The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on
Thursday 24 February. “With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would
like to make a Statement about how the Government are safeguarding
the future of our universities, putting them on a sustainable path
for taxpayers and students. Our universities—indeed, our entire
higher education system—are some of the most innovative, important
institutions in our country. Four of our great institutions are
ranked in the...Request free trial
The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on
Thursday 24 February.
“With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a
Statement about how the Government are safeguarding the future of
our universities, putting them on a sustainable path for
taxpayers and students. Our universities—indeed, our entire
higher education system—are some of the most innovative,
important institutions in our country. Four of our great
institutions are ranked in the global top 10 list. They are a
true powerhouse of innovation and research—they even played a
leading role in the development of the Covid vaccine—and they
will play a significant role in the prosperity of our country for
years to come.
We recognise that education at all levels plays a role in
learners’ personal fulfilment and pursuit of knowledge, whether
that is in the humanities or in science and engineering as in my
case, and in higher or further education. As we move past the
pandemic and start a new chapter in our country’s history, now is
the time to ensure that our universities are on a solid footing
and sustainable ground for generations to come. To do so, I am
announcing the launch of two consultations, which, taken
together, outline our proposals for the higher education sector
and secure a better deal for the student and the taxpayer. The
consultations will deliver solutions to the problems that Sir
Philip Augar’s independent panel examined in such depth and so
thoroughly. The higher education policy statement and reform
consultation, and the lifelong loan entitlement consultation,
address the pivotal recommendations made by the panel, to whom I
am indebted for their excellent work.
As Members across the House know, one of the Augar panel’s core
recommendations was the provision of a lifelong learning loan
allowance. That is why today I am launching a consultation on the
lifelong loan entitlement, to seek views from the sector and the
public on the shape and scope of this important policy. Under
this new and flexible skills system, people will be provided with
a loan entitlement equivalent to four years of post-18 education
to use over their lifetime, whether in modules or as a whole.
They will be able to train, retrain and upskill as needed in
response to changing skills needs, sectors and employment
patterns. It will be a powerful and innovative vehicle in
levelling up, providing real opportunities for everyone and
giving businesses the skilled workforce they need to thrive and
grow.
In light of the new entitlement, it is now more important than
ever that our higher education funding system is fair for both
the student and the taxpayer. The bottom line is this: if we fail
to act, we can expect just 23% of students who enter full-time
higher education next year to repay the full cost of their loan.
That is a challenge that our reforms will address. We are
maintaining the repayment threshold at its current level for
current plan 2 graduates until 2025—those who took out loans
after 2012. We are also reducing the repayment threshold to
£25,000 and extending the loan repayment period from 30 years to
40 years for students starting their studies in autumn 2023. That
will make the system fairer for students and taxpayers. Graduates
will see the benefit of their degree all their earning life, so
it is only right and fair that they continue to contribute. We
expect that as a result of our changes the proportion of students
paying back their loan in full will increase to just over half.
Our significant regulatory reform work, which we are taking
forward with the Office for Students, alongside the measures we
are consulting on, will drive up student outcomes and help
students to access high-value employment that benefits them and
the economy.
Without those interventions, the student loan book will balloon
to nearly half a trillion pounds—half a trillion pounds—by 2043.
I have thought very carefully about fairness for students when
pulling together this balanced package of reforms. I am pleased
to say that we have delivered on our manifesto commitment to
address high interest rates, by reducing interest rates for
students starting next year to RPI plus 0%, ensuring that
graduates, under these terms, will not have to repay more than
they have borrowed in real terms. New students starting in the
academic year September 2023 are expected to borrow an average of
£39,300. I have seen some spurious headlines today. In today’s
prices, they will borrow £39,300.
We forecast that the average graduate will repay £25,300 in
today’s prices over the course of their loan. How does that
compare with the current system? Under the current system,
£19,500 is what they repay. I hope that offers colleagues
clarity, rather than claptrap headlines. I want to be clear: no
student will repay more than they took out in today’s prices. Let
me repeat that: no student will repay more than they took out in
today’s prices. We are also continuing to freeze tuition fees for
all students for a further two years. The combination of those
measures, the reduction in interest rates and the two-year
freeze, means a student entering a three-year course next autumn
could see their debt reduced by up to £6,500 at the point at
which they become eligible to repay. When the total seven-year
freeze is taken into account, that totals up to £11,500 less debt
at the point at which they become eligible to repay.
