Conditions that may be required to be imposed by English funding bodies
Higher Education Bill
9:30 am
Mr Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale, Conservative)
This is the second group of amendments on this clause, and is part of a sequence of amendments that have quite properly been grouped together. Earlier in our proceedings, the Minister said that the official Opposition were indulging in a series of acts of legislative striptease. Some of the subsequent amendments involve unpicking and seeking the removal of certain elements of the clause. We did not debate those elements when we discussed the other group of amendments, but they are, none the less, important matters.
Amendment No. 2 would strike out subsection (1)(b). In other words, it would remove the provisions that specify that
''in respect of any qualifying force, the qualifying fees in respect of any academic year which begins during the grant period at a time when no English approved plan is in force in relation to the institution do not exceed the basic amount''.
Other amendments in the group would strike out other elements in subsections (3)(b) and (c). I dare say that the Minister will say that the Bill would be technically defective if these provisions were to be struck out. I am sure that it would be, but it is hardly the task of the official Opposition to make the legislation workable when we are fundamentally opposed to it. The amendments are intended to be probing, but they also give us the opportunity to start to explore some of the Bill's important terminology.
The very important phrase ''approved plan'' appears for the first time in subsection (1)(b), which amendment No. 2 would strike out. We know from later provisions, such as those in clause 31, that approved plans are to be set up by a new organisation, which, at various stages in the deliberations before the legislation was published, was referred to as the office for fair access but will now be called the director of fair access to higher education. It is therefore appropriate at this stage to indicate the Opposition's fundamental unhappiness with the idea of approved plans being imposed on higher education institutions, particularly as those plans are designed to further what it is difficult to see as anything other than social engineering. HE institutions should not be compelled to adopt particular policies relating to admissions, but should
be encouraged to continue the good work that many of them are already doing towards improving access and equality of opportunity for access. The Government are going down a damaging pathway by requiring these to be imposed by approved planning processes.
We hope we will have the opportunity to discuss some of these measures later in our debates, and I do not want to pre-empt those discussions, save to ask the Minister for clarification about the academic years specified in the provisions that amendment No. 2 and other amendments would strike out. Are academic years intended to be absolutely uniform throughout the country, or is there intended to be a distinction between those institutions that have slightly different start and end points for academic years? Is this intended to be a single statutory provision? When he responds, would he elaborate on whether approved plans as such have been widely welcomed in the academic community?
As far as the official Opposition are concerned, while we are in no doubt—there is no point in pretending otherwise—that the legislation overall has been welcomed by many vice-chancellors, it is also the case that we have found widespread concern and opposition within the academic community to language relating to approved plans and all that that involves of state intervention and the possibility of state control. There are widespread worries that this is the start of a slippery slope towards direct political intervention in admissions policies, a process that many academics believe started with the Chancellor's ill-judged attack on the university of Oxford over the case of Laura Spence. Many took the view that Oxford university had been placed in an impossible position, since the Chancellor did not specify which other equally or better qualified candidates should have been left out in order to make place for the individual to whom he chose to attach his political affections.
Within this group, we will also be looking at two extremely interesting amendments moved by the hon. Lady the Member for Campbell, sorry, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell)—though I am sure it is only a matter of time before the constituency wishes to change its name to that of its esteemed Member of Parliament—and by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas). On the face of it, these amendments are intended to have entirely opposite effects. That may or may not be the intention of the hon. Members. As they are presently worded, the amendments are obviously entirely contrasting. The hon. Lady would insert the words
''different basic amounts may be prescribed in respect of different courses.''
The hon. Gentleman is saying:
''no different basic amounts may be prescribed in respect of different courses.''
Given that the hon. Members share a similar objective and a concern about the principle of variability—before you become concerned, Mr. Gale, I do not intend to elaborate on that again—it seems surprising that they should have come up with wording that is so entirely distinct. It is possible that neither of the two
sets of wording can achieve what they want or that one of the sets of wording achieves what they want. However, I cannot see how both of them can achieve what they want. I look forward to the elaboration from the hon. Members as to why they have chosen to introduce the wording that they have.
It is inherent in the concerns of some members of the Committee—though not of the official Opposition—about the principle of variability that they believe it would be desirable to place some wording in the Bill, perhaps at the point where the hon. Members for Cambridge and for Ceredigion have suggested—clause 23 line 10 page 25. However, both forms of wording cannot possibly be accepted together, and it is impossible for both sets of wording to have equal validity and success in achieving their objective. We look forward to seeing the reasons why they want to set out the amendments in the way that they do. If they are intended to rule out or restrict variability for the reasons that have been explained in previous debates, they are unlikely to attract the support of the official Opposition.
This may be an opportunity to place on record the slight disappointment that some members of the Opposition felt with the press release issued at the end of last week by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), in which he said that he had listened—carefully, I am sure—to the lengthy debate, in the course of which it was repeatedly expressed that the official Opposition object to top-up fees but not to variability. However, he attempted to confuse the issue by implying that because we had not voted in support of some amendments, we were somehow supported top-up fees. It has been made clear in our deliberations that the official Opposition are entirely opposed to top-up fees. I hope that no similar confusion will arise.