The Higher Education Bill

I am pleased to report that the Higher Education Bill has been introduced to Parliament today.

The Higher Education Bill, which covers both England and Wales, is the first step in devolving the student support and tuition fee regime to the Assembly.

The Bill will transfer certain functions from the Department for Education and Skills to the Assembly, which will enable the Assembly to take a whole-system view of higher education in Wales.  As a result, we will have full control over the levers necessary to build on our strategy to develop Wales’s learning and research capacity.  We have already made great progress- these transferred powers can help us go further.

Broadly, the Bill will allow us to set our own student support and tuition fee regime.  It will allow us to fulfil our manifesto commitment not to introduce variable fees in the lifetime of this Assembly.  It will enable us to encourage higher education institutions in the good work that they have been undertaking to broaden access to higher education.  It will also allow us to encourage other activities- research and development and third sector growth, for example.

I am delighted that in introducing the Higher Education Bill Charles Clarke, Secretary of State for Education and Skills, has in effect signalled the introduction of ALG in England.  In announcing an uplift of the new Higher Education Grant from £1000 to £1500 from 2006, and abandoning up-front fees, the UK Government has taken on board the key recommendations of Professor Teresa Rees’s investigation into student hardship in Wales and acknowledged the success of the Assembly Learning Grant.

The Bill will give us the flexibility to review student support and tuition fee policy. After the Bill has received Royal Assent, Professor Teresa Rees will look at the full range of devolved powers and suggest how best they can fit the needs of the sector in Wales.

The Bill also contains England and Wales provisions which encourage research in the arts and humanities, strengthens and clarifies student complaints procedures and reduces bureaucracy.

Broadly, these provisions are:

• the creation of a UK-wide Arts and Humanities Research Council, to operate across the UK, in the same way as the other research councils;
• the creation of an Office of the Independent Adjudicator, a statutory underpinning for the voluntary independent adjudicator for student complaints, restricting the visitor’s scope to take decisions in this area;
• the sharing of information, both electronically and on paper, with other government bodies and external organisations, with the consent of the person to whom that information relates, in order to simplify student support arrangements, and arrangements in other Government and HE bodies.

The National Assembly can take great satisfaction with what appears on the face of the Bill.  This has been achieved through close and productive working arrangements with the Wales Office and Department for Education and Skills.  The Bill, and the way it has been produced, is indicative that devolution is working, and will help us in creating a distinctive system student support that fits the needs of Wales.

Hard copies of the Bill, together with the Explanatory Notes will be made available through the Members’ Research Service as soon as they are received.


The full text of the HE Bill is available at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/pabills.htm