Alongside that, we are investing almost £900 million in our
fantastic higher education system over the next three years. That
includes the largest increase in government funding for the
higher education sector to support students and teaching in over
a decade. An additional £750 million will be invested in high
quality teaching and facilities, including in science and
engineering, in subjects that support the NHS, and in degree
apprenticeships. There are those who say, “Why aren’t you making
higher education free?” To those people I would say, “Look at our
counterparts in Scotland.” Over the last five years, universities
in England have been able to cover their teaching costs more
successfully than their Scottish peers, because of our more
sustainable system of tuition fees and grants.
As part of our plans to reform the higher education sector, we
are building on our work with the Office for Students to set
minimum expectations around completion rates and progression to
graduate jobs or further study. We are seeking views on policies
that will help to ensure that every student has confidence that
they are on a high-quality course that leads to good outcomes, a
good job and ensuring that the growth in our university sector is
focused on high-quality provision wherever they are in the
country. We are consulting on controlling student numbers and
introducing a minimum eligibility requirement to access student
finance. I want to make sure that every student who goes to
university will be able to reap its true benefits and not feel
that they have been mis-sold and saddled with debt after
completing their course.
It is really important that we have the conversation about the
need for minimum eligibility requirements to ensure students are
sufficiently prepared to benefit from higher education before
they enter university. For example, that could be a return to the
old requirement of two E grades at A-level, or a pass in GCSE
English and maths. Of course, there will have to be exemptions
for some groups, including mature students and part-time
learners, on which we are also consulting. Young people should
not be pushed into university if they are not ready. After our
proposed exemptions that we are consulting on are applied, less
than 1% of total entrants would be affected by a minimum
eligibility requirement set at grade 4 at GCSE, but we will
listen and be open-minded.
Student number controls would limit the uncontrolled growth of
provision that does not lead to good outcomes or good jobs.
Incentivising the expansion of provision with the best outcomes
for students, society and the economy has to be our goal. The
proposals are about advancing real social mobility. That means
shifting from a focus on simply getting students in the door
counting the inputs, to ensuring they complete their course and
secure a good outcome after they graduate—being obsessed about
outputs and outcomes.
As with everything my department does, my officials and I have
also considered carefully how we can support disadvantaged
students with this package of reforms. Access to higher education
must be dependent on attainment and ability to succeed, and not
inhibited by a student’s background. Our proposals to reduce fees
for foundation years would make them more affordable for students
who need a second chance to enter higher education. Our flagship
national scholarship programme, in which we will be investing up
to £75 million, will help to support high-achieving young people
from disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve their dream, regardless
of course or university.
Finally, to complement the lifelong loan entitlement, we are
rolling out new approved higher technical qualifications. Those
will be high-quality, job-facing alternatives to degrees,
approved to deliver the skills that employers need. From academic
year 2023-24, we will extend student finance access to those
qualifications and allow learners studying them part-time to
access maintenance loans, as they can with degrees. That will
address financial barriers for learners and move towards the
flexibility that we envisage through the lifelong loan
entitlement. Those two policies will be vital to bringing further
and higher education much closer together, just as the
independent panel recommended.
I believe that these reforms are fit for a dynamic and growing
economy. The reality is that, apart from buying somewhere to
live, taking on a student loan can be one of the biggest
financial commitments that any young person can make. I am
confident that they will set the sector up for success in the
years to come and keep our student finance system fair and
sustainable for students and the taxpayer. I have been
continually impressed by the resilience demonstrated by students
throughout the adversity of this pandemic. We owe it to this
generation, and generations to come, to ensure that education
remains open to anyone with the ability and desire to benefit
from it. I commend this Statement to the House.”
