My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to explain the provisions on the revocation of degree-awarding powers and university title. I make it absolutely clear that these powers are not intended for frequent use, as I have mentioned before. We see them as a rarely used but necessary safeguard for quality in the system. We know that these powers are significant and that is why we have endeavoured to include strong safeguards, including a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. We have listened carefully and will continue to reflect on whether there are further improvements that we can make, and we will no doubt discuss this matter further on Report.
Our higher education system is world-class and university title and degree-awarding power are valuable assets. It is the responsibility of those that have obtained these prestigious titles to uphold their reputation. However, without powers to hold such providers accountable, we risk undermining the reputation of our universities. Let us consider the impact if a university’s quality and standards were to drop to a wholly unacceptable level, to the extent that it was widely known that their degrees were not comparable to others and the provider in question had done nothing
to address this. Would we really want such an institution to continue to benefit from the prestige of a university title?
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There are already circumstances where eligibility for these titles is reviewed—for instance, in the case of mergers. But introducing these refined and express powers are vital to effectively regulate the sector. They make it clear to all providers what is at stake if quality drops to unacceptable levels. We intend for the OfS and the new quality body to work with providers to address any emerging quality problems early on, as I said when I addressed some points made in a previous group of amendments. In practice, we envisage that the OfS would have imposed additional ongoing registration conditions on the provider to seek to improve the situation, which would probably have had an improvement plan in place. A revocation would therefore occur only if such interventions have failed to produce the necessary results.
I note with interest the suggestion of an annual report to Parliament, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I suspect that in most years it would be a rather dull report, as we do not believe the use of these powers would be frequent. However, I will certainly take the suggestion seriously and into account when reflecting about the processes more generally.