I have not been reassured by any of the Minister’s explanations or by the detailed letters he has so courteously sent us during our debates over the last two weeks. The Government want to further diversify the sector. Yes, we need to reach potential students with different offerings and different types of courses, and in parts of the country that are poorly served. Of course, I support that, but not at the risk of selling these students a pig a poke.
There are enough examples from the States in particular which should give us pause for thought. There is one very familiar name, which I will not mention, but the closure of one of the largest for-profit providers, Corinthian Colleges, has left 16,000 students without certificates or degrees. The risk that the same could happen here does not seem even to be acknowledged by the Government. The Government’s commitment to diversifying the sector will be undermined by introducing this additional risk for students, because the loss of reputation will send a very negative ripple across the whole sector and abroad.
Students are at the heart of the Bill, yet it is students who will suffer if private providers that are going to be given the benefit of the doubt with probationary DAPs cannot deliver, or go under. A recent QAA report highlighted the importance of new entrants working closely with existing providers through the well-established validation procedures. On the whole, these validation arrangements have worked very well and we have not been offered any convincing evidence to the contrary. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Cohen, whose university has successfully gone through this process, said that it worked well and that they learned a lot from it. Of course, if the Bill can improve these validation relationships for the benefit of students, so much the better.
I can understand that potential entrants to the market are frustrated that they have to prove themselves against strict criteria. But it is surely far better for students, and probably in the long term for the providers themselves, that there are high standards for entry which minimise the risk of institutional failure. Why do we need to fast-track? It is not as if we are desperately short of universities. There are around 130 well-established institutions; nor are we short of alternative providers. Nobody seems to know the exact figure, although I hope the Bill’s provisions on registration will correct that. The DfE thinks that there are about 400 which receive some sort of taxpayer funding. A much smaller number has been awarded degree-awarding powers. So far these providers have made a limited contribution to diversity. They are focused largely on law, business and finance, and BPP, we were told, is going into nursing. They are mostly in London and the south-east, rather than in the so-called cold spots, where provision is limited or non-existent. That is scarcely surprising as they need to be in the more lucrative markets to satisfy shareholders of the business’s viability. I do not see that that is changing, even if these new arrangements are introduced.
Finally, who really benefits from probationary DAPs? It is not students, who are essentially paying to be guinea pigs for a new provider; but possibly not even new providers, who may find the label “probationary” more of a challenge when recruiting students and staff than they might as new institutions with robust validation arrangements. I urge the Government to think extremely carefully about this. In doing that I support Amendments 251, 252 and 259.