8.47pm
(Lab)
My Lords, in May 2019, the then Prime Minister, , launched the report of the
Augar review. That was a long time ago, and it feels like a very
long time ago. I wish I could say that the time has been well
used, but let us have a look at what has been put out in this
report.
First, there are changes to student loans. From the academic year
2023-24, the interest rate on loans will be changed to RPI for
everybody, which is interesting, because Ministers keep telling
me that RPI is no longer an official statistic because of
concerns over its methodology. I can only assume that, somehow,
it is not good enough when you are paying money out to benefit
recipients but it is fine when you are taking money away from
students. If only the noble Lord, , were here, I think he would
have something to say about that.
Secondly, it reduces the repayment threshold to £25,000 and
increases the repayment term to 40 years—much of a working life.
For those on the current loan scheme, the repayment threshold
will stay at the current level until 2024-25, which, given the
current inflation rate, is quite a bit of fiscal drag. The effect
of these measures together is highly regressive, hitting the
lowest earners the hardest.
Paul Johnson of the IFS said this about it:
“looked at from the point of view of progressivity,
redistribution, winners and losers, the reforms look truly
horrible. Low-to-middle-earning graduates could be made about
£20,000 worse off over their lifetime by the changes; the highest
earners could benefit by £25,000.”
The equality analysis published alongside the consultation
document said that
“among new borrowers, the largest proportional increases in
lifetime repayments will be from lower earners … by 174% for
those in the 4th decile”.
Meanwhile,
“the highest lifetime earners among new borrowers will experience
large decreases in lifetime repayments (down 26%)”.
Why have the Government chosen to reform the loan system in a way
which so profoundly benefits higher earners and hits those on
lower incomes?
If noble Lords are wondering what the attraction of this
particular approach is, it is perhaps worth mentioning that,
thanks to a quirk of government accounting rules, these changes
make the public finances look quite a bit better, but only in the
short term. The IFS says that it will take about £1 billion off
the cost of the student loan scheme, but:
“We expect the budget deficit to fall by about £5 billion in 2023
as a result of the changes, with subsequent hits to the deficit
further down the road as new loans accumulate less interest.”
It finishes, drily:
“This will please the Treasury.”
Indeed it will.
However, this will not please many people because the pain does
not fall equally in other ways. The equality analysis says that
women, disabled people, some ethnic minorities and those from
certain regions are likely to face increased lifetime repayments.
Men gain and women lose. On average, men will repay around £5,500
less and women will pay £6,600 more. The IFS notes a remarkable
comment:
“the taxpayer cost of funding men’s student loans will actually
increase as a result of the reform … the saving on women’s
student loans alone is greater than the total at £1.6
billion.”
Women students are not only paying for the reduced cost to the
Exchequer; they are paying for the men’s changes as well. The
Minister will doubtless say that this discrimination is not
intentional, it is just that women earn less. But the Government
know that women earn less across their lifetime. So, having known
that, can the Minister tell the House what consideration was
given to the differential impact of these proposals before
deciding on them?
The Government are also consulting on other measures, including
reintroducing government controls over student numbers. But not
just by a global figure; they are consulting on whether to
control them by sector, provider, subject, level or even by mode
of study. Are the Government planning to do all of them? Might
they do them all? Could the Government conceive of a world in
which the Secretary of State could decide that physics is in but
history is out? Could he close down the music department at
Lindchester University completely? Could he decree that all
computing is going to be done in FE from now on? This may not be
their plan, but there is no way to tell from the documents
published what their plan is. So could the Government give the
House some hints?
They are also consulting on minimum eligibility requirements,
including an option of requiring level 4 or above—that is a grade
C in old money—in maths and English at GCSE. I found it quite
hard to work out the numbers affected, because the tables in the
equality analysis are quite confusing, but the Minister may be
able to shed some light on that. I am pretty sure this will have
a differential effect with regard to region and disadvantage.
It is not just about access to university; it is about access to
the loan book. The Minister can confirm that presumably a student
whose parents—or who themselves—could pay fees upfront has no
problem, but then what happens to the more than half of pupils
eligible for free school meals who will leave education without
GCSE maths and English? Can the Minister tell the House what work
has been done to look at the effect of such a plan on poorer
children and young people from deprived areas?
