Higher Education and Research Bill - Report (2nd Day)

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 7:26 pm on 8 March 2017.

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Photo of Baroness Wolf of Dulwich Baroness Wolf of Dulwich Crossbench 7:26, 8 March 2017

My Lords, I will not say that this is a tidying-up amendment, having been quite rightly told off about that, but it is meant to bring things into line and make sure that everyone in this emerging landscape of higher education is able to operate with confidence, knowing that if things are going wrong they have a route of appeal.

The amendment addresses validation, an area that Ministers are concerned about because they consider it to be fraught with problems for new providers. It is an area where new and innovative providers are encountering difficulties. There has been for a long time a difference of opinion about how major an issue this is. What the amendment sets out to do is state clearly that, if a commissioning arrangement involving the validation of a new provider by an existing provider goes wrong, there should be a means by which to appeal.

The Bill gives the OfS powers which, curiously enough, no one as far as I know has challenged during our long and slow progress. We seem to have had amendments to almost every clause, but not to this one. I think it is recognised that, if we are going to try to make it easier for good, new innovative providers to come in, there should be an active role for the Office for Students in that. It may wish to ensure that one provider can work with another institution, validate its degrees and help it to mature, and it has the power to do so. In the same way, there are existing powers for two institutions to get in touch with each other and go through validation. While I know that this is a major issue of concern for the Government, it is also true to say that the Competition and Markets Authority does not think that this is an area where there is a real problem with the market.

However, the relationship is not always easy, so the purpose of my amendment is simply to make sure that if things go wrong where a provider is involved in a commissioning arrangement of this sort, where one institution is the potential validator of degrees and another institution hopes to have its degrees validated if they are good enough, there is a clearly marked out route of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. That is what this amendment sets out to introduce into the Bill. On that basis, I hope that the Government will see this as something which would ensure that everyone has a route of appeal and that they will consider it seriously. I beg to move.