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To ask Her Majesty’s Government what processes were followed
for the appointment of Board members of the Office for
Students.
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(Con)
My Lords, the Office for Students board needs members who
bring a broad range of skills and experience to deliver its
objectives. In the recent recruitment round, six people were
appointed to the OfS board, although, following this
morning’s resignation, the board stands at 14 members.
Appointments to the Office for Students board were made in
line with the Governance Code on Public Appointments, which,
as is conventional, included open advertisement, an
applications process, shortlisting and interviews.
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(LD)
I am sure the Minister would agree that there is no place for
cronyism in public appointments. Given that public
appointments are based on Nolan principles, and the fact that
somebody was appointed to this position who had posted on
social media the most appalling comments, do those principles
need to be strengthened?
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I say at the outset that this is very much a time of
reflection following the resignation this morning. We will
want to learn from this. It is regrettable that the offensive
tweets were not picked up on or before the appointment. The
Prime Minister herself made it clear that a repeat of any
such language from someone within a public position would not
be acceptable. There is always a balance of proportionality
in undertaking due diligence. In this case, there were more
than 50,000 tweets, some of which were completely abhorrent.
We need to learn from this and be sure that the due diligence
is improved.
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(Lab)
My Lords, with the greatest respect to the noble Viscount,
the job specification required candidates to have “good
judgement” and “high levels of integrity”; to,
“inspire confidence with a wide range of stakeholders”,
and,
“demonstrate high standards of … personal conduct”.
Is the noble Viscount saying that these objectionable tweets
were not known to his department and Mr ? Is it not the case that
imposed this wretched man on
the board of the OfS? Will he now tell me, as has been removed, that the
independence of the OfS, which the Government guaranteed
during the passage of the Higher Education and Research Act
only recently, will now be established?
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My Lords, there is no imposition of a candidate into this
particular position. The current make-up of the Office for
Students is a broad church. It is a broad range of people,
which is what we set out to do in the first place. On the
noble Lord’s question: no, we did not know about the
obnoxious tweets that came out. That is why I said at the
outset that we need to do better. With 50,000 tweets, some of
which were completely obnoxious, this is something that we
should have known about. We need to learn lessons from this.
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(Lab)
My Lords, since the Minister has recognised that there was a
process in these appointments, it follows that there must be
a record of those who were involved in it. Will he tell the
House, other than the Minister directly responsible, which
other Ministers were involved in the process, either formally
on the record or informally?
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The due process was gone through. The launch was made in July
and after the advertisements were laid they were closed in
August. Ultimately, the Secretary of State is responsible for
appointments, so the process went through. I will also say—I
say this to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as well— that Mr Young
was appointed on merit, on what he had done. That is very
separate from the obnoxious tweets that we know about.
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(LD)
My Lords, on a broader topic, given that a significant number
of higher education students are actually in further
education colleges, will the Minister say why the OfS has no
one from the FE sector on the board? Can he point to where
the champions will be for adult education and lifelong
learning on the OfS board?
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The challenge in making up the board is to have a broad range
of skills and experiences from within the sector and beyond.
I can say now, to reassure the noble Baroness, that the board
is well represented with experience of higher education, with
the vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England,
a former vice-chancellor of the private university BPP, a
bursar and fellow of New College, Oxford and the chair of a
performance and theatre college. It is deliberately meant to
be a broad church.
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(Lab)
My Lords, did a conversation take place between and his brother,
, prior to this appointment?
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I certainly cannot answer that and I am not going to be drawn
into it.
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(Con)
My Lords, the furore over the appointment of Toby Young
exposed widespread distaste for a casual attitude towards the
relational and other harms of pornography. The recent
consultation on the internet safety strategy included no
measures to mitigate these harms. Can my noble friend assure
me that this will now receive thorough attention given that
opinion seems to be shifting on pornography?
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As I believe we stated in the internet safety strategy, the
issue of pornography will be considered as we develop the
regulations and guidance on relationships and sex education,
which the Children and Social Work Act 2017 requires us to
make compulsory in all secondary schools in England. Evidence
has shown that the easy availability of online pornography is
changing the way that young people understand healthy
relationships. We need to be aware of this and move forward.
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(Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that even his “broad
church” must have some limits, so what went wrong?
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I did not hear the last part of the question.
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What went wrong?
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I think that I have made it clear that the issue was the due
diligence concerning the tweets. At the end of the day, Mr
Young was appointed on merit, but there were very many tweets
that we did not manage to get into—but I have made that clear
in another answer.