There is also a proposal to limit funding for foundation
years—and yes, once again this has differential effects. The
equality analysis says that
“mature students and black, Asian and mixed/other ethnic minority
groups … may be at greater risk of reduced access to HE and
choice of provision”.
This is all really very disappointing. Augar was launched amid
concerns about fairness and affordability for students, but those
are clearly not the drivers at the heart of this response. The
loan reforms are regressive and will hit lower-earning graduates.
Rather than focusing on raising standards in schools and in HE,
they risk penalising those who already find it hardest to get on
through education.
Meanwhile, there is nothing on living costs for students, nothing
to boost efforts on widening participation and nothing on the
timing of admissions—except after a very big think they have
decided not to do anything at all about post-qualification
admissions. The consultation on the lifelong learning entitlement
is still really vague. There is quite a lot on the how but not
very much on the what, and certainly not on the why.
We have waited a thousand days for a response to Augar. That is
roughly the length of an undergraduate degree, I reckon—you could
probably do a PhD in that time; it is pretty much three years.
After all that time, where is the strategic plan? Where is the
vision for a strong, diverse higher education system that could
help all of our young people and students to fulfil their
potential? This feels like a missed opportunity. I hope the
Minister can persuade me otherwise.
(LD)
My Lords, this is a very odd Statement because it suggests one or
two nice things but does not really give us much detail. As the
noble Baroness has just pointed out, the noble Lord, , is missed on this one. His
intellectually honest toe-caps have gone into the ribs of many of
us here and the Government Front Bench has actually felt them on
many an occasion. A student finance system that celebrates going
from 23% repayment to maybe half is a weird thing. Why do we
still persist with this loan system? It is seen to be financially
failing—unless creating a form of junk bond at the end of it is
the aim. There will be not quite so much junk; that would seem to
be about the essence of it.
If we are looking at how we get further education better into the
system by giving better bonuses for lifelong learning—a
suggestion of something that might be better in the future—we
have to get people to go on the courses. What are we doing about
careers guidance that would improve what people know about this?
The first thing you will have to do is to train teachers, who
are, let us face it, predominantly graduates, and we all know
that what we did is right—if you do not come from that group,
then you are very much in a minority—as we “stick to nurse”.
Where is the training to make sure teachers are giving the right
information to people or at least stand half a chance of so
doing?
This has not got any easier with the introduction of T-levels and
the removal of BTECs, which provided a series of fairly
established ways of finding your way into higher education and
the level 4 and 5 qualifications which are mentioned. We need
some clear guidance to get this through and see how they are
going to all tag in together. At the moment, I would say that it
is an optimistic mess. We are not quite sure what the Government
are expecting. It is going to be better, and it just might be
that, after my entire lifetime, in relation to people at levels 4
and 5—I think it is technician-level qualification—we might be
starting to address that, but we are doing it in a very chaotic
way. The paths into education have fundamentally changed over the
last couple of years, and they have changed in an incoherent
manner.
To come to the last point, which the noble Baroness also touched
on, if we have a special educational needs review taking place,
why are we putting in a requirement for English and maths, which
are the things that certainly the group I come from—that is,
dyslexics—find difficult? It is 10% of the population; stick in
dyscalculia, and that is another 3%, and those are conservative
figures. Why are we making it so much more difficult for this
group to get on to that pathway? When it comes to adult entrants
into education, we are getting rid of BTECs, which were the way
in, and we are saying that people have to have two A-levels. If
you want later entrants—if you want entrants after having done,
say, a level 4 course—why are we putting this in? It does not
make any sense. Can we have some coherence about this?
Reading this as it stands, the Equality Act might have quite a
lot to say about it. I have mentioned only two groups; others are
available. Can we get some coherence around this? At the moment,
the Government have waved a few ideas at us. The repayment
structure may be slightly better for the Treasury, but I do not
think it makes much difference to anybody else. Can we please
hear what the Government are really about? If they are going to
limit the amount of money we waste on the repayment structure,
they have set themselves a very unambitious target.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their remarks
and their questions. The noble Baroness rightly focuses on issues
of fairness and access to higher education. The Government have
tried to balance fairness to students with fairness to the
taxpayer. Currently, a great proportion of the subsidy that the
taxpayer makes towards higher education is funded by those who
did not have the benefits of that higher education themselves.
