Clause 32 - Approval of plans
Higher Education Bill
10:00 am
Mr Alan Johnson (Minister of State (Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education), Department for Education and Skills; Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, Labour)
The regulator cannot ignore the regulations, which are approved by Parliament, but he can ignore the guidance, whether it is statutory or non-statutory. Subsection (4) is designed purely to avoid primary legislation being overloaded with issues that should, quite properly, be subject to change in Committee. Amendment No. 105 is not the answer, but I want to make it clear that there is no attempt to interfere with academic freedom, as the hon. Gentleman suggested.
The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, who I am delighted to see fit and well and back in the Committee—we would have come to Harrogate but all the trains were full—referred to an article in The Sunday Times. That article was about the Schwartz committee. The hon. Gentleman was not present last Thursday when we had a long discussion about admissions and access. We set up the Schwartz committee, with the full support of the higher education sector, to examine admissions, and it is considering issues such as post-qualification applications. The reference in The Sunday Times article was not to the Secretary of State's views, but to what the journalist predicts will come from the Schwartz committee. There is no attempt to interfere with academic freedom and, in response to a point made by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), I repeat that there is no question of admissions being part of the regulator's role; that role covers access.
Amendment No. 105, however, is not the answer to the problem, but we think that amendment No. 75 is. We can now replace the sinister music with the Hallelujah chorus, because we are prepared to accept amendment No. 75, and I may as well give a reason for
that. An important point, which was made by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale, is that the amendment would delete clause 32(5)(a), which could be misread and regarded as sinister. That paragraph prescribes
''cases in which the relevant authority must, or may not, approve a plan''.
Subsection (5)(a) was included in the Bill because of regulation 6 in the draft regulations, which states:
''If the Director does not approve a plan, he must not approve a further plan submitted by the governing body in respect of the first academic year covered by the plan which was not approved.''
The reason for that provision is that there must be closure, and that must be when the prospectus goes out to students applying to attend that university. What must not happen is that a plan is rejected and students think that they are entering university with a fee of £1,200 a year, only to find out later that the fee is now £2,000 because an access plan has been agreed with a higher rate attached. That is the only reason for subsection (5)(a) being in the Bill. However, we think that we can deal with the problem in a different way, such as through guidance.
I accept the points made by hon. Members that the paragraph could be used to suggest that a future Secretary of State will use the power to prescribe that a plan must not be approved because it comes from London Metropolitan university, Cambridge university or wherever. That would be a wide-ranging power to take—a sledgehammer to crack a fairly small nut. Therefore, amendment No. 75, which is aimed purely at subsection (5)(a), should be accepted. We urge the Committee to vote for that, and those are words that I did not think I would hear myself say.
Amendment No. 76 is another that deals with the difference between ''shall'' and ''may''. It refers to subsection (6), which the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale mentioned earlier. We want to retain the word ''may'' because of the reasons that I laid out when discussing the previous amendment that sought to replace ''may'' with ''shall''. We are, of course, asking for the plans to be published. Draft regulation 7 states:
''Where the Director has approved a plan, the governing body must publish it in a manner which makes it conveniently accessible to students and prospective students.''
The hon. Gentleman asked how that would be done, and the answer is via a website, e-mail, or through the media. We do not expect individuals to be named—an important point that he raised—but what he said about sensitive information would be a good reason for keeping the word ''may''. Some sections of a plan should remain discreet, but the major elements, particularly letting students know about bursaries, will be set out in the access plan. It is therefore important that the plan should be published and made widely accessible. There is nothing between us on that, and I give the same assurance that I gave on the previous amendment. We expect agreements to be publicised.
The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) is not with us, but he asked about time scales. We have used the usual terminology. Draft regulation 5(a) states that the director
''must inform the governing body within a reasonable time'',
and draft regulation 5(b) states that the governing body
''may, within a reasonable time''.
Rather than specifying days or weeks, we have used the accepted terminology. It makes it clear that the university and the director must publish the prospectus, so that students will know of the arrangements before they apply.
Perhaps after the weekend the Conservative party is warming to devolution, because the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale did not say anything about amendment No. 46. However, the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) was correct. It is not just that the amendment would interfere with devolution; it would put the Committee in the strange situation of allowing a regulator to operate in Wales without direction or guidance. That would be a serious flaw.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment, but I hope that the Committee will support amendment No. 75.