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A Y E A R I N P E R S P E C T I V E

2015 / 2016

©2016 WESTMINSTER PUBLICATIONS www.theparliamentaryreview.co.uk

HIGHER & FURTHER EDUCATION EDITION

F O R E W O R D S

Th e Rt Hon Philip Hammond MPDr Wendy Piatt

R E P R E S E N T A T I V E S

Brunel University

Canterbury Christ Church University

University of Sunderland

Stratford-upon-Avon College

F E A T U R E S

Review of the YearReview of Parliament

1FOREWORD | 1

Foreword

This Government is clear that a strong economy is the essential prerequisite to delivering prosperity and improved life chances for all, building a Britain that truly works for everyone, not a few.

Since 2010, we have made significant progress. Britain has been one of the fastest growing advanced economies in the world over the last few years; our employment rate has reached record highs as living standards rose to the highest level ever last year. At the same time, the deficit as a share of GDP has been cut by almost two-thirds from its post-war peak in 2009–10.

While the decision to leave the European Union marks the beginning of a new chapter for our country and our economy, we start from a position of strength and our economy is well-placed to confront the challenges ahead.

Britain will, in due course, begin negotiations to leave the European Union. We recognise there may be some uncertainty as we negotiate and then a period of adjustment as the economy transitions to the post-EU reality. As we go forward, we are determined to build on our strengths as an open, dynamic, trading nation to forge a new global role for Britain.

We are determined to make a success of Brexit and have seen some positive developments with large companies such as Siemens and Lockheed Martin confirming that the UK remains an attractive place for them to invest.

This is all good to see but we cannot be complacent. At the same time as we seek the best possible trade

arrangements with our European neighbours, we must also redouble our efforts to promote trade with the rest of the world. Since the referendum we have seen a number of countries indicating their wish to agree trade deals with the UK, and I’m certain the list will continue to grow.

People can be assured that we are prepared to take the necessary steps to safeguard the economy in the short term and to take advantage of the opportunities that arise in the longer term as we forge a new relationship with the European Union.

The message we take to the world is this: we are the same outward-looking, globally-minded, big-thinking country we have always been – and we remain very firmly open for business.

As we go forward, we are determined to build on our strengths as an open, dynamic, trading nation to forge a new global role for Britain

“ “Th e Rt Hon Philip HammondChancellor of the Exchequer

| FOREWORD2

Foreword

Dr Wendy PiattDirector General of the Russell Group

The UK’s leading universities are envied across the world

and key to the country’s prosperity.

We provide an outstanding education for students

which is enhanced by first-rate facilities and delivered

by world-class academics. The research that these

academics conduct is pioneering, helping to cure

diseases, improve our society and drive innovation.

Russell Group universities are proud to challenge

students, instilling the independence and rigour of

thought that is vital to producing graduates of the

highest standard – which means they are in high

demand by employers. However, we are far from

complacent, continuing to invest millions improving

teaching and learning, while ensuring our doors are

wide open to talented students from all backgrounds.

Huge progress has already been made with increasing

numbers of disadvantaged students coming through our

doors but we will continue investing heavily to ensure

those with the right grades in the right subjects know a

place is well within reach.

The combination of teaching, research and innovation

excellence in our universities creates the ideal learning

environment to produce work-ready students. That

mission will remain unchanged but institutions are now

being challenged to do more.

We will soon have more detail about the Teaching

Excellence Framework which must reflect the huge

amount of time, effort and resources devoted to

improving the student experience at our universities.

The new system must also assess teaching quality fairly

and accurately without adding to the regulatory burden.

This year’s review reflects upon an uncertain time for universities. Innumerable policy announcements and reviews will significantly reshape the sector, not least the Higher Education and Research Bill, which introduces the Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation.

Overshadowing all this is the decision to leave the European Union which may have a profound effect on universities as well as wider society. Our institutions have long thrived on global collaboration, leading networks of the best researchers across Europe tackling big social and scientific challenges.

The prospect of leaving the EU opens up many questions about how this will continue. What are the long-term prospects for free movement of people, particularly the talented staff and students at our universities? How can we continue to maximise access to research funding, infrastructures and collaboration opportunities?

The economic outlook for the UK is uncertain and we worry about further belt-tightening in key areas of government investment. A long-term commitment to science, research and innovation, focused on excellence, will pay dividends in providing stability for the future and real economic and social impact. We will work with the Government to ensure the best possible outcome for our universities, staff and students in forthcoming negotiations but we must continue to emphasise that we remain just as open and welcoming as we were before the referendum. In terms of our global outlook, nothing has changed.

Despite these challenges we are determined to remain at the forefront of global higher education, punching above our weight and maintaining our edge in an increasingly competitive world.

Review of the Year

Brexit is likely to have profound implications for almost all areas of British life but the political earthquake that shook the country in June was no more keenly felt than in higher education, which reacted with dismay to the shock Leave result.

Indeed, no sector was more united in its opposition to quitting the European Union, with more than 100 vice-chancellors signing multiple letters to warn about the disastrous impact of Brexit on higher education. Hundreds of scientists, academics and students also added their voices to the Remain campaign.

But their pleas to the British electorate were of no avail.

Indeed, many felt they were far too easily dismissed. Brexiteer-in-chief, Michael Gove, sniffed that ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’ and later compared economists warning about Brexit to scientists wheeled out by the Nazis to discredit Einstein.

With an estimated nine out of ten academics voting for Remain, many university staff stated that they had never felt so disconnected with their community as in the days after Brexit.

So what does a post-Brexit Britain hold for higher education?

Universities are still analysing the financial impact, but it is unlikely to be positive – with many senior figures warning that some universities, such as Cambridge, could lose up to £100m a year following the result. Several institutions had their credit rating downgraded amid fears that they may find it harder to attract higher-paying international students in the wake of the UK’s historic break from the EU.

The loss of non-UK EU students, who represent 6.4% of full-time undergraduates and 11.6% of master’s students, would also be another blow to university balance sheets.

However, the most seismic shock could be in research where the UK receives about £1.2bn a year from the EU, as well as gaining unfettered access to international networks of researchers.

Within weeks of the result numerous scientists had reported their application for EU research funding had been thrown into doubt as ‘risky’ British institutions were shunned by their once-welcoming continental research partners.

‘We are basically in limbo so this ”don’t know” puts fear into everyone, so they don’t want to risk it,’ said Ilaria Bellantuono, Professor in the University of Sheffield’s Department of Human

Over 100 UK Vice-Chancellors signed an open letter to warn about the impact of leaving the EU

Brexit

3REVIEW OF THE YEAR | 3

Review of the Year

Brexit is likely to have profound implications for almost all areas of British life but the political earthquake that shook the country in June was no more keenly felt than in higher education, which reacted with dismay to the shock Leave result.

Indeed, no sector was more united in its opposition to quitting the European Union, with more than 100 vice-chancellors signing multiple letters to warn about the disastrous impact of Brexit on higher education. Hundreds of scientists, academics and students also added their voices to the Remain campaign.

But their pleas to the British electorate were of no avail.

Indeed, many felt they were far too easily dismissed. Brexiteer-in-chief, Michael Gove, sniffed that ‘people in this country have had enough of experts’ and later compared economists warning about Brexit to scientists wheeled out by the Nazis to discredit Einstein.

With an estimated nine out of ten academics voting for Remain, many university staff stated that they had never felt so disconnected with their community as in the days after Brexit.

So what does a post-Brexit Britain hold for higher education?

Universities are still analysing the financial impact, but it is unlikely to be positive – with many senior figures warning that some universities, such as Cambridge, could lose up to £100m a year following the result. Several institutions had their credit rating downgraded amid fears that they may find it harder to attract higher-paying international students in the wake of the UK’s historic break from the EU.

The loss of non-UK EU students, who represent 6.4% of full-time undergraduates and 11.6% of master’s students, would also be another blow to university balance sheets.

However, the most seismic shock could be in research where the UK receives about £1.2bn a year from the EU, as well as gaining unfettered access to international networks of researchers.

Within weeks of the result numerous scientists had reported their application for EU research funding had been thrown into doubt as ‘risky’ British institutions were shunned by their once-welcoming continental research partners.

‘We are basically in limbo so this ”don’t know” puts fear into everyone, so they don’t want to risk it,’ said Ilaria Bellantuono, Professor in the University of Sheffield’s Department of Human

Over 100 UK Vice-Chancellors signed an open letter to warn about the impact of leaving the EU

Brexit

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Review of the Year

4 | REVIEW OF THE YEAR

In her address to conference she said

‘I know too well the price of terrorism,

the consequences of racism and

oppression’; Bouattia is the leading

figure in the Students Not Suspects

campaign against the Government’s

Prevent anti-extremism agenda.

However, her ascendancy to the NUS

presidency role was too much for

many student leaders, who viewed her

radical left-wing politics – including

her repeated support for boycotts of

Israel – as dangerously out-of-step with

mainstream student opinion.

‘NUS has really hit the rocks,’ said Wes

Streeting, a Labour MP and former

NUS President.

‘I struggle to see how she and now

the majority of the NUS executive

can reasonably claim to represent

mainstream students across the

country,’ he added.

Her election was a ‘gift to the

Conservatives’ as it would allow them

to ‘marginalise student opinion’ on key

issues such as bursaries and student

loans, Streeting added.

In the following few weeks, several

universities held ballots on whether

to disaffiliate from the NUS. The

Universities of Warwick, Exeter, Surrey

and Essex voted to stay with the NUS,

while students at the Universities of

Lincoln, Loughborough, Hull and

Newcastle voted to leave – departures

likely to hurt the union financially.

However, the embarrassment of

losing Oxbridge was averted when the

Universities of Oxford and Cambridge

voted in favour of staying with

the union.

Bouattia – who is also the first Muslim

President of the NUS – had kept a low

profile prior to taking office in July but

she is now the high-profile leader of

a movement which many believe is

fighting not just for students but for

the organisation’s very future.

Did the most important moment in higher education take place on the very first day of the academic year?

While policy wonks, education hacks and universities debate the impact

of Brexit, the White Paper and plans

for a Teaching Excellence Framework

(TEF), many believe the really radical

transformation in English higher

education is already well underway.

Some believe the lifting of student

number controls, begun in 2012 and

completed this year, will have a deeper

impact on universities than anything

announced by ministers this year.

The complete removal of student

number controls, which allows

universities to admit as many students

as they wish, saw several clear winners

and losers.

Aston University highlights how the

policy can transform an institution,

nearly doubling its UK/European

Student number controls lifted

Aston University has nearly doubled student numbers in four years

Metabolism, commenting on two

submitted bids for Horizon 2020 cash.

‘Leaving the EU risks losing more than

half of our research income, many of

our best researchers and students and

crucial opportunities for collaboration

and exercising leadership and influence

in the world,’ said Tim Blackman, Vice-

Chancellor at Middlesex University.

Jo Johnson, the fiercely pro-Remain

Universities and Science Minister, has

tried to reassure UK researchers, saying

that ‘in legal terms … nothing has yet

changed’ and that it was ‘business as

usual for Horizon 2020’.

However, it seems fairly certain that

the result has already caused lasting

damage to higher education – with the

tremors from Brexit likely to shake the

sector for many years to come.

Moments before she was elected as

the National Union of Students’ first

black women president, Malia Bouattia

described how her family had fled civil

war to come to the UK when she was

a child.

‘My dad was almost killed when

a bomb was planted in his lecture

theatre,’ the 28-year-old Birmingham

University graduate told the NUS’s

annual conference in Brighton in

late April.

‘Just one week earlier I sat petrified

under my desk as terrorists rained

gunfire on our teachers,’ recalled Ms

Bouattia when asked why her parents

had left everything behind in Algeria

when she was seven.

Bouattia’s moving personal story was

almost entirely overlooked in the furore

that followed her surprise victory over

sitting President Megan Dunn – the

first time in living memory that an NUS

president has been unseated.

Within minutes of her election,

the left-wing activist was facing an

unprecedented challenge to her

leadership from both within the union

and outside it over allegedly anti-

semitic remarks made as far back

as 2011.

In a blog post written in 2011,

Bouattia had described her alma

mater Birmingham as ‘something of

a Zionist outpost’ in student politics,

while Jewish student groups were also

incensed by comments made in 2016

when she appeared to back violent

Palestinian resistance to Israeli forces.

Controversy also raged after she failed

to support an NUS motion condemning

ISIS, a story covered by The Sun

under the headline ‘Looniversity’.