Students going to university have the advantages of their degree
throughout their working lives.
Our estimate is that, over the course of their degree, the
average graduate will borrow £39,300 from next year. Today, the
average graduate would repay £19,500, and under the new proposed
system, they would repay £25,300, so there is still a tremendous
subsidy for the average graduate. The noble Baroness focuses on
those who are more marginalised and are lower-earners, and she
will be well aware that below £25,000 there is no repayment at
all.
The noble Baroness also talked about the consultation around
limitations on student numbers and minimum-entry requirements.
This is, as she well understands, very much part of our drive
towards having higher-quality courses. The numbers affected by
the consultation—and I would stress it is a genuine consultation;
we genuinely want to understand how stakeholders feel about
this—and affected by proposed GCSE requirements would be less
than 1% of students, and around 1% for the suggested entry
requirement at A-level.
The noble Lord focuses on the barrier that that may present to
those with special educational needs, but I would respectfully
suggest it is also a tremendous barrier for everybody not to have
English and maths at a basic level, since they are such an
important entry requirement for almost every job. There are not
many jobs in this country that you can do if you cannot read,
write and add up. That is why the Government have extended their
support, so that students can retake English and maths for
whatever reason that might be.
(LD)
My Lords, will the noble Baroness give way for a moment? If you
have got a disability, it means you have trouble doing it. You
have legal requirements that say you are not supposed to
discriminate and there are other ways around it. For instance,
voice operation—which is available as a standard item on every
computer for English. If you are not going to bring that into the
system—which would have been a perfectly valid answer—why are you
excluding them?
(Con)
There is absolutely no intention to exclude at all. The
department is heavily focused on trying to improve outcomes for
pupils with special educational needs and the noble Lord will be
aware of the enormous range of outcomes depending on which school
a child with the same disability or special need goes to. We want
to equalise those, so it should make no difference where a child
goes to school in terms of their outcomes.
If I may continue, the noble Baroness questioned what we were
doing in relation to foundation years. I did not quite follow her
argument. We are consulting on reducing the maximum fee and loan
limits for foundation years, from the current just over £9,000 to
£5,197, and that is to bring it in line to be the same amount as
an access to a higher education diploma. We hope it will make
those foundation years—which are an important access route for
those who may be more disadvantaged to get into higher education
or potentially for mature students—more accessible.
(Lab)
The Minister did not follow my argument. Maybe when she reads
Hansard, she will see that all I did was to quote from the
equality analysis that her own department produced to accompany
the proposals, to show that it could have a differential effect
on different groups.
(Con)
Hopefully there will be a less differential effect than there is
currently.
(Lab)
No, I am sorry—I do not want to delay the House—but if she could
actually read the equality analysis, it said that, as a direct
result of the reduction in the foundation years loan, if
providers found they could no longer fund and provide those
courses at the lower rate, it could reduce access to higher
education. It is there in the equality analysis.
(Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for clarifying that.
Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord questioned whether
there was a strategy and a plan behind this. I am impressed, but
not surprised, that the noble Baroness can do a PhD in 1,000
days. I will, if I may, try to set out the wider context a
little. Our clear ambition is that students should succeed and
achieve their potential. We are doing that in a number of ways.
The first is by expanding the choices that we are offering
them—for example, by expanding the higher technical
qualifications, offering modular learning options and introducing
T-levels, as well as the existing qualifications. We are
expanding choice.
We are investing very substantially in higher education: £900
million pounds in the next three years, in addition to the £2.8
million that we have announced for further education, and the
recent settlement for schools, as well as introducing a specific
scholarship option for high-achieving disadvantaged students, so
that they too can realise their potential. A great deal of work
is going on, led by the Office for Students, on the quality of
degrees.
