My Lords, I speak very briefly just to endorse everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, has said. On behalf of the House generally I want to thank her for all the hard work and effort that she has put into securing these changes. It is fair to say that this part of the Bill, in its original form, was the one that gave cause to a great deal of worry, and for me personally the most worry of all because in my view it threatened the reputation of higher education not only in this country but overseas. With this amendment, we are now in a much better place.
The only thing that I ask is that there be some monitoring of how it works in practice. It is very important that there should be some evaluation to make absolutely clear to the higher education sector as a whole, and to those who might want to enter it, that there will be rigorous tests of both quality and standards before any institution can have degree-awarding powers and access to grants and loans through the system of financial support that we have. Having said that, however, I am really grateful to the Government and to the Minister for bringing forward this amendment. It is a huge improvement to the Bill compared to what we had originally.