Bouattia said she was simply worried

by the Islamophobic wording of the

document, issuing her own clear

opposition to the radical Islamic group

and vehemently denying accusations of

anti-semitism.

Malia Bouattia

Malia Bouattia, President of NUS

Overseas students in UK universities

5REVIEW OF THE YEAR |

HIGHER & FURTHER EDUCATION

In her address to conference she said

‘I know too well the price of terrorism,

the consequences of racism and

oppression’; Bouattia is the leading

figure in the Students Not Suspects

campaign against the Government’s

Prevent anti-extremism agenda.

However, her ascendancy to the NUS

presidency role was too much for

many student leaders, who viewed her

radical left-wing politics – including

her repeated support for boycotts of

Israel – as dangerously out-of-step with

mainstream student opinion.

‘NUS has really hit the rocks,’ said Wes

Streeting, a Labour MP and former

NUS President.

‘I struggle to see how she and now

the majority of the NUS executive

can reasonably claim to represent

mainstream students across the

country,’ he added.

Her election was a ‘gift to the

Conservatives’ as it would allow them

to ‘marginalise student opinion’ on key

issues such as bursaries and student

loans, Streeting added.

In the following few weeks, several

universities held ballots on whether

to disaffiliate from the NUS. The

Universities of Warwick, Exeter, Surrey

and Essex voted to stay with the NUS,

while students at the Universities of

Lincoln, Loughborough, Hull and

Newcastle voted to leave – departures

likely to hurt the union financially.

However, the embarrassment of

losing Oxbridge was averted when the

Universities of Oxford and Cambridge

voted in favour of staying with

the union.

Bouattia – who is also the first Muslim

President of the NUS – had kept a low

profile prior to taking office in July but

she is now the high-profile leader of

a movement which many believe is

fighting not just for students but for

the organisation’s very future.

Did the most important moment in higher education take place on the very first day of the academic year?

While policy wonks, education hacks and universities debate the impact

of Brexit, the White Paper and plans

for a Teaching Excellence Framework

(TEF), many believe the really radical

transformation in English higher

education is already well underway.

Some believe the lifting of student

number controls, begun in 2012 and

completed this year, will have a deeper

impact on universities than anything

announced by ministers this year.

The complete removal of student

number controls, which allows

universities to admit as many students

as they wish, saw several clear winners

and losers.

Aston University highlights how the

policy can transform an institution,

nearly doubling its UK/European

Student number controls lifted

Aston University has nearly doubled student numbers in four years


Review of the Year


It remains a small statue above the entrance to the Rhodes building of Oriel College Oxford but the four-feet-high slab of limestone depicting Cecil Rhodes – imperialist, mining magnate and one-time student – took on huge significance, sparking a nationwide row over free speech, liberal thought and the very soul of the modern-day university.

The furore over the statue appeared fairly limited at the start of the academic year. Emulating protests seen at South African universities, a small number of left-wing activists had demanded Oriel remove the monument to its 19th-century benefactor.

But the call was not to be easily dismissed. The #RhodesMustFall hashtag refused to disappear as student activists took to the streets to ask Oriel, Oxford and other universities to examine more widely their colonial heritage and what this means to today’s black students.

‘It’s a reminder, more than being a statue, that when this university was built it wasn’t built with us in mind it was built off the back of

exploiting labour and the colonial

project,’ said Oxford student Annie

Teriba, a prominent Rhodes Must

Fall campaigner.

‘There’s a violence to having to walk

past the statue every day on the

way to your lectures - that’s really

problematic,’ she added.

Others felt differently. Only a few

weeks after taking office in January,

Oxford’s new Vice-Chancellor,

Louise Richardson, said it should not

be removed, as did the university’s

Chancellor, Chris Patten.

Protestors must be prepared to embrace

freedom of thought or ‘think about

being educated elsewhere,’ said the

former Conservative Party Chairman.

These students were not abiding by the

values of a liberal, open society that

‘tolerates freedom of speech across

the board,’ he added. Lord Patten

was, in turn, accused of trying to shut

down debate by those who felt their

direct action had finally forced the

complacent establishment to confront

aspects of its murky past.

Rhodes Must Fall, ‘safe’ spaces and censorship on campus

of the Social Market Foundation, who

was lead civil servant on the 2010

Browne Review of Higher Education of

fees and funding. He said ‘the lifting

of student number controls is the most

significant change working its way

through the sector’.

‘The TEF scores may help to inform

student choice but the key change was

to make that choice effective in the

first place.’

So what will the final outcomes be

from lifting student number controls?

Will universities that continue

to see their intake dramatically

shrink ultimately face dire financial

consequences? What will the future

look like for universities traditionally

seen as widening participation? In

future years, will some traditionally

selective universities become anything

but as they widen their intakes?

These are questions that may take

years to answer but the early signs

are that the policy could prove truly

transformative.

The statue of Cecil Rhodes on the façade of Oriel College, Oxford

Union student acceptance numbers in

four years.

Meanwhile, London Metropolitan

University has seen its numbers halve

– precipitating academic job losses,

campus closures and a fundamental

rejig of institutional operations.

The University of Liverpool, Queen

Mary University of London, the

University of Nottingham and the

University of Warwick – all Russell

Group members – capitalised on

the scrapping of number controls to

expand their intakes by more than

10% compared with 2014.

On the other side of the coin, Kingston

University had the biggest fall in

the number of acceptances (down

12%), though it has ‘focused on

recruiting fewer, but higher quality,

potential students’ by raising its entry

requirements, it said. London Met saw

the second biggest fall in acceptances

which were down by 11% in 2015.

‘There’s no denying that the removal of

the student number controls has had

an impact on post-92 universities, with

many of our “competitor” institutions

in London having experienced a similar

drop in applications,’ a London Met

spokesman said.

Indeed, many see the policy as rigged

to benefit older institutions, with

three out of the five biggest risers in

student intake since 2011 being from

the Russell Group, while three out

of the five biggest fallers are post-92

universities.

‘The early moves to deregulate

numbers undoubtedly favoured

universities which trade on historic

reputation as high-tariff universities,’

said Pam Tatlow, Chief Executive of

Million+, which represents post-1992

universities.

‘Universities that advertise as high

tariff have frequently deflated

grade requirements at the point of

acceptance,’ she said, adding that

this may be ‘rational behaviour in a

deregulated market but it does not

necessarily produce the best outcomes

for students or taxpayers’.

Some, however, may see this as

positive because it may improve

social mobility if more students have

the chance to attend higher-status

institutions.

On the flipside, enabling the likes

of Bristol and Exeter to hoover up

students from other universities

perceived as less prestigious has

created financial instability in well-run

institutions, leading to job uncertainty

for staff and even redundancies. Wild

swings in student intakes – or steep

year-on-year declines – could see

expensively-built halls of residences sit

empty, whereas rapid student growth

would see overcrowded classrooms

and accommodation shortages,

experts warn.

However, some argue that students are

the biggest winners from the changes

as it gives them unprecedented choice.

‘Student choice wasn’t properly

effective until student number controls

came off,’ said Emran Mian, Director

London Metropolitan University has seen its numbers halve



It remains a small statue above the entrance to the Rhodes building of Oriel College Oxford but the four-feet-high slab of limestone depicting Cecil Rhodes – imperialist, mining magnate and one-time student – took on huge significance, sparking a nationwide row over free speech, liberal thought and the very soul of the modern-day university.

The furore over the statue appeared fairly limited at the start of the academic year. Emulating protests seen at South African universities, a small number of left-wing activists had demanded Oriel remove the monument to its 19th-century benefactor.

But the call was not to be easily dismissed. The #RhodesMustFall hashtag refused to disappear as student activists took to the streets to ask Oriel, Oxford and other universities to examine more widely their colonial heritage and what this means to today’s black students.

‘It’s a reminder, more than being a statue, that when this university was built it wasn’t built with us in mind it was built off the back of

exploiting labour and the colonial

project,’ said Oxford student Annie

Teriba, a prominent Rhodes Must

Fall campaigner.

‘There’s a violence to having to walk

past the statue every day on the

way to your lectures - that’s really

problematic,’ she added.

Others felt differently. Only a few

weeks after taking office in January,

Oxford’s new Vice-Chancellor,

Louise Richardson, said it should not

be removed, as did the university’s

Chancellor, Chris Patten.

Protestors must be prepared to embrace

freedom of thought or ‘think about

being educated elsewhere,’ said the

former Conservative Party Chairman.

These students were not abiding by the

values of a liberal, open society that

‘tolerates freedom of speech across

the board,’ he added. Lord Patten

was, in turn, accused of trying to shut

down debate by those who felt their

direct action had finally forced the

complacent establishment to confront

aspects of its murky past.

Rhodes Must Fall, ‘safe’ spaces and censorship on campus

of the Social Market Foundation, who

was lead civil servant on the 2010

Browne Review of Higher Education of

fees and funding. He said ‘the lifting

of student number controls is the most

significant change working its way

through the sector’.

‘The TEF scores may help to inform

student choice but the key change was

to make that choice effective in the

first place.’

So what will the final outcomes be

from lifting student number controls?

Will universities that continue

to see their intake dramatically

shrink ultimately face dire financial

consequences? What will the future

look like for universities traditionally

seen as widening participation? In

future years, will some traditionally

selective universities become anything

but as they widen their intakes?

These are questions that may take

years to answer but the early signs

are that the policy could prove truly

transformative.

The statue of Cecil Rhodes on the façade of Oriel College, Oxford


Review of the Year


An unusual Downing Street press

release took the university sector by

surprise in late September.

Having worked hard to comply with

new rules on checking external

speakers, universities may have

expected some praise for rolling

out the unpopular Prevent counter-

extremism agenda which took effect

that month.

Instead, the statement from Prime

Minister, David Cameron, read as

an unprecedented attack on several

institutions that came completely out

of the blue.

Citing ‘at least 70 events featuring hate

speakers’ at universities last year, it

accused four universities – Queen Mary

University of London; SOAS, University

of London; King’s College London; and

Kingston University – of welcoming the

most speakers known to express ‘views

contrary to British values’.

The four London universities were

quickly dubbed ‘havens for Islamic

fanatics’ or ‘hotbeds’ for extremists by

news outlets, though all institutions

denied they had hosted any

radical speakers.

Those few individuals named as

guest speakers may have uttered

controversial views on previous

occasions but all the talks were

vetted and stewarded to ensure they

remained on topics unrelated to

extremist thought, universities said.

These included Islamic finance and the

history of Congo, they added.

None of the institutions had been

asked to respond to the accusations,

which were later found to be largely

based on a recent report by Student

Rights, part of the Henry Jackson

Society think tank which monitors

campus talks to see if alleged

extremist speakers are given an

unopposed platform.

The attack on the various universities

was labelled a ‘cheap political point’

by Kingston Vice-Chancellor, Julius

Weinberg, who feared the episode

may harm free speech by causing

universities to self-censor.

‘If the Government wants to be

honest, let us have a formal list of

proscribed speakers, rather than

issuing these criticisms of vice-

chancellors,’ he said.

Professor Weinberg said that he

had ‘deliberately invited’ former

Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam

Begg – Outreach Director of the

controversial Muslim rights group

CAGE – to take part in a Kingston

debate because he believed that it was

‘very dangerous to start picking and

choosing who to let speak’.

Counter-terrorism, free speech and universities

The catalogue of different cultures at the library, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Moazzam Begg, former Guantanamo Bay detainee

Having intimated it may be open

to taking down the divisive statue

in December, Oriel announced in

January that it would stay due to

‘overwhelming support’ for keeping it.

Yet critics accused the college of moral

cowardice and caving into donors who

had threatened to withdraw gifts to

Oriel of up to £100m.

Controversy, however, failed to die

down even after the Rhodes Must Fall

decision was taken. Other institutions

took steps to remove items that might

incite anger, such as a brass cockerel

looted from the sack of Benin City that

had made its way to Jesus College

Cambridge’s dining hall.

The banning of offensive objects –

and then speakers – led to growing

unease about intolerance on campus,

in which so-called ‘safe spaces’ prohibit

the debate of transgressive or even

different views to the liberal consensus.

Even liberal lefties weighed in against

this apparent mania for banning

anyone with even mildly provocative

views after facing efforts to ban them

from campus events.

Gay activist Peter Tatchell, feminist

journalists Suzanne Moore and Julie

Bindel and academics Germaine

Greer and Mary Beard found

themselves either banned or vilified

by student union activists over their

alleged transphobia.