On the noble Baroness’s point on student number caps, these
approaches have been used in the past. I think our real aim is to
identify those courses with very high drop-out rates or very poor
graduate progression outcomes, and make sure that those are
limited, but in no way to try to affect the more successful and
higher-quality courses.
Our bottom line is that we want to maximise and continue to build
on the successes in offering opportunity to students. Students
from disadvantaged backgrounds are 82% more likely to go to
university today than in 2010. We want to build on that and on
the increase in students from black, Asian and minority ethnic
communities going to university, in making sure that this country
offers opportunity to all.
9.07pm
(CB)
My Lords, I welcome the lifelong learning and other measures that
will improve social mobility, but the higher education sector
needs a root-and-branch review of the business model of our
universities. Perhaps I need to declare that I have a family
member who works in higher education and I have been associated
with several universities in the past.
We are in another week when UCU members are on strike because of
a broken system, where their pensions and working conditions are
under attack, while managers pay themselves such astonishing
amounts as to make even the private sector blush. USS
administrators are using valuation scenarios so risk-averse as to
lack any credibility, and the world-class system that the
Government rightly applaud is in real danger of being depleted of
future academic talent as rewards fall further behind, and the
taxpayer’s interests are ignored under the pretext of university
autonomy. When will the Government address these blatant
anomalies in a sector that seems to have lost its sense of
purpose? I associate myself with the remarks of the Labour Front
Bench about vision.
(Con)
The noble Baroness asks a number of important questions about the
funding model for our universities but, as she acknowledged, they
are incredibly successful in attracting international students,
with over 605,000 of those students coming to our universities.
In the other place the other day, my right honourable friend the
Secretary of State quoted the figure that of every four
international students, two go to the US, one comes to the UK and
the rest of the world shares the last one.
We are aiming to build on that success; the investment that we
announced along with this package aims to focus on both teaching
and facilities to make sure that the highest-quality
future-facing education is offered in our universities. My right
honourable friend the Minister for Universities and Higher
Education has been extremely active in stressing her concerns
about how students’ experience has suffered over Covid and the
responsibility of universities to respond, get back to
face-to-face teaching and meet their needs, but I am happy to
pick up in writing some of the wider points that the noble
Baroness raised.
(Con)
My Lords, I strongly support the Government’s student finance
reforms, which strengthen what I think is the least bad system of
funding higher education, but I have to say that I am puzzled by
why the Government appear to be disavowing what in my view has
been the standout levelling-up policy of the last decade: the
removal of student number controls, which have allowed
disadvantaged young people to go to university in far greater
numbers—they are 80% more likely to do so in 2021 than they were
in 2010. I would be very grateful if the Minister could reassure
me that any student number controls will be imposed only in the
most egregious cases of poor outcomes identified by the OfS and
will not be used as a back-door means of reimposing sweeping caps
or quotas on aspiration across the entire system.
(Con)
I am delighted to reassure my noble friend that we will not be
introducing the sweeping caps to which he alludes. As he said,
universities have been extremely successful in terms of social
mobility. By consulting on student number controls, we are not
taking a position on what the correct proportion of people going
to university should be, but we want to tilt provision towards
the best outcomes for students and, as I said, make sure that our
further education system also offers fantastic pathways to
success.
(Ind Lab)
My Lords, I admire a great deal of what the Government are trying
to do in relation to the future of higher education but I suspect
that there is a bit of a muddle going on: the Government’s right
hand does not seem to be doing the same as their left; that was
just very ably put by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson. I start by
asking why it has taken so long—it is two and a half years since
the Augar report was published. If the Government are so
concerned about having a high-class higher education system, with
large numbers of international students, to reach out to the most
disadvantaged and to ensure better outcomes, there is some
urgency in this. Of course it is complex but perhaps the Minister
can say why it has taken so long to reach any kind of conclusions
on this report. Moreover, we are going to have a lot more
consultation. I am not against consultation, but this one could
have started two years ago, in which case we would be rather
nearer to getting some kind of conclusion on where we are going
next.
