Clause 34 - Variation of plans
Higher Education Bill
10:15 am
Mr Jonathan R Shaw (Chatham and Aylesford, Labour)
I beg to move amendment No. 270, in
clause 34, page 15, line 35, after 'varied', insert 'by the relevant institution'.
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Stevenson. This is a probing amendment to seek some clarification from my right hon. Friend. It would be helpful for universities to understand the extent to which a plan may be varied. Would OFFA intervene and vary a plan before the access period was over? It is important for the new plans to settle down, but the institution may want to introduce a variation. For example, it may want to increase the bursaries to students who are in difficulties. We would not want fees to be increased, as that would be a huge departure, but subtle changes—they may be to do with bursaries, for example, or with outreach programmes in communities linking up with the local further education college—may need to be made, and plans varied in the light of experience. Will the institutions have the powers to do that?
It has been suggested that the OFFA's extending powers may mean the evil hand of a sinister Minister wandering all over admissions, which would not be the case under a Labour Government. It will not necessarily be the evil hand of a Labour Minister—[Interruption.] I should say a helping hand, perhaps with a backdrop of Joe Cocker, rather than the Hammer House of Horrors, to which the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale referred, but the personality of the director of OFFA will set the mood and affect the atmosphere. Although I have every confidence in Labour Ministers, the people who are appointed do not always turn out to be what one might expect. That also happens in the case of former Ministers, as we have seen too often recently.
I would appreciate clarification of the extent to which OFFA could vary plans within the set period. Will the universities be allowed to make variations in accordance with their experience, especially early on, as institutions and students get used to the new regime?