Bindel, whose view that transgendered

women are not authentic women

has attracted much hostility, said the

campus bans she faced amounted to an

‘individualistic, neoliberal narcissism’.

Others to face bans include Iranian-

Marxist Maryam Namazie, a former

Muslim, who was blackballed from

addressing students at Warwick

University on the grounds she was

Islamophobic.

Student union leaders suggest the ‘no platform’ controversy is exaggerated. Most talks, such as Greer’s, have gone ahead but why should they welcome speakers with repellent views likely to upset or antagonise already marginalised groups?

Others have grown weary of what they see as overly-pious students trying to cocoon themselves away from the realities of robust debate – the very essence of a university education, many believe.

‘Why are these kids so terrified of opinions that may diverge from their own,’ wrote Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times in March.

‘What sort of education are they getting if the only stuff they are allowed to hear is stuff that conforms to their half-baked and constricted agenda?’ he added.

1919 photogravure of Oriel College, Oxford after the completion of the Rhodes Building (in the foreground)



An unusual Downing Street press

release took the university sector by

surprise in late September.

Having worked hard to comply with

new rules on checking external

speakers, universities may have

expected some praise for rolling

out the unpopular Prevent counter-

extremism agenda which took effect

that month.

Instead, the statement from Prime

Minister, David Cameron, read as

an unprecedented attack on several

institutions that came completely out

of the blue.

Citing ‘at least 70 events featuring hate

speakers’ at universities last year, it

accused four universities – Queen Mary

University of London; SOAS, University

of London; King’s College London; and

Kingston University – of welcoming the

most speakers known to express ‘views

contrary to British values’.

The four London universities were

quickly dubbed ‘havens for Islamic

fanatics’ or ‘hotbeds’ for extremists by

news outlets, though all institutions

denied they had hosted any

radical speakers.

Those few individuals named as

guest speakers may have uttered

controversial views on previous

occasions but all the talks were

vetted and stewarded to ensure they

remained on topics unrelated to

extremist thought, universities said.

These included Islamic finance and the

history of Congo, they added.

None of the institutions had been

asked to respond to the accusations,

which were later found to be largely

based on a recent report by Student

Rights, part of the Henry Jackson

Society think tank which monitors

campus talks to see if alleged

extremist speakers are given an

unopposed platform.

The attack on the various universities

was labelled a ‘cheap political point’

by Kingston Vice-Chancellor, Julius

Weinberg, who feared the episode

may harm free speech by causing

universities to self-censor.

‘If the Government wants to be

honest, let us have a formal list of

proscribed speakers, rather than

issuing these criticisms of vice-

chancellors,’ he said.

Professor Weinberg said that he

had ‘deliberately invited’ former

Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam

Begg – Outreach Director of the

controversial Muslim rights group

CAGE – to take part in a Kingston

debate because he believed that it was

‘very dangerous to start picking and

choosing who to let speak’.

Counter-terrorism, free speech and universities

The catalogue of different cultures at the library, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Moazzam Begg, former Guantanamo Bay detainee


Review of the Year


Innovation, with the Government

basing its case for this change

on the recommendations made

by Sir Paul Nurse’s Review of the

Research Councils.

The bill was likely to meet with

‘substantial opposition’ and may

not make it through the House of

Commons in its current form, one vice-

chancellor predicted.

Aldwyn Cooper, Vice-Chancellor of

private, non-profit Regent’s University

London, said he believed that ‘certainly

there will be substantial opposition in

the [House of] Lords’ to opening the

sector to new providers.

Professor Cooper, Chair of the

Independent Universities Group,

argued that his concerns about

dramatically increasing the number

of private and for-profit providers

entering the sector will be ‘shared by

a number of Conservative MPs’ as ‘an

awful lot of them went to fairly top

universities’. The plans to drop the

minimum student numbers required to

gain university title (the current level is

1,000) was unlikely to make it to the

White Paper, he added.

‘You’ll end up with an institution that

specialises in Latvian basket-weaving

and with 50 students getting university

title,’ he added. ‘It would be patently,

and internationally, absurd.’

Gordon Marsden, the Shadow Higher

Education, Further Education and

Skills Minister, claimed the moves to

allow new providers degree-awarding

powers from day one could potentially

be ‘very dangerous’.

‘Students would in effect be taking a

gamble on probationary degrees from

probationary providers. Who picks up

the pieces if it all goes wrong?’ wrote

the former academic.

Others warned the plans before

Parliament ‘spell the end of university

self-regulation in the UK’.

With OfS set to introduce a scheme to

give ratings to English higher education

providers regarding the quality of,

and standards applied to, the higher

education that they provide, the sector

would lose its crucial role in policing

its own standards, warned Geoffrey

Alderman, Professor of History at the

University of Buckingham.

Without the ability to set, apply

and police its own standards,

the ‘cornerstone of the academic

autonomy enjoyed by the British higher

education sector’ would be lost, said

Professor Alderman.

While some wonder if the bill will

reappear any time soon in the post-

Brexit political shake-up, Mr Johnson’s

radical plans were arguably the main

talking point of the academic year.

How do you measure and reward

outstanding university teaching?

That question has dogged higher

education for years amid claims that

many undergraduates who pay tuition

fees of £9,000 a year do not get value

for money from academics who are

more interested in furthering their own

research.

The publication of the Green Paper

in November 2015, with plans to

incentivise top teaching, finally set

out how ministers intend to tackle

this issue.

Teaching Excellence Framework

Gordon Marsden, MP for Blackpool South and Shadow Higher Education, Further Education and Skills Minister

There was more than one Johnson

brother with grand ambitions in 2016.

Prior to the former London Mayor’s

ill-fated post-Brexit bid to become

Prime Minister, his brother, Jo

Johnson, had unveiled a bold set of

proposals in mid-May to improve

university teaching and widen

student choice.

In the Higher Education White Paper,

whose ideas were confirmed in the

2016 Queen’s Speech, Johnson laid

out plans for a new powerful Office

for Students (OfS), which would have

wide-ranging powers over all English

institutions.

Taking a larger remit than the Higher Education Funding Council for England, it would seize the role of the Office for Fair Access, gain degree-awarding powers and assume responsibility for awarding university titles from the Privy Council.

The creation of the all-powerful new body was viewed by many as a way to encourage new private providers to enter the sector to compete with established universities, with Facebook and Google mentioned as providers of possible ‘challenger’ institutions.

The bill would also bring together the seven research councils under a new body called UK Research and

Higher Education White Paper

‘If we stop people speaking in

universities they will still speak and will

be heard, but not in a place where we

can have that clash of ideas that brings

forth truth,’ he said.

Beyond the new rules on external

speakers, many also questioned

whether Prevent had a chilling effect

on free discussion in the classroom.

Some academics claimed Muslim

students felt unfairly targeted and

unable to speak openly as they feared

they would be reported to authorities

as a potential radical.

Pushing legitimate debate away from

campuses was ‘profoundly dangerous’

because controversial views could not

be challenged in the same way as they

can during open forums at universities,

claimed Sir Vince Cable, former

Business Secretary, at a talk in London

in October on the rules in the new

Counter Terrorism and Security Act.

‘Prevent started with good intentions

– it was a genuine wish to deal with

the roots of a problem,’ he explained

but had ‘morphed’ into something

that is ‘heavy-handed and prescriptive,’

he added.

Sir Ken Macdonald, former Director

of Public Prosecutions, went further,

calling the new rules to help identify

potential extremists as an ‘obnoxious’

way to ‘limit speech which is not

otherwise criminal’.

‘Universities and students are being

complicit in trying to limit free speech

which is not otherwise criminal and

would not lead to an act of violence,’

he said.

David Cameron’s reference to

universities’ ‘duty to protect

impressionable young minds’ suggests

that he thinks differently.

Of course, no university staff want

to see students dragged into violent

radicalism but many are starting to

ask if the Prevent duties might make

matters worse.

Jo Johnson MP for Orpington and Minister of State for Universities and Science



Innovation, with the Government

basing its case for this change

on the recommendations made

by Sir Paul Nurse’s Review of the

Research Councils.

The bill was likely to meet with

‘substantial opposition’ and may

not make it through the House of

Commons in its current form, one vice-

chancellor predicted.

Aldwyn Cooper, Vice-Chancellor of

private, non-profit Regent’s University

London, said he believed that ‘certainly

there will be substantial opposition in

the [House of] Lords’ to opening the

sector to new providers.

Professor Cooper, Chair of the

Independent Universities Group,

argued that his concerns about

dramatically increasing the number

of private and for-profit providers

entering the sector will be ‘shared by

a number of Conservative MPs’ as ‘an

awful lot of them went to fairly top

universities’. The plans to drop the

minimum student numbers required to

gain university title (the current level is

1,000) was unlikely to make it to the

White Paper, he added.

‘You’ll end up with an institution that

specialises in Latvian basket-weaving

and with 50 students getting university

title,’ he added. ‘It would be patently,

and internationally, absurd.’

Gordon Marsden, the Shadow Higher

Education, Further Education and

Skills Minister, claimed the moves to

allow new providers degree-awarding

powers from day one could potentially

be ‘very dangerous’.

‘Students would in effect be taking a

gamble on probationary degrees from

probationary providers. Who picks up

the pieces if it all goes wrong?’ wrote

the former academic.

Others warned the plans before

Parliament ‘spell the end of university

self-regulation in the UK’.

With OfS set to introduce a scheme to

give ratings to English higher education

providers regarding the quality of,

and standards applied to, the higher

education that they provide, the sector

would lose its crucial role in policing

its own standards, warned Geoffrey

Alderman, Professor of History at the

University of Buckingham.

Without the ability to set, apply

and police its own standards,

the ‘cornerstone of the academic

autonomy enjoyed by the British higher

education sector’ would be lost, said

Professor Alderman.

While some wonder if the bill will

reappear any time soon in the post-

Brexit political shake-up, Mr Johnson’s

radical plans were arguably the main

talking point of the academic year.

How do you measure and reward

outstanding university teaching?

That question has dogged higher

education for years amid claims that

many undergraduates who pay tuition

fees of £9,000 a year do not get value

for money from academics who are

more interested in furthering their own

research.

The publication of the Green Paper

in November 2015, with plans to

incentivise top teaching, finally set

out how ministers intend to tackle

this issue.

Teaching Excellence Framework

Gordon Marsden, MP for Blackpool South and Shadow Higher Education, Further Education and Skills Minister


Review of the Year


Described as a ‘game changer’ for

further education, the apprenticeship

levy was the undoubted centrepiece in

the Chancellor of Exchequer’s Autumn

Statement 2015.

Thanks to the 0.5% levy on the payrolls

of large businesses, up to £3bn a year

is expected to be raised each year to

fund three million apprenticeships,

George Osborne announced in

November 2015.

The new ‘payroll tax’ for those with a

wage bill of more than £3m would be

a big cost for many companies, some

businesses complained.

‘You only need to have 100 to 150

staff on minimum wage, so quite a

few small firms will be caught by this,’

said Carolyn Fairbairn, the Director

General of the Confederation of British

Industry.

However, the levy was widely praised

by educators as a bold move that will

significantly improve vocational training

– an area starved of cash for many

years, college heads claim.

‘Who would’ve thought we’d have

a Conservative majority government

and one of the first things they do

is introduce the socialist principle of

a levy?’ said Martin Dunford, Chief

Executive Officer, Skills Training UK Ltd.

Martin Doel, Chief Executive of the

Association of Colleges, agreed calling

it a ‘brave decision’.

‘It is right that employers make a

contribution to the costs of training

the national workforce as they benefit

Apprenticeship levy

was the highest-ranked Russell Group

institution, while the University

of Oxford was 28th, seven places

below its neighbour, Oxford Brookes

University. The University of Bristol

was 87th and two other institutions,

the London School of Economics and

King’s College London were 81st

and 83rd respectively. Russell Group Director General, Wendy Piatt, said it was wrong to attach any weight to the modelling because it would take time to develop ‘robust and credible’ measures of teaching quality.

While the uncertainty over Brexit threatens to derail much of Jo Johnson’s legislative plans, many believe the TEF is vital, if only to solve the funding crisis of universities who have seen the real value of £9,000 fees gradually eroded since 2012.

‘There are quite high stakes in this for Jo Johnson,’ said Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute. ‘If he manages to get a bill that’s a great political achievement in his first ministerial post … If he fails – he has set quite a lot of store by this,’ he added, saying the higher education legislation would ‘inevitably’ be needed at some point.