I also want to pick up what my noble friend on the Front Bench
said about the effects of the proposed changes in student
finance. How can the Government justify the much higher
repayments that the least well off will pay because of the many
years of interest charges—a lower rate of interest than now but,
nevertheless, a much longer period for which they will be paying
interest—whereas the wealthier students will pay off their loans
very quickly and not incur all this interest? Is it not time to
introduce a truly progressive graduate tax, rather than the
regressive system of repayments being put forward today?
(Con)
The noble Baroness partly answered her first question herself.
She understands it very well. This is hugely complex and
sensitive. The issues around repayment rates and the relative
burden on the taxpayer versus the student all need careful
consideration. Obviously, there are huge financial implications.
The noble Baroness will have seen the figures on the projected
size of the student loan book in 2043 if we did not do anything
about this, which is half a trillion pounds—I was about to say
dollars, because “trillion” always sounds like dollars, but it is
pounds.
On the consultation, I feel slightly that as a Government we are
damned if we do and damned if we do not. If we had not consulted,
I am sure we would have been criticised. I know that the noble
Baroness was asking about the timing of the consultation; that
also had to align with the work done on the policy. We hope that
the consultation will help to answer some of the disadvantage
questions to which the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on the
Front Bench and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, referred. We
really do want to understand how those groups that might feel the
most difficulty in accessing higher education, particularly this
new modular approach that will be offered, will be impacted so
that we can structure the policy in a way that makes it most
accessible.
The Lord
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the National Society.
I thank the Minister for what is a very significant Statement,
with wide-ranging implications for higher and further education,
social mobility and the economy, current and potential students,
and the future of many communities. A number of the policy
ambitions are welcome, such as the higher technical
qualifications. My concern, and hence my question, is about the
unintended potential consequences of some of the proposals. What
steps are the Government taking to ensure that these proposed
reforms actively increase opportunities for students from
disadvantaged backgrounds who aim at professional careers in our
vital public and community services, or in fields such as the
creative industries, which seem to fall outside the high-quality
and high-cost criteria for intended increases in strategic
investment described in the consultation documents?
(Con)
I may have touched on some of the points that I hope can address
the right reverend Prelate’s question. To go back to the
consultations, they are explicitly to help us avoid unintended
consequences and to get input from as wide a circle of
stakeholders as possible. Obviously, we believe, as Philip Augar
did in his review, that a modular, lifelong education system with
the funding to back it up will be accessible, lead to greater
career development over somebody’s lifetime and meet the skills
needed in the economy. Specific elements, such as the scholarship
I mentioned, can be used not just for higher education but for
further education and apprenticeships. Lastly, these changes must
also be taken in the context of the major investment in and major
reforms we have made to further education and the bringing
together of the funding approach between higher technical
qualifications at level 4 and 5 and degrees.
(LD)
My Lords, the Minister talks about fairness in access and
increasing the options for young people. But we know how the
EBacc has reduced the options for young people in our schools,
particularly those who want to do a creative subject. By doing
that, the pipeline into universities, and indeed FE colleges, has
become less, so we are seeing low numbers following creative
subjects in higher education. Indeed, in the whole university
sector there is only one professor of music. Surely if we want to
increase options, we have to ensure that those options are
available at our secondary schools.
(Con)
I am certainly aware from the many schools I visit that some of
the best of them offer a great deal of choice, both within and
outside their curriculum. I understand and hear the noble Lord’s
concerns, but if we look at the success of our creative
industries—which are world beating, in that well-known phrase—we
see that we are clearly providing our children, through school
and through further and higher education, the skills they need to
be very successful within them.
(Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her Statement
and very much agree with the points made by my noble friend Lord
Johnson. The changes to the financing of higher education make
sense, because the system was always envisaged as one in which
the majority of graduates would pay back the cost of their
education. An arrangement in which we ended up with more than
half of all student loans being written off was not the kind of
balanced system originally envisaged.
I ask the Minister to agree that one of the reasons why the
English higher education system stands out as one of the better
systems in the world is the autonomy enjoyed by universities. We
already have a consultation from the OfS on minimum thresholds to
measure university performance, we will now have a consultation
on number controls and we have another consultation on minimum
educational requirements. Does she accept that if all these
different, highly intrusive and detailed interventions are piled
up on top of each other, the Government will be not boosting the
quality of universities but eroding their ability to run their
own affairs and therefore threatening the quality of our
universities? I invite her to agree that if all those measures
are imposed in total on universities, it would be hard to
describe our system as one of university autonomy.
