My Lords, this is a further development about quality assessment—this time, focusing on the committee. First, picking up on the remarks made at the conclusion of the previous debate by my noble friend Lord Hanworth, I agree with him that some issues remain in the mind after the Minister responded to that debate. I suggest to the Minister that it might be helpful if we could have a little more detail, when he has had time to reflect on the debate, on how “independent” is defined. If he is correct in saying that the OfS has the responsibility for assessment of standards, but that an independent committee of the OfS is set up in order to maintain the threshold standards in the institutions and the quality of the teaching that is provided in those institutions, it needs to be clearer than it is to me—and I think to many people—how exactly that independence is to be guaranteed. In conventional terms, if you are a member of a committee of a body, you are subject to the rules and regulations of that body. It seems to me on that basic analysis that the independent committee is not
independent but a creature of the OfS operating in an independent way but not totally independent. These matters are perhaps too abstruse to debate today. I would be grateful if the Minister might focus on this in a letter, and I look forward to receiving that from him.
Moving to Amendment 174—and to Amendment 203, which is primary in this group—I will not speak to the clauses stand part because the issues raised there are reflective of the earlier debate and the clauses would have had to be removed, I think, had those amendments been accepted. The focus of this group is the familiar issue that if we are having an independent body within the OfS, but separate in some magical way from it, it should have its own focus and functions. We suggest in Amendment 174 that at least one member of the quality assessment committee should be representing the interests of students. We also think that the interests of staff, and higher education staff more generally, should be engaged as well. I beg to move.