Dear Colleague,
The Higher Education and Research Bill is about to finish its passage through the House of Lords, with Third Reading taking place on Tuesday 4 April. There have been a number of amendments to the Bill in the Lords and so it will need to return to the Commons for approval. To note it is expected that this won’t take place until the Commons returns from Recess on Tuesday 18 April but we will update you as soon as the date is confirmed.
The last couple of months have been busy for the sector with the Bill coming into the final stages, but despite this the group has continued its good work - work which is supported so well by all our members. For those of you that may have missed some of our recent outputs I’ve listed a few below that you may like to read or share with colleagues:
- a meeting note from our discussion on the Industrial Strategy,
- an excellent blog on the TEF by Professor Mark Smith,
- a note of our most recent meeting on social mobility,
- a blog from Baroness Tyler of Enfield about getting disadvantaged students into the top professions, and
- reports shared by our speaker Nik Miller, Director of the Bridge Group on employability and diversity in the civil service fast-stream.
I’m also happy to share that today the group has published its second issue paper, “The Higher Education Sector and Brexit”, this time hearing from three political parties on three important issues – student recruitment, staff recruitment and research - for higher education following the Prime Minister’s triggering of Article 50 on Wednesday. The paper was written by myself, Alison Thewliss, Scottish National Party MP for Glasgow Central, and Flick Drummond, Conservative MP for Portsmouth South. I hope that our parliamentary members will use this as a short briefing in upcoming debates and discussions as it covers some of the important issues that will be of concern to our universities throughout the negotiation period.
Our next meeting is taking place on Wednesday 10 May and will look at degree apprenticeships and future skills, this will be following a visit, open to all parliamentary members of the group, to London South Bank University to discuss their degree apprenticeships programme first hand. I do hope that many of you will be able to join us.
Roberta Blackman-Woods MP
Chair, All-Party Parliamentary University Group