My Lords, this is a very big Bill. I share the feeling of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, that perhaps this subject is one we will not see again for some time to come and so ought to enjoy what we are seeing now. The train passes slowly, but it is a very important one and we should pay regard to it.
We should also bear in mind that the Bill attracted more than 700 amendments and resulted in, at our last count this morning, 31 major concessions made by the Government to the voices raised, in the other place and particularly in here, in relation to some of the issues we heard about today. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, was right to reflect on the fact that what we have in front of us today, although really important, is the end of the process, not the whole of it. We should not forget that within the list of concessions—“concessions” gives the wrong sense; I mean the things that moved in the Bill—there are important aspects. There is not just freedom of speech, which she mentioned and which is of course tremendously important, but also measures that will improve collaboration within the sector, that will help reverse the decline in part-time students, that will assist mature students who wish to come back, and that pave the way for more work to be done on credit transfer and flexible courses. These are all really important changes to the infrastructure of our higher education system and will make it better. They have not been picked up today because they were dealt with earlier in the process, but they should not be forgotten as they are important.
We have also heard nothing today about UKRI and the developments made in that whole area, which is to change radically the consensus on operating within science and research more generally that has gone on for nearly 30 years in one form or another. It is important that we also reflect that those changes went through after debate and discussion—and some minor adjustments but not many—primarily because there was an effort to make sure that the words used to describe the change were understood properly. A lot of time was spent in going round talking to people and making sure they were happy with that. That was a good thing. Indeed, this whole process, as has been touched on already by a number of noble Lords, is an example of what this House is good at but should be more widely developed within our political debates and discussions: that there is room for civilised debate and discussion about every issue. It does not have to be party-political, as my noble friend Lord Blunkett said. It can be small-p political. It can be aimed at
trying to arrive at a better overall solution, and I am sure that what we are achieving today has ticked the box in all these areas.
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I am grateful to the Minister for spending time introducing the four Motions, having been warned earlier not to spend so much time on his feet at the Dispatch Box and to write to us. But the time for letters has ended and therefore it was necessary for him to go through that process. We have all benefited from that because these words are important in understanding the changes that have been made at relatively high speed over the past few days to get the Bill to a point where it could pass through both Houses. I am grateful to him for that. These words are important. As far as I could tell, they were exactly the same as those used in the other place. A close reading of Hansard will probably be required, but I am pretty confident that the sensibility there is enough to make sure that we are in the right place on this.
On the definition of a university, I have confidence that what is now in the statute will get us to a point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, said, which will allow us to have a better understanding of what constitutes a university, which will be of benefit to us, both internally in the UK but also, importantly, abroad.
The TEF has been the main concern, and the issues were well brought out by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. It is important that we pick out of the flurry of amendments we have here that the net effect is that Parliament retains a lock on how the TEF will be developed, and on the design and implementation of the processes that will accompany it. That is really important. That is partly because of the way in which the review will work and will report back on that, and partly because of the change to affirmative resolution for the regulations necessary for this. That is good and I welcome it.
A number of noble Lords have mentioned the focus that may be behind the changes to come in TEF in relation to subject and course-level issues. I ask the Minister to reflect a little bit on that, if he is able to. I do not think this is an either/or. At least, I do not suppose that is the intention behind it, although I think the consensus view here is that the less that can be said about an institutional measure and the more that can be said about what is actually going on in the courses and subjects that are taught in universities, the better that will be. Perhaps he would like to confirm that that is, at least in part, where the Government are trying to get to. I think that would take a lot of heat out of some of the issues that remain in this area.
On the publication of the pilot results, which the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, raised, and was also touched on by my noble friend Lord Blunkett and the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, there are questions about that and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. It seems to me, reflecting on the issues that we have in front of us, that when you are committing under statute to carry out a review of this whole issue—digging up the drains, examining how these things are put together, what the structure and the architecture are, and reflecting on how it is presented and how it appears in public—it would be injudicious to make
too much of an issue about the publication of the pilots, which are only pilots, which we all know are done on imperfect information and will not be the way that this thing runs in the long run. It would be helpful if there was anything that the Minister could say on this point.
There is a fourth Motion before us, which I think is a technical one. It was not referred to very much by the Minister but it is consequential to amendments to change to affirmative resolution and affects the rather narrow issue of accelerated degrees, where an institution wishes to complete in a shorter period of time than is conventionally the case the course or degree that it is teaching, and it will be possible for it to raise fees to compensate for that. This is probably a good thing, but perhaps the Minister could confirm that these consequential amendments do not affect the good, although limited, progress we are making on trying to make a more flexible system available in higher education, which will encourage people to come in and take parts of courses, go out and do some work, and come back again. All the flexibility that goes with credit transfer and flexible courses should not be debarred simply because the course fee structures are inflexible.