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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

The debate so far has made many good and important points, eloquently supported. I refer, in particular, to the proposals for amendment from my noble friend Lord Dearing, which I support wholeheartedly. They all refer to questions of the brand and standards. That is critical for any innovation that we bring in, and this is a major innovation. That said, I support the intention to increase the flexibility and variety in the provision of foundation degrees. The more flexible and innovative we can be, within a structured system, the better it will be for the community at large. I hope I can say, without being offensive to anyone, that I have heard some of these arguments before. The last time they came around was when degree-awarding powers were offered to what were then called polytechnics, so there is a question in my mind about how far the doom being predicted will eventually materialise. If we get the provisions right—and that is the spirit of many of the amendments being put forward today—that need not be the case. There can be flexibility and positive innovation, rather than doom and limiting the brand. I want to refer to a matter that I raised at Second Reading. I did not want to table amendments at this stage, but the matter to which I spoke principally concerned standards and, by implication, the brand. The Bill gives an assurance on the kind of advice that the Privy Council would receive if it made a decision to give degree-awarding powers to a further education college. The advice, however, would be almost wholly concerned with capabilities and potential process. It would be to do with facilities and staffing levels. Inevitably, it could not be a matter of what standards would be operated in the degrees in question, because they have not yet been offered. That is why it is essential that there is a provision in the Bill to ensure that some form of external assessment of the standards operated when these degrees are being offered and awarded is built into the system. I stress ““external assessment”” for all sorts of good reasons. I shall not go into them in detail, but they have to do with temptations to slip and slide and be on the edge of the famous slippery slope that it seems we are always on. One of the ways that could be done, and I simply instance this, would be by taking due account of proposed Amendment No. 52, which sensibly suggests that there should be an annual report—perhaps that would be too prescriptive in due course, but initially I think annual would be right—on the standards of the foundation degrees awarded. If the amendment were accepted, one way to deal with my point would be that the standards in the report should include reference to the nature and quality of the external assessment of those degrees. That is a critical element of retaining the brand, and the acceptability of the brand, of British degrees in an international circuit where we are in deep competition, particularly with other English-speaking countries. I rest my point at this stage. I may well come back on Report with an amendment, unless there is some clear movement to include reference in the Bill to the external assessment of standards.