(Con)
I absolutely agree with my noble friend about the importance of
autonomy, but I hope he agrees with me that there is also a real
responsibility to have transparency and for students to be really
clear on the impact of this major decision and financial
commitment they are making and what their future career and
further education prospects are, based on the choice of course.
We are not aiming to restrict university autonomy. We are aiming
to improve transparency and, through transparency, to see that
autonomy translate into even higher quality than we have
today.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, I welcome HE reform and have no objection to, for
example, introducing minimum academic eligibility requirements to
go to university, although linking access to student finance
seems a cheap avoidance of winning the arguments for the virtues
of the academic purpose of university. Is linking the value of a
course’s quality to good jobs not a philistine undermining of
knowledge for its own sake, turning universities into glorified
job training centres? Is there a danger of a technocratic version
of social mobility that instrumentalises the purpose of
university, confirming that the only way to improve your social
standing is to get a degree or go to university—the very opposite
of what I assume the Government intend?
(Con)
I apologise to the House if I was not completely clear in my
earlier answer. I hoped and intended to refer to both the quality
of jobs and the further education opportunities. Absolutely, our
R&D is critical for the future of the country, and the
quality of our thinking and debate, which I know the noble
Baroness supports profoundly, is also really important. This is
not just about jobs. But equally, I was made aware of six
computing courses where the dropout rate is over 40%. Is that not
something we should look at, compared with other courses where
the dropout rate is much lower?
(Lab)
I understand why the Government want to make sure that students
have the skills they need to manage the course, but there has
been a lot of concern caused by the minimum eligibility
requirements. Can the Minister confirm that the important thing
is that the students have the skills they need to do the course,
not that they have GCSE English or maths at level 4? The two
things are not the same.
Secondly, successive policy papers from this Government have
undermined the creative sector within universities. They have
very much encouraged, and I agree with it, maths, science and
engineering. I notice that humanities get a mention in this
Statement; that is the first time for a long time. But in this
policy document, what is there that will nurture and help to
progress the creative industries in our universities, which are
very much wanted by the economy and employers?
(Con)
In relation to the point about skills, on one level, of course, I
cannot disagree—I never enjoy disagreeing with the noble
Baroness. Of course, people should have the skills they need to
access their degree. However, in the majority of cases, if not
the vast majority, English and/or maths at GCSE level may well be
necessary for the course that they are aiming to do. I stress
that this is a consultation; we genuinely have not taken a view
on it. There has been a great deal of focus in the media, in the
other place and in your Lordships’ House tonight on the GCSE
requirement. We will also be consulting on whether one should
reintroduce a minimum A-level requirement. But our focus on
foundation degrees and on additional opportunities to achieve the
levels in English and maths are also part of how we will make
sure that this happens.
(GP)
My Lords, on the new lifelong learning entitlement, are the
Government not simply loading even more debt on to a generation
already carrying an enormous weight of debt, and extending that
debt for even longer? It is a great privatisation of the cost of
education, which used to be borne by the public purse
collectively, by an entire society that benefited from it, and by
employers who benefited from those skills. Instead, what we are
seeing is an individualisation and a privatisation. For the 40
years when people would expect normally, in many cases, to be
settling down, having a family and buying a house, they are going
to have this weight of debt settling on their shoulders, and it
will be even a higher percentage of this generation.
(Con)
I absolutely do not recognise the description that the noble
Baroness paints of the lifelong learning entitlement. If she does
not agree with the Government’s decisions on this, she might want
to, if she has not already, look at the Augar report’s
recommendations. There is a clear need expressed: 24% of people
when surveyed said that they had considered continuing and
part-time education. We do not know how many students who go
straight from school to university would rather do a more modular
approach. Nobody is imposing this on the student body; this is a
choice for people to build their careers and their skills, to
seize opportunities and to build our economy.
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