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Written Statements
Tuesday 14 September 2004
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Hong Kong: Legislative Council Elections
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean): We welcome the fact that Legislative Council elections were generally well run. Clearly there were a number of technical problems on the day in some locations and we understand that the SAR Government and the Electoral Affairs Commission will be looking into these. That said, there appears to have been fair treatment for all candidates and we have no reason to question the validity of the outcome.
Fair Admissions to Higher Education
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Lord Filkin): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Mr Charles Clarke, has made the following Ministerial Statement.
I am delighted today to commend to the House the report from Professor Steven Schwartz, vice-chancellor of Brunel University, on fair admissions to higher education.
Professor Schwartz and his group have over the past 15 months carried out an extensive and thorough examination of the processes for admission to higher education and have consulted widely on two occasions before presenting their conclusions. I am indebted to Professor Schwartz and all who have worked so diligently with him on this important task.
Responsibility for admissions to higher education rests firmly with the institutions themselves. They have to be satisfied that the students they admit have the ability and potential to complete their studies successfully. That is right and proper and this report unreservedly maintains that position. It also confirms, on the basis of the evidence, that admissions processes in our universities and colleges of higher education are generally fair. Nevertheless, government have an interest in ensuring that admissions processes also command the confidence of prospective students, their parents, advisers and teachers. That is why I invited Professor Schwartz to identify options for institutions to adopt when assessing the merit, achievement and potential of applicants for their courses.
The report Fair Admissions to Higher Education: Recommendations for Good Practice will stand as a practical guide for institutions as they review and develop their admissions policies, practices and systems. Everyone involved with admissions to higher education has a deep concern to ensure that they are fair and that they are seen to be fair. In pursuit of that
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end, Professor Schwartz has identified five underlying principles that I wholeheartedly endorse as the basis for fair admissions. These principles will support:
transparency in admissions processes;
selection for merit, potential and diversity;
reliability, validity and relevance of assessment methods;
Taken together, the five principles provide the bedrock for building fair admissions systems that provide equal opportunity for all individuals, regardless of background, to gain admission to a course suited to their ability and aspirations. The implementation guidelines also offered by Professor Schwartz will help institutions in mainstreaming the principles within their own admissions systems. I hope that all universities and colleges will take immediate steps to introduce the principles and guidelines within their own arrangements.
The report is more than just a guide however. It is also a call for action by higher education institutions and across the wider education establishment including some matters for Government and the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
setting up a new centre of expertise on admissions. I can confirm that the Higher Education Funding Council for England will work with Universities UK, the Standing Conference of Principals and the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service to see how this centre can be established, perhaps under the umbrella of the HE academy where it would dovetail well with the role for staff development.
research to assess the feasibility and reliability of a single, national test for potential that is not fully demonstrated by exam results. I support this as an early task for the new centre of expertise on admissions and will look carefully at the outcomes of the study alongside the final report from Mike Tomlinson on 14-19 qualifications reform that is due in the autumn, before deciding on the way forward. What we must not have is tests for tests' sake, but if there is a genuine need, it would be right to explore the opportunity.
ensuring that consistent levels of advice and guidance are available to all applicants. Similar messages are emerging from Mike Tomlinson's working group as well as from the end to end review of careers education and guidance that my department has undertaken. As part of its work on the youth Green Paper—to be published in the autumn—the department is considering how it can best ensure that all young people are able to access and interpret the information and advice they need to make well informed decisions.
the introduction of a radically different system for applications to higher education whereby students will not apply for higher education
- courses until they know their exam results. I am concerned that over very many years such a system has acquired the reputation of a holy grail for the HE admissions world—desirable but not achievable. I am aware of the complexity of the practical difficulties that would need to be overcome before a post-qualification application (PQA) system could be introduced, but I remain persuaded by the arguments for PQA which have been endorsed by Professor Schwartz and his group. It must be fairer and more transparent for students to know their final results before making important choices about where and what to study, and this must also aid decision-making by universities. PQA could also help many students, including those from families without a tradition of HE, to feel more confident in applying to our leading universities. I have therefore asked Sir Alan Wilson, the director-general for higher education, and the former vice-chancellor of Leeds University, to lead the work on implementation for PQA. He will be assisted by an implementation group which he will establish. Sir Alan will consult with all interested parties, engaging fully the devolved administrations, and advise me on the arrangements and an appropriate timescale for the introduction of PQA.