Students of Cambridge University punting on the river after exams

Under the plans, later confirmed in the White Paper in May, institutions found to offer good teaching would be allowed to raise fees in line with inflation from 2017–18.

Three or four different award levels in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) would then result in a different fee cap, probably from September 2019 onwards, which would see fees ‘increasingly differentiate according to the TEF level awarded’, paving the way for the truly differential fees found in the US.

Some sector figures worried if it will be worth the candle of the regulatory burden if they can only raise fees in line with inflation, while others were concerned about the very tight timeframe to find adequate metrics to measure teaching quality.

In its Green Paper response, Universities UK said that multiple fee caps would be ‘disproportionate, burdensome and counterproductive’ and the ‘complex

challenge’ of finding the right metrics

for a 2017–18 rise would be difficult.

Those fears were undoubtedly

heightened when Times Higher Education (THE) published a mock

version of TEF based on the three

metric areas set to inform the

assessment: retention, graduate

employment and student satisfaction.

This analysis suggests the TEF could

radically reshape the hierarchy of

UK higher education, with small

campus universities and post-92s

outperforming many of the elite

Russell Group.

Top performers included

Loughborough and Aston Universities,

with modern institutions such as De

Montfort and Coventry Universities

also achieving highly alongside

smaller research-intensive universities,

including Swansea and Kent.

The University of Cambridge, 12th out

of 120 institutions in THE’s modelling,

Three or four different award levels in the Teaching Excellence Framework would result in a different fee cap



Described as a ‘game changer’ for

further education, the apprenticeship

levy was the undoubted centrepiece in

the Chancellor of Exchequer’s Autumn

Statement 2015.

Thanks to the 0.5% levy on the payrolls

of large businesses, up to £3bn a year

is expected to be raised each year to

fund three million apprenticeships,

George Osborne announced in

November 2015.

The new ‘payroll tax’ for those with a

wage bill of more than £3m would be

a big cost for many companies, some

businesses complained.

‘You only need to have 100 to 150

staff on minimum wage, so quite a

few small firms will be caught by this,’

said Carolyn Fairbairn, the Director

General of the Confederation of British

Industry.

However, the levy was widely praised

by educators as a bold move that will

significantly improve vocational training

– an area starved of cash for many

years, college heads claim.

‘Who would’ve thought we’d have

a Conservative majority government

and one of the first things they do

is introduce the socialist principle of

a levy?’ said Martin Dunford, Chief

Executive Officer, Skills Training UK Ltd.

Martin Doel, Chief Executive of the

Association of Colleges, agreed calling

it a ‘brave decision’.

‘It is right that employers make a

contribution to the costs of training

the national workforce as they benefit

Apprenticeship levy

was the highest-ranked Russell Group

institution, while the University

of Oxford was 28th, seven places

below its neighbour, Oxford Brookes

University. The University of Bristol

was 87th and two other institutions,

the London School of Economics and

King’s College London were 81st

and 83rd respectively. Russell Group Director General, Wendy Piatt, said it was wrong to attach any weight to the modelling because it would take time to develop ‘robust and credible’ measures of teaching quality.

While the uncertainty over Brexit threatens to derail much of Jo Johnson’s legislative plans, many believe the TEF is vital, if only to solve the funding crisis of universities who have seen the real value of £9,000 fees gradually eroded since 2012.

‘There are quite high stakes in this for Jo Johnson,’ said Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute. ‘If he manages to get a bill that’s a great political achievement in his first ministerial post … If he fails – he has set quite a lot of store by this,’ he added, saying the higher education legislation would ‘inevitably’ be needed at some point.

Students of Cambridge University punting on the river after exams


Review of the Year


Having endured several grim years of severe cuts, further education seemed relatively pleased with its Spending Review settlement.

With some predicting the post-election Budget would spell the end of adult skills funding, further education was reasonably reassured to see ‘core adult skills participation budgets in cash terms, at £1.5bn’.

‘We will not, as many predicted, cut core adult skills funding for further education colleges – we will instead protect it in cash terms,’ said George Osborne when Chancellor.

‘We will maintain the current national base rate of funding for our 16 to 19-year-old students for the whole parliament,’ he added.

The spending review would be a ‘huge relief for further education and sixth form colleges following five years of stringent budget cuts,’ said Martin Doel, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges.

However, the sector was not entirely spared. The adult skills budget has been asked to find efficiencies and savings of £360m by 2019–20, with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills quango likely to face the axe.

Tuition fee loans will be available to FE learners aged 19 and over, the Chancellor also announced.

The Government would ‘for the first time, provide tuition fee loans for those studying higher skills in further education,’ Mr Osborne told MPs in his November Autumn Statement. Currently loans are only available to 24+ learners.

Documents published alongside the statement explain that FE loans will be expanded to 19- to 23-year-olds studying at levels 3 and 4, as well as to those aged 19 and over at level 5 and 6.

Further education cash protected in spending review

The former Skills Minister, Nick Boles,

steadfastly insisted that the Government

was sticking to its planned timetable.

‘The levy will be coming in April 2017,

and we will be fixing Britain’s skills

problems,’ he told MPs in June.

However, all the official rhetoric

suggests that the April 2017 levy

launch is set in stone, even if time

is running out for employers and

providers desperate for concrete

details with which to work.

While there may be rising anxiety levels

about the levy, many within further

education are keen to salute the truly

radical policy proposed by Mr Osborne.

George Osborne announced core funding for 16-19 year-olds and adult skills would be protected

from apprenticeships in terms of

increased productivity among their

employees and from access to a more

skilled labour market,’ he added.

‘Levies are one way in which this can

be achieved and they are already in use

in many other countries,’ he added,

citing the 62 countries that have

similar schemes.

Professor Baroness Alison Wolf, a long-

term campaigner for an apprenticeship

levy, also praised the radical new

policy, which would ‘provide more

money, allow spending decisions to be

controlled by employers and ensure that

all employers are directly involved with

the apprenticeship system, even if they

do not currently employ an apprentice’.

‘I think it’s entirely justified as a

way of creating the institutions that

apprenticeships need,’ said the King’s

College academic, adding that it was

‘common in countries with good

apprenticeships systems’.

‘I couldn’t see where the money was

coming from otherwise,’ she explained,

saying the ‘hypothecated tax’ was

needed instead of the ‘patchy method

of getting bits of money from here and

there that we have now’.

‘That’s no way to create a stable long-

term apprenticeships system,’ she said.

‘It’s a huge reform to raise the skills

of the nation and address one of the

enduring weaknesses of the British

economy,’ Osborne had explained as

he laid out his plans.

The ‘radical, long overdue’ new approach

to apprenticeship funding was needed

because too many large companies had

‘left training to others’, he added.

The levy will support all post-16

apprenticeships in England and will

provide funding that each employer

can use to meet their individual needs,

the Government explained.

Funding will be directly controlled by employers via the digital apprenticeships voucher, and firms that are committed to training will be able to get back more than they put in, it added.

Was the introduction date of April 2017 too ambitious? Introducing large-scale government IT systems is notoriously fraught with difficulties, often leading to delays. Do employers have enough time to work out how the levy works and what they will get back from it?

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers called for the launch to be postponed to allow ‘sufficient time to implement this effectively’, while manufacturers’ organisation EEF said a September 2017 introduction would at least be needed to avert what it describes as a ‘looming car crash’.

Martin Doel, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges

The levy will help to ensure people of all ages and backgrounds have a chance to get on in life



Having endured several grim years of severe cuts, further education seemed relatively pleased with its Spending Review settlement.

With some predicting the post-election Budget would spell the end of adult skills funding, further education was reasonably reassured to see ‘core adult skills participation budgets in cash terms, at £1.5bn’.

‘We will not, as many predicted, cut core adult skills funding for further education colleges – we will instead protect it in cash terms,’ said George Osborne when Chancellor.

‘We will maintain the current national base rate of funding for our 16 to 19-year-old students for the whole parliament,’ he added.

The spending review would be a ‘huge relief for further education and sixth form colleges following five years of stringent budget cuts,’ said Martin Doel, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges.

However, the sector was not entirely spared. The adult skills budget has been asked to find efficiencies and savings of £360m by 2019–20, with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills quango likely to face the axe.

Tuition fee loans will be available to FE learners aged 19 and over, the Chancellor also announced.

The Government would ‘for the first time, provide tuition fee loans for those studying higher skills in further education,’ Mr Osborne told MPs in his November Autumn Statement. Currently loans are only available to 24+ learners.

Documents published alongside the statement explain that FE loans will be expanded to 19- to 23-year-olds studying at levels 3 and 4, as well as to those aged 19 and over at level 5 and 6.

Further education cash protected in spending review

The former Skills Minister, Nick Boles,

steadfastly insisted that the Government

was sticking to its planned timetable.

‘The levy will be coming in April 2017,

and we will be fixing Britain’s skills

problems,’ he told MPs in June.

However, all the official rhetoric

suggests that the April 2017 levy

launch is set in stone, even if time

is running out for employers and

providers desperate for concrete

details with which to work.

While there may be rising anxiety levels

about the levy, many within further

education are keen to salute the truly

radical policy proposed by Mr Osborne.

George Osborne announced core funding for 16-19 year-olds and adult skills would be protected


Review of the Year


That claim was rejected by Mr Osborne

who explained that ‘in the last

parliament, we more than doubled the

number of apprentices to two million

[and] by 2020, we want to see three

million apprentices’.

‘As a result, we will be spending

twice as much on apprenticeships by

2020 compared to when we came

to office.’

Mr Osborne also announced changes

to sixth form college rules as part of

what he called the ‘schools revolution’.

‘And I can announce that we will let sixth

form colleges become academies too –

so they no longer have to pay VAT.’

He also said the Government was

planning to open 500 new free schools

and university technical colleges (UTCs).

Another year and another major

overhaul of post-16 vocational

education is announced.

Just two years after reforms to

eliminate ‘low-level courses’ came into

effect, a review led by Lord Sainsbury

introduced new plans for even more

radical changes to technical education.

Based on the findings of an

independent panel led by the Labour

peer, the wide-ranging reforms,

announced by the Department for

Education and the Department for

Business, Innovation and Skills, will

see the abolition of the ‘current

outdated system of more than 20,000

courses provided by 160 different

organisations’�. Instead, students will

have to choose whether to take an

academic or technical pathway after

their GCSEs.

Under the latter, they can opt for

either a two-year, college-based

programme (including compulsory

work experience), or an employment-

based programme – most likely

an apprenticeship. After this, they

can progress to higher technical

education, a degree apprenticeship or

a higher apprenticeship.

The ‘high-quality routes, with the

content for those streamlined routes

and standards developed and respected

by employers,’ will be made available

for students who sit their GCSEs in

2019, said Skills Minister, Nick Boles.

As part of the plans, there will be

a single set of ‘exit requirements’

of minimum standards in Maths

and English for both college- and

work-based provision. Each college

student will be required to complete

a ‘high-quality, structured work

placement’ and complete a logbook

to demonstrate what tasks they

have undertaken and what they

have learned.

Lord Sainsbury’s review of technical education

Lord Sainsbury, Chancellor of Cambridge University

Expanding further education loans

was to ‘provide a clear route for

learners to develop high-level technical

and professional skills,’ according to

the ‘blue book’, which outlines the

spending plans in more detail.

‘This will benefit an estimated 40,000

students a year. The Government will

also consult on introducing maintenance

loans for people who attend specialist,

higher-level providers, including

National Colleges,’ the document adds.

Martin Doel, Chief Executive of

the Association of Colleges, said

enabling 19-year-olds to access

further education loans would

‘provide additional support for this

vital training’. David Hughes, Chief

Executive of lifelong-learning charity

NIACE, warned that extending

eligibility to younger learners and

higher-level learning ‘could easily

exacerbate market failures in the 24+

advanced learning loan system’.

‘This change makes it even more

important for government and

providers to work together to make

the loans system much more flexible

and provide better information to

learners,’ he said.

Shakira Martin, the National Union of

Students’ Vice-President for Further

Education, believed the move was

‘nothing to celebrate’.

‘If a student is capable of achieving

a level 3 qualification but hasn’t for

whatever reason been able to do so

between 16 and 18, then that student

has been let down,’ she said.

‘They shouldn’t be penalised by having

to take out a university-style loan to

cover the cost of a qualification so

many of us take for granted.

‘Government rhetoric suggests they

want to improve access to education,

but this clearly goes against that

promise’ she said.

