Clause 22 - Power of Secretary of State to impose condition as to student fees, etc.
Higher Education Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
My hon. Friend is right—the Government are of course the puppet masters in all this. The access regulator is undoubtedly a creature of the Secretary of State, to whom all the powers enacted in this Bill ultimately go back. Ironically, this issue of ring-fenced funding may very well have a direct effect upon universities when it comes to the widening access payments. The payments made by the Government through the HEFC to universities in recent years could potentially come under the ''other payments'' category in this section of the Bill.
The structure of these widening access payments has already caused enormous problems to many institutions. When they were introduced in medical schools a couple of years ago, those schools were informed in February or March that about 2 per cent. of their teaching budget was being top-sliced, and would be put into a ring-fenced fund for widening access payments. In order to gain access to any of that money they had to have a clear strategy in place for widening social participation. You will be aware, Mr. Hood, that, in the university calendar, by February or March plans for the following September and October's intake are already pretty well advanced and offers have already been made, so it is extremely difficult to change what one is doing within a single year. So setting up that ring-fenced fund in the first place caused financial problems to those institutions, and caused them some degree of administrative chaos. Now there is the possibility that funding through that such a channel might be withheld, as part of the Government's requirements to penalise them for not having an approved plan in place.