Finally, Professor Schwartz has asked that I initiate a further review of admissions after three years as a means to assess progress in implementing his group's recommendations. I accept that it would be sensible to follow up this initial review and that three years will allow time for some of the more immediate benefits to have been realised and for appropriate action to be under way to secure the longer term ones. I shall commission the further review in due course.
Oil and Gas Licensing
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Sainsbury of Turville): My honourable friend the Minister for Energy and E-Commerce, Mike O'Brien, has made the following Ministerial Statement.
I am pleased to inform the House that as a result of the 22nd offshore and 12th onshore oil and gas licensing rounds, I am today offering 97 offshore licences (58 of them under "Promote" terms, seven under "Frontier" terms and 32 under the "Traditional" terms) and 26 petroleum and development licences for the onshore area. The companies will have a fixed period in which to accept the offers made.
This is a very good result and demonstrates the keen interest still being shown in exploiting the United Kingdom's hydrocarbon resources.
A list of the successful companies in the rounds can be viewed on the DTI website at http://www.dti.gov.uk.
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Community Interest Companies: Regulation
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My right honourable friend the Minister for Industry and the Regions, Jacqui Smith, has made the following Ministerial Statement.
To assist discussion of the Companies (Audit, Investigations and Community Enterprise) Bill in Standing Committee, it may be helpful if I outline how the Government intend the powers of the new regulator of community interest companies (CICs), created by Clause 24 of the Bill, to interact with those of other regulators in particular sectors of activity, and in particular the regulators of registered social landlords (RSLs).
The consultation paper on CICs which the Government published last year said that the CIC regulator,
"will work with other companies' regulators, and with any sectoral regulators with relevant competences, to ensure that there is a single interface between CICs and their stakeholders on one hand, and regulators on the other". 1
The consultation confirmed that this is the right approach, and that simplicity of regulation is highly valued by social enterprises. The single most important step in achieving it is to integrate the new regulator with Companies House. The CIC regulator will therefore be located in Companies House, and the processes for setting up a CIC and making annual community interest company reports will be linked to the equivalent processes for all companies.
The consultation paper referred to "sectoral regulators with relevant competences" because CICs potentially have a wide range of uses. Some CICs may therefore operate in sectors that are already subject to legal and regulatory constraints in matters such as the use of assets. In such cases, the Government are determined that overlapping regulation should be avoided. We have already identified one sector where work is necessary to achieve this. Registered social landlords, or RSLs, are subject to statutory constraints on the use of their assets, and on their activities, under housing legislation. The RSL sector is regulated in England by the Housing Corporation, in Scotland by Communities Scotland, and in Wales by the Housing Directorate of the National Assembly for Wales.
RSLs currently use a variety of legal forms, and we believe that some may be interested in becoming CICs, or in establishing CIC subsidiaries. The Government are particularly mindful of the need to avoid complicating the regulation of RSLs that choose to use the CIC form, in the light of a recent report on the Housing Corporation by this House's Committee on Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions, which stressed the need to streamline the regulation of RSLs and to avoid duplication.
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We intend to achieve this streamlining for RSLs using the CIC form, by making orders under the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, to enable the CIC regulator to delegate relevant powers to the appropriate RSL regulators in England and Wales. The orders will be subject to affirmative resolution in both Houses of Parliament. The position is rather different in Scotland because of the devolution settlement, and we are in discussion with the Scottish Executive and Communities Scotland about the appropriate way to arrange the delegation of powers.
The detail of which powers should be delegated to the RSL regulators is being discussed by the Government, the RSL regulators and the devolved administrations. The principle will be that the CIC regulator should delegate those powers that duplicate or overlap with those of the RSL regulators. Regulatory action in respect of RSLs using the CIC form will then normally be the responsibility of the relevant RSL regulator, using either their powers under housing legislation or the powers delegated to them by the CIC regulator.
The real value of delegating powers in this way is that it will allow the RSL regulators to take the clear lead in regulating RSL CICs. Those CICs can then be confident that the relevant RSL regulator in England, Scotland or Wales is the key body with which they must deal, in respect of their obligations both as RSLs and as CICs. Delegated powers will be exercisable concurrently by the CIC regulator and the sectoral bodies but we expect that the CIC regulator will only have a limited "backroom" role in respect of RSLs using the CIC form, for instance in agreeing their registration as CICs. Clause 39 of this Bill allows the CIC regulator to use his supervisory powers only to the extent necessary to maintain confidence in CICs, and it will not normally be appropriate for him to act where he has delegated those powers to a sectoral regulator.
1 Enterprise for Communities: proposals for a Community Interest Company, para 46, published March 2003, available at www.dti.gov.uk/cics.
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