My Lords, I thank the Minister and the Government for Amendment 14 and their positive response to this issue, which I raised in Committee. I welcome the opportunity to have the pertinent information regarding degree classifications attained by students. Amendments 16 and 18 to Clause 10 seek to extend the groups for which we are seeking transparency. At the moment, the information which can be requested relates solely to the gender of individuals, their ethnicity and socioeconomic background. While not going back into the arguments we had in Committee about whether universities were public sector bodies or not, they are nevertheless subject to the public sector equality duty imposed by the Equality Act 2010. Amendment 18 would import into the Bill the protected characteristics of race, sex, disability, age and sexual orientation, in addition to the ones which are already there. Although higher education institutions are obliged to undertake these duties, to omit them may give a wrong signal and mean that we do not get the right kind of information if particular groups are falling behind or their participation rates are not as high.
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I wish to highlight two groups in particular: people with disabilities and people of a particular age. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, talked about the importance of conferring degrees on students of advanced years, who have benefited from part-time education and lifelong learning. When I was the responsible Minister in the Scottish Government, I remember we gave my department the title of Enterprise and Lifelong Learning, stressing the importance of lifelong learning and the role that part-time education plays in it. It is important that these duties embrace people with disabilities and older students. Some studies show that it is among those who are older that there has recently been a drop-off in the number of part-time students.
I know from previous exchanges in our debates that the Government are somewhat reluctant to go down the road of a criterion or classification that might depend on self-description. That could apply to disability. I would prefer that it was not included but age is clearly objective. There cannot be any question of self-description in that—or one would hope not. Given the importance of encouraging people to pursue courses in later life, this point is important. I know that the Open University—I declare an interest as an honorary graduate—has sent round a briefing that emphasises the importance of having reference to age. I very much hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to that and, if possible, come back with an amendment at Third Reading if he thinks my amendment goes too far.