My Lords, I briefly intervene in this debate to welcome the proposals that the Government have now brought before us. There is, as we recognised in debates at earlier stages, always a balance to be struck. On the one hand is protecting the interests of students, which must be paramount, and the reputation of British higher education as a whole. On the other hand, the fact is that most of the innovation and advances in higher education in England have occurred as a result of new providers coming in and doing things differently. The history of the growth in, and success of, higher education in our country has been that doing things differently from the start is easier than changing an existing body. The arrangements in the new clause today get that balance right.
If anything, the process will now be more rigorous and defined than the kind of process that we had when decisions on degree-awarding powers and university title were taken by, among other bodies, the Privy Council on advice. This is superior to what went before. I feel a bit wary of referring to the 1960s now
that the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, has referred to them. But the fact is that one of the most exciting experiments in the growth of higher education in this country in the 1960s was when universities got their title and degree-awarding powers from the very beginning. We should not be far more restrictive than we were then.