FE loans were expanded to 19- to 23-year-olds studying at levels 3 and 4



That claim was rejected by Mr Osborne

who explained that ‘in the last

parliament, we more than doubled the

number of apprentices to two million

[and] by 2020, we want to see three

million apprentices’.

‘As a result, we will be spending

twice as much on apprenticeships by

2020 compared to when we came

to office.’

Mr Osborne also announced changes

to sixth form college rules as part of

what he called the ‘schools revolution’.

‘And I can announce that we will let sixth

form colleges become academies too –

so they no longer have to pay VAT.’

He also said the Government was

planning to open 500 new free schools

and university technical colleges (UTCs).

Another year and another major

overhaul of post-16 vocational

education is announced.

Just two years after reforms to

eliminate ‘low-level courses’ came into

effect, a review led by Lord Sainsbury

introduced new plans for even more

radical changes to technical education.

Based on the findings of an

independent panel led by the Labour

peer, the wide-ranging reforms,

announced by the Department for

Education and the Department for

Business, Innovation and Skills, will

see the abolition of the ‘current

outdated system of more than 20,000

courses provided by 160 different

organisations’�. Instead, students will

have to choose whether to take an

academic or technical pathway after

their GCSEs.

Under the latter, they can opt for

either a two-year, college-based

programme (including compulsory

work experience), or an employment-

based programme – most likely

an apprenticeship. After this, they

can progress to higher technical

education, a degree apprenticeship or

a higher apprenticeship.

The ‘high-quality routes, with the

content for those streamlined routes

and standards developed and respected

by employers,’ will be made available

for students who sit their GCSEs in

2019, said Skills Minister, Nick Boles.

As part of the plans, there will be

a single set of ‘exit requirements’

of minimum standards in Maths

and English for both college- and

work-based provision. Each college

student will be required to complete

a ‘high-quality, structured work

placement’ and complete a logbook

to demonstrate what tasks they

have undertaken and what they

have learned.

Lord Sainsbury’s review of technical education

Lord Sainsbury, Chancellor of Cambridge University


Review of the Year


‘International comparisons suggest the UK performs relatively well when it comes to graduate-level and higher skills,’ said Lord Sainsbury, the billionaire Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

‘But at the sub-degree, skilled technician level our performance is appalling,’ added the former Science Minister, saying ‘the simple truth is that today we do not have the highly-skilled technician workforce that we need’.

‘High-quality work placements must be part of every technical qualification, as they are in other countries, with the Government contributing to the cost of these placements for young people in recognition of the critical role they play in developing transferable skills which employers value,’ he added.

‘Our proposals, I believe, provide an opportunity to reverse a hundred-year failure of our educational system, a prize surely worth fighting to achieve,’ he explained.

However, widening the division between vocation pathways and academic qualifications raised fears of an education dividing wall at the age of 16, according to the Social Market Foundation.

‘There is a risk that these reforms could reverse the trend of pupils taking a combination of courses rather than choosing a solely academic or technical route, with only less-able pupils choosing technical courses in future’ the Foundation’s Director, Emran Mian, said.

Gordon Marsden, the Shadow Minister for Further Education and Skills, said the Sainsbury report was detailed and thoughtful but the 2019 timetable was ‘wildly optimistic’.

‘The Government’s get-out clause – that they will only be able to

implement all proposals unequivocally, [and] only where that is possible within current budget restraints – must raise questions about whether they will be unable to honour the thrust of the Sainsbury review,’ Marsden said.

Neil Carberry, the CBI’s Director for Employment and Skills, said the proposals would mean making changes to the employers’ apprenticeship levy, the 0.5% tax on company payrolls announced by George Osborne last year.

‘Real progress on this agenda will also require an effective apprenticeship system,’ Carberry said. ‘The design of the proposed levy system needs a radical rethink as business concern and uncertainty around the policy grows with each passing week.’

Marcus Mason, Policy Manager for Employment and Skills at the British Chambers of Commerce, said the streamlined routes would bring clarity to a system that often confused both employers and students. ‘However, previous reforms have often been hampered by continuous revolution and change, rather than allowing policies time to take hold,’ he warned regarding the latest radical shake-up.

Continuing technical education

19BRUNEL UNIVERSITY LONDON | 19


FACTS ABOUT BRUNEL UNIVERSITY LONDON

» Vice-Chancellor and President: Julia Buckingham

» 94% of students employed or in further education six months after graduating

» More than 13,500 students, 3,000 of whom are overseas students from 110 countries

» Just under 2,000 professional and academic staff

» £400 million invested in the campus in the past decade, with a further £200m earmarked for the next five to seven years

» Research income has doubled in the past decade

It is exactly 50 years since Brunel University London was granted its Royal Charter, transforming it from a technical college to a university. In that time, Brunel has increased

its student intake from just 866 to around 13,500 and now boasts degree programmes in everything from anthropology to aerospace engineering, and business to healthcare sciences.

The university has a huge role to play in creating global citizens, which means giving students the confidence to look beyond local interests and understand the nature of the challenges facing the world.

At the heart of this aspiration are Brunel’s 3,000 international students, who not only enrich a diverse, socially-mobile community by bringing a global dimension to the campus, they also make a significant financial contribution to the university. Without these students, Brunel might not be able to include such a broad range of courses, particularly at master’s level.

The university’s research portfolio, too, has developed beyond expectation – it receives the 33rd largest share of Hefce research funding in the UK and is well-established as a top 40 institution for research.

However, though much has changed at Brunel and in the wider Higher Education sector in the past 50 years, the university has never strayed far from the vision with which it was established in 1966. Its fundamental job was to support Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s ‘technological revolution’, helping the UK compete with the rest of the world where it was believed education was better geared to meet the needs of industry. At the same time Brunel’s founders wanted to make sure that students were ready for the world of work – and able to hit the ground running.

Brunel University London

Students are given a hands-on education in programmes tailor-made for industry

More than 90 per cent of Brunel students are in employment or further education within six months of graduating


Highlighting best practice

20 | BRUNEL UNIVERSITY LONDON

In 2016, Brunel’s ambition remains

strikingly similar – to develop a critical

mass of research informed by the needs

of industry; to deliver novel postgraduate

programmes tailor-made for industry

and not-for-profit organisations

such as the NHS; and to ensure that

undergraduate students are given a

rounded education, making sure they

learn the academic knowledge and skills

associated with their programme and

the necessary ‘personal skills’ required to

become a success out in the real world.

Ensuring that graduates can step

effortlessly out of education and into

employment, and have the tools to

become a success in their careers, has

always been key to Brunel’s offer.

In the 1960s, the university’s unique

four-year sandwich courses ensured

every student had the opportunity

to spend a placement year with an

employer – and the offer, though

now more flexible, remains today,

giving undergraduates the real-world

experience that employers demand.

These standards are more important than ever and services such as Brunel’s Professional Development Centre lead the charge. The centre’s mission is to further improve future employability by helping place students in work experience, giving careers advice, and creating opportunities through mentoring opportunities and events

to engage with the very employers they may someday work alongside. Equally important, as roles in academia, industry and the not-for-profit sector become more diverse and more collaborative, students need to attain transferable skills. These can include teamwork, leadership and interpersonal skills, even time management – all of which are central to the university’s development programmes.

Students are also encouraged to have an international perspective to study abroad, and modern language courses are available in everything from Chinese to Arabic to fulfil the requirements of multinational companies that increasingly value language skills and cultural understanding.

With a renewed focus on university teaching and on the eve of the Government’s new Teaching Excellence Framework, Brunel’s model couldn’t be more relevant. The Higher Education sector is being encouraged to be more responsive to students’ needs, which means seeking ever new ways of not only giving students the knowledge they require but also the faculties to apply that knowledge once they graduate. Moreover, as technology develops and roles change, Higher Education needs to adopt a 21st Century approach to skills development.

Brunel’s focus on its place within the local community has also developed over the years. A recent report showed that the university contributes more than £200 million GVA to the local economy, and £500 million GVA to the London economy, every year. Considered an anchor institution, Brunel supports more than 2,500 jobs in the London borough within which it is situated, and more than 5,000 jobs in the capital overall.

Events, from public lectures to the student showcase Brunel Festival, aim to develop relationships with the public, while an annual fireworks night regularly brings in more than 5,000 local people from the region.

As technology develops and roles change, Higher Education needs to adopt a 21st Century approach to skills development

“

“Undergraduates can study modules in directing, playwriting, digital performance and music theatre

21


BRUNEL UNIVERSITY LONDON |

Critical to Brunel’s success is its research portfolio. Today this research is world-leading, contributing to highly-cited papers and a substantial grant income – in fact, research investment coming into the university has doubled in the past decade.

This is more than in part due to the Brunel style of research. Staff and students have, from the very beginning, understood the relevance of their academic activities to the wider world and research programmes are developed in partnership with the potential beneficiaries – society and industry:

» Research to reduce the amount of metal mined from the ground by finding ways to make high-quality parts from recyclable metals has brought more than £114 million into the institution in the past 18 months and established national scale-up facility, the Advanced Metal Casting Centre, jointly funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, HEFCE, Innovate UK and industry leaders such as Constellium and Jaguar Land Rover.

» A Brunel-led partnership with engineering research organisation The Welding Institute, and university collaborators, has resulted in the National Structural Integrity Research Centre, committed to providing up-to-date engineering and materials research on a national scale. The purpose-built centre houses more than 100 postgraduate taught and research students at a time.

» More than a decade of work focusing on energy efficiency in the UK’s food retail chain resulted in the establishment of the National Centre for Sustainable Energy Use in Food Chains at Brunel. The centre has established a cross-disciplinary hub of engineers, social scientists and industry experts to develop energy-efficient food manufacturing, distribution and retail systems to support a targeted 80 per cent reduction in CO

2 emissions by 2050.

» Increasingly, knowledge transfer

from academia to the wider

economy drives research and

innovation, something that has been

demonstrated on an international

scale by researchers who have

used air hybrid prototypes fitted

to bus engines in China to cut fuel

consumption by up to 10 per cent

a year. The technology has been

adopted by China’s largest bus

manufacturer Yuchai.

» Ground-breaking research into

exposure of people and wildlife to

chemicals in their environment has

changed government attitudes and

policy globally. From revealing the

link between chemicals in rivers and

the reproductive health of marine life,

to identifying the potentially harmful

cumulative effects of chemicals

in food and water, the research

was central to the Institute for the

Environment being awarded the

Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher

and Further Education in 2011.

As the national research agenda

continues to evolve, Brunel is dedicated

to investing its time in finding solutions

to real-world challenges like these.

That is why in 2014 the university

adopted a structure of interdisciplinary

research institutes alongside its college

structure. Focusing on three institutes

of energy futures; environment, health

and societies; and materials and

manufacturing this structure establishes

cross-disciplinary research aimed

at producing truly world-changing

solutions in innovative ways.

But just as important is ensuring

that this advancement of knowledge

is reflected in teaching on campus

– giving students the opportunity

to learn from the people who are

finding solutions, and giving them the

knowledge and confidence to carry on

this good work once they graduate.

Brunel’s state-of-the-art Motorsport Centre enables study at one of the best university facilities in the UK

Design students regularly showcase their work before industry and the Higher Education sector



22 | CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY

REPORT CARD

» Chancellor: The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby

» Vice-Chancellor and Principal: Professor Rama Thirunamachandran

» 87% overall student satisfaction in the 2015 National Student Survey: above the national average

» Turnover: £125m

» Locations: Canterbury, Broadstairs, Medway and Tunbridge Wells

» Average age of student: 29

» Other EU and international students: 1,000

» Economic impact: £544m on the south east economy, helping to generate 4006 additional jobs outside the university in 2014/15

» www.canterbury.ac.uk

The UK has a dynamic higher education sector with a range of public, private, not-for-profit, and specialist providers. Although the balance of research and teaching differs

across the sector, both elements have the power to change the lives of individuals and local, national and international communities. Inspired by its Church of England Foundation, Canterbury Christ Church University has put transforming lives at the heart of its mission.

Christ Church has a vibrant learning community of 19,000 staff and students, with a diverse mix of full- and part-time, mature and young students. Its teaching and research are pushing boundaries with new discoveries and ideas for a sustainable and just society. Innovative projects and partnerships are delivering solutions to national and global challenges, from education and migration, to cybercrime, and improving the nation’s health and wellbeing through the arts.

Transforming lives

The university has a strong focus on widening participation and over the last two decades has set up campuses in areas where there is socio-economic deprivation, including Thanet and Medway, to promote access to higher education and skills in the local economy.

