My Lords, we have here a fairly formidable list of things, all of them important. I want to focus on subsection (2)(j) in the new clause proposed by Amendment 3, which concerns:
“the financial sustainability of the tertiary education sector”.
We note that student fees have not gone up in all the years they have been there and that universities now face intense financial pressures. I note that, in Committee, the noble Lords, Lord Willetts and Lord Johnson, put forward a suggestion that student fees should rise with inflation; that has not gone further but I wonder whether the Minister could give some succour to university vice-chancellors, who are desperately worried about how on earth they can balance their books as costs go up but income does not.