Clause 17
Further Education and Training Bill [Lords]
5:15 pm
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby, Labour)
I had not intended to intervene in the debate, but I have been stirred into such a frenzy of excitement by the inordinate lengths to which the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings went to support Government policy. It is an example to be followed by the rest of the Conservative party: support Government policy and do so at length.
I intervene to make two brief points. First, I welcome the clause and the provision for FE institutions to give foundation degrees. In Grimsby, we have an excellent institute. It has been upgraded to an institute, thanks to my bartering my vote on student fees. Its status has improved, but all the studentshate me for giving way on the fees argument. That isin passing, however. The institution is undertaking enormous initiatives to develop as a university college campus with the university of Hull, but that does not preclude the need for it to develop in its own way, asthe hon. Gentleman said. The measure is a way of strengthening that development by giving it an effective, independent role, so I support it from a local and a general point of view.
I thought that the Universities UK memorandum was a little sniffy. Universities are conservative institutions; they started off as old conservatives, which is to say that they thought that nothing should be done for the first time, and they have now become modern conservatives, who say that it should be done, but not now. The Bill provides effectively for a regulation procedure that will ensure the maintenance of standards. Foundation degrees are something of value, as the hon. Gentleman said. I shall say it at shorter length. The safeguards are well in place.
Secondly, with regard to the Liberal amendment and the argument in the Universities UK memorandum about franchising, I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Minister whether franchising is not precluded by subsection (11), which will insert into the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 a new section 76(6A), which says that an order
“may provide that the institution is not to grant such an award to a person unless he was enrolled at the institution at the time”.
That surely must preclude franchising.