Its dedicated Outreach team is continually reaching out to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, with national research showing that 75% of its graduates from least advantaged backgrounds moved up a socio-economic group within six months of leaving the university1.

1 Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey 2012/13


Canterbury Christ Church University is one of just a handful of UK universities located in a World Heritage Site

95% of Christ Church’s most recent UK undergraduates were in employment or further study within six months of completing their studies

23


CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY |

The university is also part of the Kent

and Medway Progression Federation

(KMPF), working with local authorities,

40 schools, and two other universities to

raise the attainment and aspirations of

young people who may not otherwise

consider entering higher education.

Since 2007, the KMPF has worked with

more than 18,000 young people in

Kent and Medway.

Building a sustainable future

Christ Church has a proud history of responding to the ever changing needs of our public services. It offers accredited courses in policing, teaching, nursing, midwifery, social work and the allied health professions.

In response to the government’s pledge to have 1,000 physician associates working in the NHS by 2020, the university, in partnership with the University of Kent, is now offering a postgraduate diploma in physician associate studies. Physician associates will work under the supervision of senior doctors in hospitals and GP surgeries, diagnosing and managing common medical conditions. The university is the first in the south east, outside London, to offer such a programme.

Although Christ Church’s portfolio of courses go far beyond the public service professions, the ethos of public service is core to the university’s work and is a distinctive quality of a Christ Church education.

Christ Church aims to do more

than simply provide a high-quality

education for its students. The

university is committed to embedding

social and environmental sustainability

into all its programmes to ensure

that its students graduate with an

understanding of the challenges

facing society and our world, and

have the skills, commitment and

personal qualities needed to help

address them.

One example of this commitment is

the university’s Futures Initiative. Since

its launch in 2011, it has successfully

delivered over 50 projects, with

academics and students working in

partnership to integrate sustainability

and environmental perspectives into

their courses.

Enriching communities

As well as working in partnership with

its students to enhance their learning

experience, the university also works

with local, national and international

organisations to transform lives as far

away as Malawi, Palestine, Bangladesh

and Vietnam.

In January 2016, the university was

awarded nearly £900,000 to lead two

projects to improve teaching quality

in Palestine. The ultimate aim of the

projects is to improve the performance

and attainment of Palestinian school

children which remains below the

international average.

In Vietnam, the university has joined

with the charity Newborns Vietnam

to improve neonatal care and reduce

neonatal mortality. The university has

developed a bespoke neonatal nurse

training programme. The programme

supports improvements in neonatal

nursing care, contributes to enhanced

health outcomes for newborns, and

lays the foundation for creating a

national training programme for

neonatal nurses in Vietnam.

The university is committed to embedding social and environmental sustainability into all its programmes

“

“The university’s award-winning Augustine House Library and Student Services Centre



24 | CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY

Knowledge and innovation

Research at Christ Church is continually pushing boundaries and providing innovative solutions for change.

Nearly 90% of research submitted to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) was assessed as world-leading, internationally recognised, or internationally excellent. As a result, it achieved England’s fourth highest percentage increase in research funding. The university is proud of its REF success, but what really matters to Christ Church is that its research makes a positive impact on the lives of others.

The university’s innovative health research is improving lives locally, nationally and internationally. A major two-year study exploring barriers to HIV testing in Kent and Medway, where around half of those diagnosed as HIV positive are diagnosed a long time after infection, resulted in an 8% increase in testing in the region [EU Interreg IVA Channel Programme research project]. Early diagnosis and treatment are key to improving the health outcomes for those infected, as late diagnosis is one of the biggest contributing factors to illness and death for people with HIV.

For the last 10 years, the university’s

Sidney De Haan Research Centre

for Arts and Health has been

researching the value of music, and

other participative arts activities, in

promoting health and wellbeing.

The centre’s research has shown that

group singing has a positive impact on

people’s health, particularly those with

conditions such as Chronic Obstructive

Pulmonary Disease, Parkinson’s,

dementia and depression.

In the area of sciences, the university

has opened a new life sciences lab

at Discovery Park, Sandwich, which

enables the university’s staff and

students to work closely with industry

to undertake cutting-edge research.

Already the university is working

with industry partners to research

the use of tarantula venom in the

treatment of pancreatic cancer and

improvements in IVF success rates in

agricultural animals.

The university has also recently

launched its Institute of Medical

Sciences. The institute is pioneering

procedures using computer-assisted

robotics and stem cells to repair

joints and broken bones and is also

developing technology for 3D bio-

printers to grow tissues and organs.

Immigration, asylum and human

trafficking are high-profile topics.

In 2015, the university partnered

with Migrant Help to launch the UK

Institute for Migration Research.

The independent research institute

will provide a new source of asylum

data which can be used by service

providers, policy makers, and local

authorities.


has transformed itself in the half

century since it was established but,

at its heart, the belief in its power

to transform the lives of others has

remained a constant.

The university’s pioneering research is continually pushing boundaries and providing innovative solutions for change

25UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND | 25


REPORT CARD

» Established: 1901

» Chancellor: Steve Cram

» Vice-Chancellor: Shirley Atkinson

» Students: 20,000

» Educational facilities: Sunderland, London and with partners across the world

The University of Sunderland recently launched its new five-year strategic plan, unveiling a vision and ambitions that signal a new era for how progressive universities operate

in this ever-changing higher education landscape. The plan, entitled ‘we are the tomorrow makers’ received praise from Government, business, industry and the sector for its boldness.

The Strategic Plan 2016 – 2021 sets out six ambitions that ensure society is supported, the economy grows and our culture is enhanced, while also focussing on the wider global agenda.

The plan aims to:

» Raise aspirations and support learning for people from all backgrounds and at all stages of life;

» Create the knowledge, skills and learning that is work relevant, globally, in the 21st Century;

» Provide graduates that are adaptive creative thinkers, with the personal attributes to become leaders and tomorrow makers;

» Ensure its research and innovative practice has impact;

» Personalise each student experience and help students co-create their learning journey;

» Be a leading anchor institution in north east England, making significant social, economic and cultural contributions to its environment.

This all sits comfortably with Government, fitting in with its ambitions for social mobility, its focus on the skills and knowledge agenda, the importance it places on regional anchors and its global aspirations for ‘brand UK’.

University of Sunderland

Sciences: one of 10 areas carrying out world-leading research

Elite athletes are supported in CitySpace



26 | UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND

The platform for the delivery of the new strategic plan is on a firm foundation. Over the past year the university has received an outstanding report on the quality of its higher education provision from the Quality Assurance Agency; and returned its highest ever overall satisfaction rating in the National Student Survey. It also matched some of the best universities in the UK with its graduate employability rate, at 94% and is in the top five in the UK for delivering its programmes overseas. This performance led to the university achieving the highest rise of any UK university up the latest Guardian University league table.

Extensive consultation with a range of stakeholders has ensured that the Strategic Plan is relevant in a changing world, where flexibility, adaptability and innovation will be vital indicators of future success.

Two of the University’s ambitions in particular exemplify all three attributes and their success will have a significant impact on the economy over the next five years.

First, the University is confident that it will deliver graduates with the knowledge and skills tailored to the needs of business and industry, helping ensure the UK economy grows, and

is competitive globally. Second, it will provide the next generation of leaders and tomorrow makers. Key to achieving these ambitions will be constructive engagement with employers. This will help to develop a relevant, flexible and portable academic offer, which will be hugely beneficial to students and business and industry.

Interdisciplinary programmes and skills in leadership, design, enterprise, digital technologies and innovation will produce graduates who are adaptive, creative thinkers, capable of making the maximum contribution to societies and economies across the world.

The University of Sunderland is already in the advanced stages of this delivery. Its engagement with employers, both SME and blue-chip, is considerable and plans to increase and develop it further, especially round its six areas of key academic strength:

» Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering

» Health Sciences and Wellbeing

» Computing Software and Big Data

» Education and Society

» Business and Law

» Arts and the Creative Industries

Supporting these areas are experts from industry who sit on advisory boards, helping to shape the curriculum, while laying out the specific skill sets needed in each area.

Robin Elias, Managing Editor of ITV News, sits on the University’s Media Advisory Board. He says: “Along with other professionals, I support the University’s curriculum and the changing skills requirements in the industry. Employers need graduates who are work-ready, and through our support and particularly the University’s wide ranging work-integrated programmes that is exactly what employers are getting from Sunderland. I have no doubt this ambitious new plan will embed this work further.”

The University of Sunderland’s capacity to change, to be flexible, to understand the new circumstances and to alter what it does to suit that is really remarkable Baroness Morris of Yardley

“

“» A T A G L A N C E

» No 1 in the UK for widening access to higher education (Polar 1)

» 94% of graduates in work or further study within six months of graduating

» 10 areas of ‘world-leading’ research (Research Excellence Framework)

» 90% of research fed back into the curriculum

» 80% of alumni say their time at Sunderland has been life-changing

» Commended by the Quality Assurance Agency for enhancing student learning opportunities

» Top 20 in the world for quality of lectures, careers support and student advice (I graduate International Student Barometer)

» Top five in the UK for delivery of programmes overseas

» £500m GVA support per annum for UK economy, supporting 7,500 jobs

27


UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND |

The university is working with major

employers on tailor-made programmes

within these specialisms, as well as

across whole subject areas. Global

technology giant Accenture is working

with the university on programmes

specific to the needs of its business.

The university has joined up with

Accenture, and separately with

Japanese giant Hitachi, to create the

North-East of England’s first two

University Technology Colleges, in

Newcastle and Durham.

North East Futures UTC, will see the

university and Accenture support the

information technology and healthcare

sciences sector in the region, while UTC

South Durham, a three way partnership

between the university, Hitachi Rail

Europe and Gestamp Tallent, will tackle

the engineering skills shortage in the

region. Both are focused on providing

the next generation of experts to

ensure long-term sustainability

in these sectors.

Within the new Strategic Plan the

university will further enhance its

relationship with Nissan, which

views Sunderland as the ‘go to’

university. The university will build on

what it has delivered on workforce

development and the graduate supply

chain, while continuing to support

its operation through research and

innovative practice.

A key focus in the new plan is to

drive forward the enterprise and

innovation agenda in north-east

England. Enterprise and innovation

will feature throughout the university’s

programmes, as it develops the content

and platforms for the next generation

of creative thinkers and deliverers.

It aims to take up the challenge to

improve the culture of enterprise and

innovation in the region to match

the levels across the UK. It will do so

through its new Centre for Enterprise

and Innovation, which as well as acting as a gateway to expertise in the university, will nurture the development of graduate start-ups and help grow the region’s SMEs.

The expectation on universities to support economy, society and culture grows ever greater. This ambitious new strategic plan places the University of Sunderland in a position to meet, and maybe, even exceed that expectation.

For more information on the Strategic Plan visit: www.sunderland.ac.uk/strategicplan

The University of Sunderland has really grasped apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships in particular within the technology sector. The programmes it is delivering is helping employers enormously. In short, it understands what we need Bob Paton, Managing Director at Accenture’s North-East Delivery Centre

“

“

The University owned National Glass Centre



28 | STRATFORD-UPON-AVON COLLEGE

REPORT CARD

» Principal and Chief Executive: Nicola Mannock

» Chair of Governors: Lord Digby Jones

» Established: 1877

» 4,000 students

» Among the 35% of FE colleges judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in 2014/2015.

» One of only a few colleges nationally to report an operating surplus in 2014/2015.

» Famous alumni include bestselling writer and comedian Ben Elton and award-winning actor and screenwriter Simon Pegg.

» Former students’ notable achievements in 2015/2016: » three West End Awards nominations

» two National Television Award nominations

» one BBC’s Master Chef: The Professionals finalist

» one West End debut » one Royal Shakespeare Company debut

Located in its namesake town Stratford-upon-Avon College is a 140 year old institution best known for its successful performing arts alumni. Having failed to better a previous

‘requires improvement’ Ofsted grading in 2013 and facing a total debt of £1.2m the College began a process of radical organisational restructuring, together with significant professional development for teachers. Within two years the College had achieved an Ofsted inspection grade of ‘good’ and became one of a few colleges nationally to report an operating surplus in 2014/2015.

The Resurgence

In October 2013 the College received a ‘Requires improvement-3’ Ofsted grading; the same result that it had received only 18 months earlier. The report identified that ‘teaching was not sufficiently effective in helping learners to achieve their full potential’ agreeing with the College’s prior self-assessment report which warned that students were not ‘…stretched and challenged to achieve their full potential.’

