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Mr. Collins: This is a genuinely important amendment and I commend the hon. Gentleman for tabling it. I was disappointed that he said it was largely a probing amendment, because although it is not perfect, if he were to press it to a Division we would support it. If there is to be a vestige of academic freedom and institutional autonomy after the Bill is enacted, it is crucial that once a plan has been perhaps laboriously negotiated between the director and the university, and during the time frame of the plan which, as the Minister said, may be as long as five years, the university should know exactly where it stands. It should know that once agreements have been reached it will be left to get on with implementing them. The difficulty with clause 34 is that it puts in place a procedure whereby a negotiated and agreed access plan can be overturned or varied. There is no limitation on the extent of variation, so conceivably it could be changed almost in its entirety at any point in its lifetime. That does not give higher education institutions the certainties that they require. The amendment goes only some way towards ameliorating the position, as it would retain the phrase
10.30 amThe amendment at least requires that the act of variation be made by the university or higher education institution. However, by retaining the need for that variation to have the approval of the relevant authority, we believe that it would give far too much discretion to the director of fair access to rip up freely negotiated agreements and to go down pathways that would be deeply injurious to the principles of university independence. Our view is that the Bill would be better without the clause. We think that there should be enforced access plans, and that there should not be a director at all. However, if we are to have such plans and a director, it must surely be a matter of common sense that everyone can see, that if the negotiations are to have value once a plan has been agreed, that there should not be the constant prospect of its being reorganised. Mr. Rendel: I am genuinely confused what by what the hon. Gentleman is saying, so I hope that he can clarify it. He seems to be saying that these are matters Column Number: 555 that have to do with a contract between two parties, so it is important that it should not be varied on either side, just unilaterally. I should have thought that the removal of the words
Mr. Collins: As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, it would be desirable to ensure that any variation can occur only by mutual consent. That is the point on which he and I would agree. The amendment does not specify the need for the approval of the relevant institution: it simply says that the variation would be made ''by the relevant institution''. In a sense, that is natural, because the institution that implements the access plan is the relevant institution—in this case, a university. Our point is that it would be preferable for the legislation to make it clear that it requires the mutual consent of both parties to the plan before variations can be made. We believe that that objective would be achieved with the removal of the clause. I am not convinced that doing so with the amendment would meet the exact equality that we should like, but it would be more balanced than the clause as it stands. It would be better to have clause 34 amended by amendment No. 270 than to have it as it is now, although frankly, it would be better not to have it at all. We know that the universities, in their guidance to this Committee, did not specify that they support the amendment, but they said:
Government Members—who may be more attached to the principle of the plans and to the director than Opposition Members—may take the view that there would be concern if the access plan was not implemented. That is covered by clauses 35 and 36, to which we will, I hope, turn our attention later. There are already procedures within the Bill to enforce the plans. This is a different point: it is about varying the plans after they have been agreed, independent of any assessment of whether they have been properly implemented. We are concerned about the matter, and we hope that the Minister will be in a position to give a clear assurance that he would not expect that the Secretary of State would use the powers of regulation to interfere with the implementation of Column Number: 556 plans or to exact a political penalty on an institution that had, for any particular reason, offended the Government of the day.It is easy for Governments, of whatever colour—this is not a point about the present Administration at all—to take offence at the actions of higher education institutions. It will be within your recollection, Mr. Stevenson, and that of other members of the Committee, how Lady Thatcher, when she was Prime Minister, was not exactly bowled over with joy and delight about Oxford when it denied her an honorary degree. It will be within the more recent memory of members of the Committee that the Chancellor has expressed fairly firm views about Oxford's admissions procedures. If an instrument such as that provided under clause 34 allows that OFFA—which, as we have established, is very much the creature, indeed the plaything, of the Secretary of State—can intervene to change unilaterally the terms of an agreement on an access plan, even when such an agreement has already been reached between an institution and OFFA, there will be a real temptation in the hands of a future Secretary of State or Prime Minister to use that instrument as a weapon against a higher education institution if, for whatever reason, they happen to have a falling out. I urge the Minister, if he insists on retaining the clause, at least to give the higher education world an assurance that the power of unilateral variation would be used rarely. I hope that he would be able to explain any of the circumstances in which he would think that such a variation would be appropriate. Will he also seek to make it clear that his general expectation would be that in all but the most exceptional circumstances, once an agreement had been reached—although proper attention would be paid to whether the agreement was being properly implemented—there would not be a constant process of reopening, renegotiation and renewed discussion? If that were to be the case, it would only create anxiety in the world of higher education, as people would genuinely not know at any given time what they were expected to do. Certainty is essential in higher education, and I am sure that members of that world would much welcome any assurances that the Minister can give that he does not expect the clause to be used often. I hope that he will be able to say that he would not expect clause 34 to be used at all, in which case we can save ourselves a lot of bother by getting rid of it. The Chairman: Before I call the Minister, let me say that a pretty wide-ranging discussion is taking place on the amendment, and I shall take that fully into account in any debate on clause stand part. I do not want simply to rehearse the arguments that have already been put before the Committee. Alan Johnson: The amendment is designed to ensure that the plan can be varied only by the institution whose plan it is. I agree that that must be the case. My argument is that the legislation already provides for that, so I must resist the amendment.
Column Number: 557 Before I come on to the reassurances sought on both sides of the Committee, I want to note briefly that the amendment is technically defective, since it refers to variation by the institution. However, it is the governing body that is responsible for the plan and for any variation of it. That is a minor technical point. This is a good point in the proceedings at which to discuss the mechanisms provided by the legislation for varying access plans. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Jonathan Shaw) for raising the point and allowing me to clarify the position.In England, an institution's access plan is the responsibility of that institution. It is quite clear that it is the institution and only the institution that can seek the approval of the director to vary a plan, just as it is only the institution that can propose a plan in the first place. The Bill will permit the director not to vary a plan but to approve a proposal from an institution. Subsection (1) states:
Paragraph 7 of the Secretary of State's letter to the director sets out the specific arrangements for changing access plans, and regulation 9, which we have published in draft, sets out the arrangements for the variation of plans. In all cases, it is the institution alone that can propose to vary a plan. Changing circumstances may mean that institutions will want to change their plans. For example, an institution might wish to vary its access plan in respect of outreach arrangements. It may wish to pursue those activities in a new area or try a new approach such as mentoring, or it may wish to change its fee levels and bursaries. It is right that institutions should have the option to apply to the director to make such changes, rather than have the plan frozen in aspic for five years irrespective of the circumstances. An institution might start by thinking that summer schools are a better idea than mentoring, then think, ''Actually, the summer schools haven't attracted enough applicants, let's move to a different arrangement.''
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