Higher Education Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 2:30 pm on 17 May 2004.

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Photo of Baroness Carnegy of Lour Baroness Carnegy of Lour Conservative 2:30, 17 May 2004

We all appreciate that whatever the noble Baroness is, she is certainly not stupid. She has made some very important suggestions without making them too clearly. I am sure the Minister can read what she says.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, that the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, put a very good case. It seems to me she was in fact perhaps talking in favour of the amendment, because she was saying that the funding council to a great extent is already doing that which OFFA will do.

I do not speak with the deep knowledge that noble Lords have of exactly how this system works, but it seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said something very important. He said that the world needs to know what OFFA is doing. It needs to know what OFFA is up to because it is going to be absolutely critical to whether the Bill works or not. It is, to my mind, much the most dangerous part of this Bill. In the end, I suspect the Bill may sink because of it. It is a tragedy that OFFA is in the Bill. If it is going to be there, we need to know what it is up to. I originally argued, at the meeting with Universities UK, that perhaps its function should be subsumed in the funding council. I thought then that was a less bureaucratic option. I now think what the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, has said is very important.

Universities regard OFFA as the political penalty they have had to pay to get the small amount of their funding from the students. That is the simple fact—they felt they had to accept this. It seems to me that it is the duty of this House either to get rid of OFFA or to make OFFA a good deal less dangerous than it otherwise would be, or we really will not have done much service to the nation in respect of this Bill. It is the crux of the matter. With regret, I cannot support the noble Baroness's amendment, although I think I would have done so a week or two ago, and I am sorry about that.