Following Ofsted the FE Commissioner visited the College in May 2014 to investigate on behalf of The Minister of State and Skills who was concerned about the College’s recent receipt of a notice of inadequate financial health issued by the Skills Funding Agency. The FE Commissioner’s report concluded that the College’s governing body required ‘…significant change…’ and went on to question ‘…the long term viability of the college as an independent institution’ in light of the College’s then £1.2m total debt.

Stratford-upon-Avon College

From 1.2m deficit to financial surplus in 18 months Stratford-upon-Avon College aspires to financial robustness

New Chairman of Governors Lord Digby Jones has a keen interest in education and has frequently expressed support for vocational education

29


STRATFORD-UPON-AVON COLLEGE |

As a result of both Ofsted’s and the FE Commissioner’s reports the College undertook a radical restructuring process while simultaneously working to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. Inspectors returned to the College 18 months later, the FE Commissioner sooner after only 6.

In March 2015 Ofsted inspectors graded the college as ‘Good-2’ overall, with the areas of ‘quality of teaching, learning and assessment’ and ‘effectiveness leadership and management’ also sharing the same grading:

‘Leaders and managers have instigated a number of significant changes in a short space of time that have ensured teaching and learning are good, while also improving the financial stability of the college.’ Ofsted, 2015

The return of the FE Commissioner in October 2014 informed the following comment in his annual report: ‘…[the College] has succeeded in moving from a cash operating deficit to a surplus in 12 months’ while also recognising that ‘the corporation membership and College leadership team has changed substantially.’ Finally, in October 2015, the College received a letter from the Minister of State for Skills announcing the end of the intervention process while confirming that ‘…the college has fully addressed all the areas of concern…’.

The Journey

Within two months of the publication of the 2013 Ofsted inspection report the College appointed a new principal, Nicola Mannock, a former executive team member of Darlington College with proven experience in elevating curriculum and quality standards to grade 1.

While a recovery plan had been instituted earlier in 2013 it was clear that more radical action was required if the College was to survive as an

independent organisation. In total 40 full-time equivalent positions were lost from the College’s overall staff budget during the 6 month restructuring period beginning Q1 of 2014. A full half of the necessary £1.2m savings came in the form of voluntary redundancy, the other half compulsory. Further savings have been made by imposing radical changes to the management and effectiveness of the College’s non-pay budgets.

The College’s board of Governors saw substantial changes over the 2 year period reflecting the FE Commissioner’s recommendation for a majority of new members. The refreshed board counted among its number the CEO of the local authority, a senior manager from a nearby university, a head teacher of a local school, and more recently former CBI Director-General and business entrepreneur Lord Digby Jones.

‘It is both a privilege and an honour to be chairman of Stratford-upon-Avon College and although I have only been in post since December 2015, as a local resident I have witnessed the phenomenal resurgence of this College over the last two years.’ Lord Digby Jones

Learners leave with a wide range of skills that enhance their personal lives and work readiness

Away days were also organised to build cross departmental solidarity

“ “



30 | STRATFORD-UPON-AVON COLLEGE

To improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment a number of new initiatives were implemented:

» reform of the internal lesson observation and self-assessment process;

» a better planned and more rigorous staff development programme;

» strengthening of teacher expectations in relation to students’ conduct and presentation;

» implementation of the ‘Stratford Standard’ – a codified set of minimum standards designed to elevate and improve the consistency of teaching and learning across the curriculum;

» introduction of a ‘Teaching and Learning Team’ composed of cross-curriculum experts offering advice and guidance while promoting the sharing of best practice;

» establishment of an annual Teachers’ Fair dedicated to introducing new teaching techniques and sharing best practice.

To address the threat posed by falling staff morale a series of initiatives were introduced. A weekly message was shared by the Principal via the College’s staff blog offering an in-depth exploration of her vision for the College. A series of away days were also organised to build cross

departmental solidarity while offering

the staff opportunity to voice concerns

directly to the Principal.

‘Senior leaders have successfully

communicated to staff the

need for change over the past

18 months since the previous

inspection. As a result, staff are

very positive about managers’

openness and willingness to listen,

and respond, to their feedback.’

Ofsted, 2015

The Legacy

As a result of the College’s journey to

financial health, College senior leaders

were invited in the Summer of 2015 to

participate in a joint study led by HM

Treasury investigating the main drivers

of cost for the FE system. Of the 20 FE

institutions initially involved the College

was one of only eight invited to the

final stage.

The College’s success was also

highlighted in the Public Accounts

Committee’s Discussion of the National

Audits Office’s Report into the Funding

of Further Education. Martin Donnelly,

Permanent Secretary BIS, offered the

College as an example of the few

colleges nationally which has successfully

raised itself out of financial inadequacy.

It is the conviction of the College’s

leadership that going on to achieve an

‘Outstanding-1’ Ofsted grading alone

is insufficient to properly safeguard

the interests of its learners rather only

by aspiring to become a model FE

institution and sharing that best practice

can real success be achieved.

‘…it is not sufficient to secure

our learners’ future just by the

College achieving individual

success in an otherwise troubled

industry. The FE industry as a

whole needs to be elevated…’

Principal, Nicola Mannock

Adherence to the ‘Stratford Standard’ elevates and improves the consistency of teaching and learning across the curriculum

31REVIEW OF PARLIAMENT |

Review of Parliament

Eleven months after delivering the first

outright Conservative General Election

victory since 1992, David Cameron

came to the Commons Dispatch Box as

a lame duck Prime Minister, a caretaker

who would remain in office only until

his successor could be named. The

Referendum vote to leave the EU had

ended his career with brutal finality.

He was cheered by his MPs as he

arrived in a packed Commons Chamber

and he seemed remarkably good

humoured. Moments before he rose,

the newest MP, Rosena Allin-Khan,

who had been elected to replace

Labour’s Sadiq Khan, the new Mayor

of London, had been introduced.

With mass resignations from Labour’s

Shadow Cabinet as the leadership crisis

in the Opposition unfolded, he advised

her to keep her phone on because

she might be promoted by the end of

the day.

Then he gave his response to the

Referendum decision. ‘It was not the

result that I wanted, or the outcome

I believe is best for the country I love

but there can be no doubt about the

result. Of course I do not take back

what is said about the risks; it is going

to be difficult…’ He also promised

that an upsurge in hate crime against

migrants would be stamped out.

One of his key announcements was

that he would not trigger the formal

EU exit process – Article 50 of the

Lisbon Treaty – and the timing of that

decision and the nature of the future

relationship Britain would seek with the

EU were matters for his successor. He

said he would take that message to the

emergency European Council meeting

that had been convened for the next

day, to respond to the Brexit vote.

‘Tomorrow will also provide an

opportunity to make the point

that although Britain is leaving the

European Union we must not turn

our back on Europe or the rest of the

world,’ he added.

For Labour, Jeremy Corbyn – accused

of fighting a lacklustre referendum

campaign – said his party had put

Graceful in defeat – David Cameron responds to the verdict of the EU Referendum

David Cameron’s resignation speech outside 10 Downing Street


Review of the Parliament

32 | REVIEW OF PARLIAMENT

forward a positive case for Remain and had convinced two thirds of its supporters. He said people in many communities felt disenfranchised and powerless because they had been failed, not by the EU, but by Tory governments.

He complained that the campaign had been marked by untruths and half-truths and added, in a pointed rebuke, that ‘the country will thank neither the Government benches in front of me nor the Opposition benches behind for indulging in internal factional manoeuvring…’ – an observation that provoked a blast of scorn from Tory and SNP MPs, and silence from the Labour benches.

With Scotland having voted to remain in the European Union, the SNP’s Westminster Leader, Angus Robertson, said the Scottish Government would seek to protect Scotland’s place. ‘We are a European nation and it really matters to us that we live in an outward-looking country, not a diminished little Britain.’

The Liberal Democrat Leader, Tim Farron, said he still passionately believed British interests were best served by being at the heart of Europe. A few moments later his predecessor, the former Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said it could not be right that the Conservative Party members who would elect Mr Cameron’s replacement would, in effect, choose a

new Government. Surely, he said, there

should now be a General Election?

A series of Conservative Leave

campaigners, the veteran Sir Bill Cash,

the former Cabinet Minister, Owen

Paterson, and others praised the Prime

Minister for holding the referendum,

a line also taken by UKIP’s sole MP,

Douglas Carswell, who was heavily

heckled as he warned that the task of

implementing Brexit could not be left

to ‘Europhile mandarins’ and called for

prominent Leave campaigners to be

involved – a comment which provoked

a backbench shout of ‘Yeah Farage.’

This was the first of what will doubtless

be scores of Commons statements on

the Brexit process – they will become a

fixture in Parliament for years to come.

The first Commons outing for a new

Prime Minister is normally a great

occasion in its own right, but Theresa

May’s debut, following the withdrawal

of her final opponent in the Conservative

leadership race the week before, was

overshadowed by a spectacular outbreak

of Labour infighting.

She was moving a motion to confirm

plans for a multi-billion pound

programme to replace the submarines

which carry the UK’s Trident Missile

nuclear deterrent – a move which

underlined her personal commitment

to Trident renewal which, she said,

was essential to national security.

Trident Submarine Renewal

With the upheaval caused by the UK’s European referendum, many questions are still to be answered

She was challenged by the SNP’s George Kerevan who asked if she, personally, would order a nuclear strike which would kill 100,000 innocent men, women and children. Her response was a blunt, unadorned ‘Yes’. A nuclear deterrent was pointless if a government was not willing to use it, she added.

She had open support from Labour backbenchers including John Woodcock, MP for the submarine-building seat of Barrow and Furness… ‘Whatever she is about to hear from our Front Benchers, it remains steadfastly Labour Party policy to renew the deterrent while other countries have the capacity to threaten the United Kingdom and many of my colleagues will do the right thing for the long-term security of our nation and vote to complete the programme that we ourselves started in Government.’

The Prime Minister answered with an approving quote from Labour’s manifesto, which said Britain must remain ‘committed to a minimum, credible, independent nuclear capability, delivered through a Continuous At-Sea Deterrent’.

The Green MP, Dr Caroline Lucas, said the UK’s nuclear weapons drove

nuclear proliferation. Theresa May did

not accept that at all – and she took

a direct swipe at Dr Lucas. ‘Sadly, she

and some Labour Members seem to

be the first to defend the country’s

enemies and the last to accept these

capabilities when we need them.’

The Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn,

questioned the ‘ever-ballooning ‘

cost of Trident renewal – but for him

the central issue was this ‘Do these

weapons of mass destruction – for that

is what they are – act as a deterrent

to the threats we face and is that

deterrent credible?’

Unlike the Prime Minister he was not

prepared to press the nuclear button.

‘I would not take a decision that killed

millions of innocent people. I do not

believe that the threat of mass murder

is a legitimate way to go about dealing

with international relations.’

Mr Corbyn faced repeated challenges

from his own MPs. Angela Smith noted

he was ‘Fond of telling us all that the

Party Conference is sovereign when

it comes to Party policy. Last year the

Party Conference voted overwhelmingly

in favour of maintaining the nuclear

deterrent, so why are we not hearing a

defence of the Government’s motion?’

Mr Corbyn retorted that Labour’s policy

was under review, provoking more

shouts from Labour MPs.

The bombardment continued. The

former Defence Minister, Kevan Jones,

compared Labour’s defence review to

the mythical unicorn; people believed

it existed but no-one had ever seen it.

Former Shadow Armed Forces Minister,

Toby Perkins, said the case for not

replacing Trident had fallen apart.

Former Shadow Defence Secretary,

Vernon Coaker, said Britain could not

abandon its responsibilities as a senior

member of NATO.

The SNP’s Westminster Leader,

Angus Robertson, said the people

The UK’s Trident Missile nuclear deterrent was one of the first issues Theresa May faced as the UK’s new Prime Minister

The Government voted in favour of the renewal of Trident



She was challenged by the SNP’s George Kerevan who asked if she, personally, would order a nuclear strike which would kill 100,000 innocent men, women and children. Her response was a blunt, unadorned ‘Yes’. A nuclear deterrent was pointless if a government was not willing to use it, she added.

She had open support from Labour backbenchers including John Woodcock, MP for the submarine-building seat of Barrow and Furness… ‘Whatever she is about to hear from our Front Benchers, it remains steadfastly Labour Party policy to renew the deterrent while other countries have the capacity to threaten the United Kingdom and many of my colleagues will do the right thing for the long-term security of our nation and vote to complete the programme that we ourselves started in Government.’

The Prime Minister answered with an approving quote from Labour’s manifesto, which said Britain must remain ‘committed to a minimum, credible, independent nuclear capability, delivered through a Continuous At-Sea Deterrent’.

The Green MP, Dr Caroline Lucas, said the UK’s nuclear weapons drove

nuclear proliferation. Theresa May did

not accept that at all – and she took

a direct swipe at Dr Lucas. ‘Sadly, she

and some Labour Members seem to

be the first to defend the country’s

enemies and the last to accept these

capabilities when we need them.’


questioned the ‘ever-ballooning ‘

cost of Trident renewal – but for him

the central issue was this ‘Do these

weapons of mass destruction – for that

is what they are – act as a deterrent

to the threats we face and is that

deterrent credible?’

Unlike the Prime Minister he was not

prepared to press the nuclear button.

‘I would not take a decision that killed

millions of innocent people. I do not

believe that the threat of mass murder

is a legitimate way to go about dealing

with international relations.’

Mr Corbyn faced repeated challenges

from his own MPs. Angela Smith noted

he was ‘Fond of telling us all that the

Party Conference is sovereign when

it comes to Party policy. Last year the

Party Conference voted overwhelmingly

in favour of maintaining the nuclear

deterrent, so why are we not hearing a

defence of the Government’s motion?’

Mr Corbyn retorted that Labour’s policy

was under review, provoking more

shouts from Labour MPs.

The bombardment continued. The

former Defence Minister, Kevan Jones,

compared Labour’s defence review to

the mythical unicorn; people believed

it existed but no-one had ever seen it.

Former Shadow Armed Forces Minister,

Toby Perkins, said the case for not

replacing Trident had fallen apart.

Former Shadow Defence Secretary,

Vernon Coaker, said Britain could not

abandon its responsibilities as a senior

member of NATO.

The SNP’s Westminster Leader,

Angus Robertson, said the people

The UK’s Trident Missile nuclear deterrent was one of the first issues Theresa May faced as the UK’s new Prime Minister

The Government voted in favour of the renewal of Trident




of Scotland had repeatedly shown their opposition to Trident renewal – and he added ‘The Government have a democratic deficit in Scotland and, with today’s vote on Trident, it is going to get worse, not better.

It will be for the Scottish people to determine whether we are properly protected in Europe and better represented by a government that we actually elect. At this rate, that day is fast approaching.’

The Commons surprise vote in August

2013 rejecting armed intervention in

the civil war in Syria was undoubtedly

David Cameron’s worst-ever

parliamentary defeat. That moment

reverberated when, two years later

in the wake of the Paris attacks, he

returned to the Commons with a

motion to allow British forces to strike

at ISIL, or Daesh, in Syria.

He warned MPs that ISIL was plotting

Paris-style attacks against Britain and

had already targeted this county.

‘We face a fundamental threat to our

security. ISIL has brutally murdered

British hostages. They have inspired

the worst terrorist attack against British

people since 7/7 on the beaches of

Tunisia and they have plotted atrocities

on the streets here at home. Since

November last year our security services

have foiled no fewer than seven

different plots against our people, so

this threat is very real. The question

is this: do we work with our allies

to degrade and destroy this threat

and do we go after these terrorists

in their heartlands from where they

are plotting to kill British people,

or do we sit back and wait for them to

attack us?”

He was attempting to rally all-party

support for the use of British forces

in Syria – they were already launching

The vote to bomb ISIL in Syria

HMS Vanguard returning to Faslane, Scotland

airstrikes against ISIL in neighbouring

Iraq – but many Labour MPs were

fuming about remarks he had made

the previous evening to a meeting of

Conservative MPs, when he suggested

people who voted against airstrikes

were ‘terrorist sympathisers’. He faced

repeated challenges to withdraw and

apologise – but stuck to a formula that

unity was needed and that it was time

to move on.

One focus for questions was the

Prime Minister’s claim that there are

70,000 moderate Syrian opposition

fighters who could act as a ground

force against ISIL while the UK gave

air support. Under questioning

from the SNP’s Westminster Leader,

Angus Robertson, he said he was not

arguing that all of those 70,000 were

ideal partners but if action was not

taken now, those forces would soon

be reduced.

Another issue was the position of

Labour MPs. In 2013, the Opposition

Leader at the time, Ed Miliband,

had not been prepared to back the

Government. By 2015, a combination

of horror at the brutality of ISIL and

at the Paris attacks meant there were

many who supported the use of armed

force and would defy any attempt to

make them vote against it. Crucially,

their number included the Shadow

Foreign Secretary, Hilary Benn.

Jeremy Corbyn was opposed to

extending the bombing but, under

huge pressure, had allowed his MPs

a free vote. ‘It is impossible to avoid

the conclusion that the Prime Minister

understands that public opinion is

moving increasingly against what I

believe to be an ill thought out rush to

war. He wants to hold this vote before

opinion against it grows even further.’

Another key force in the debate was

the Commons Foreign Affairs Select

Committee which had earlier published

a report raising a series of questions

about any intervention which the

Prime Minister was careful to answer

in detail. Its Chair, the Conservative

Crispin Blunt MP, said Britain’s military

effort in Iraq had helped stabilise

the country in the face of a rapidly

advancing threat from ISIL and he now

supported extending that effort to

across the border into Syria.

The ensuing debate produced a

series of passionate speeches – the

Liberal Democrat Leader, Tim Farron,

gave an emotional description of his

experiences visiting refugees who had

made the risky journey to Greece.

‘A seven-year-old lad was lifted from

a dinghy on the beach at Lesbos. My

Arabic interpreter said to me, ‘That lad

has just said to his Dad, “Daddy are ISIL

here? Daddy are ISIL here?”’

Hilary Benn took the opposite view to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over intervention in Syria

Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat Leader



airstrikes against ISIL in neighbouring

Iraq – but many Labour MPs were

fuming about remarks he had made

the previous evening to a meeting of

Conservative MPs, when he suggested

people who voted against airstrikes

were ‘terrorist sympathisers’. He faced

repeated challenges to withdraw and

apologise – but stuck to a formula that

unity was needed and that it was time

to move on.

One focus for questions was the

Prime Minister’s claim that there are

70,000 moderate Syrian opposition

fighters who could act as a ground

force against ISIL while the UK gave

air support. Under questioning

from the SNP’s Westminster Leader,

Angus Robertson, he said he was not

arguing that all of those 70,000 were

ideal partners but if action was not

taken now, those forces would soon

be reduced.

Another issue was the position of

Labour MPs. In 2013, the Opposition

Leader at the time, Ed Miliband,

had not been prepared to back the

Government. By 2015, a combination

of horror at the brutality of ISIL and

at the Paris attacks meant there were

many who supported the use of armed

force and would defy any attempt to

make them vote against it. Crucially,

their number included the Shadow

Foreign Secretary, Hilary Benn.

Jeremy Corbyn was opposed to

extending the bombing but, under

huge pressure, had allowed his MPs

a free vote. ‘It is impossible to avoid

the conclusion that the Prime Minister

understands that public opinion is

moving increasingly against what I

believe to be an ill thought out rush to

war. He wants to hold this vote before

opinion against it grows even further.’

Another key force in the debate was

the Commons Foreign Affairs Select

Committee which had earlier published

a report raising a series of questions

about any intervention which the

Prime Minister was careful to answer

in detail. Its Chair, the Conservative

Crispin Blunt MP, said Britain’s military

effort in Iraq had helped stabilise

the country in the face of a rapidly

advancing threat from ISIL and he now

supported extending that effort to

across the border into Syria.

The ensuing debate produced a

series of passionate speeches – the

Liberal Democrat Leader, Tim Farron,

gave an emotional description of his

experiences visiting refugees who had

made the risky journey to Greece.

‘A seven-year-old lad was lifted from

a dinghy on the beach at Lesbos. My

Arabic interpreter said to me, ‘That lad

has just said to his Dad, “Daddy are ISIL

here? Daddy are ISIL here?”’

Hilary Benn took the opposite view to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over intervention in Syria

Tim Farron, Liberal Democrat Leader




Winding up the debate for Labour was Hilary Benn who took the opposite view to Jeremy Corbyn. ‘The carnage in Paris brought home to us the clear and present danger that we face from Daesh. It could just as easily have been London, Glasgow, Leeds or Birmingham and it could still be.’ He said the UK could not leave its defence to others and asked what message inaction would send to Britain’s allies – France, in particular.

He listed some of their atrocities: the gay men thrown off the fifth storey of a building in Syria, the mass graves in Sinjar said to contain the bodies of older Yazidi women murdered by Daesh because they were judged too old to be sold for sex, the killing of 30 British tourists in Tunisia, 224 Russian holidaymakers on a plane, 178 people in suicide bombings in Beirut, Ankara and Suruç and of 130 people in Paris ‘including those young people in the Bataclan, whom Daesh, in trying to justify its bloody slaughter, called apostates engaged

in prostitution and vice. If it had

happened here they could have been

our children.

‘We are faced by fascists – not just

their calculated brutality but their belief

that they are superior to every single

one of us in this Chamber tonight and

all the people we represent. They hold

us in contempt. They hold our values

in contempt. They hold our belief in

tolerance and decency in contempt.

They hold our democracy – the means

by which we will make our decision

tonight – in contempt… My view is

that we must now confront this evil.

It is now time for us to do our bit in

Syria. That is why I ask my colleagues

to vote for the motion tonight.’

While Jeremy Corbyn folded his arms

and looked away, Mr Benn sat down

to rapturous cheers and even applause

from both sides of the House. A few

minutes later the Government motion

was carried with 66 supporters from

the Labour benches outweighing the

seven Conservative opponents.

On Thursday 20 June, a week before

the EU Referendum, campaigning was

in full swing – the usual cycle of attack,

rebuttal and counter attack was being

played out. Suddenly the political world

shuddered to a halt as news emerged

of the brutal murder of the Labour MP,

Jo Cox, outside a constituency surgery

in her Yorkshire seat.

The House of Commons had been in

recess for the Referendum, and was

recalled to pay tribute the following

Monday. The chamber was packed but

the seat normally occupied by Jo Cox

was left empty, except for two roses –

Labour’s red rose and the white rose

MPs pay tribute to their murdered colleague, Jo Cox

Tributes to Jo Cox MP

of Yorkshire. In the gallery, Mrs Cox’s

husband Brendan sat with their two

young children and members of

their family.

MPs wore white roses and several

women Labour members were dressed

in the suffragette colours of purple

and green. Some MPs wept quietly

as the Speaker, John Bercow, opened

proceedings ‘We meet today in heart-

breaking sadness but also in heartfelt

solidarity… all of us who came to

know Jo during her all too short service

in this House [she had been elected

in 2015] became swiftly aware of her

outstanding qualities, she was caring,

eloquent, principled and wise.

‘Jo was murdered in the course of her

duties, serving constituents in need…

An attack such as this strikes not only

at an individual but at our freedom.’

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn,

agreed the murder was an attack on

democracy and he quoted from Jo

Cox’s maiden speech when she told

the Commons ‘We are far more united

and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us’.

David Cameron said the House could best honour her memory ‘by proving that the democracy and freedoms that Jo stood for are indeed unbreakable, by continuing to stand up for our constituents and by uniting against the hatred that killed her, today and forever more’.

Tributes were paid from all sides, in a short sitting, which was followed by a memorial service at St Margaret’s, the parish church of Parliament. The Labour MP, Rachel Reeves urged colleagues ‘to carry on Jo’s work and guard against hatred, intolerance and injustice and to serve others with dignity and love…. Batley and Spen will go on to elect a new MP, but no-one can replace a mother’.

Jo Cox had been a leading figure in several all-party groups – the Conservative former International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, served with her, as co-chair of the Friends of Syria, making common cause, as he put it, ‘with a crusty old Tory’.

The Labour MP, Stephen Kinnock, had shared an office with Jo Cox. He spoke first of the unspeakable personal suffering her murder had brought on her family. He said Jo Cox would have been outraged by a poster unveiled on the morning of her death by the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, showing a queue of migrants ‘A poster on the streets of Britain that demonised hundreds of desperate refugees… She would have responded with outrage and with a robust rejection of the calculated narrative of cynicism, division and despair – because Jo understood that rhetoric has its consequences. When insecurity, fear and anger are used to light a fuse, an explosion is inevitable’.

Jo Cox’s maiden speech to Parliament: ‘We are far more united than the things that divide us’



of Yorkshire. In the gallery, Mrs Cox’s

husband Brendan sat with their two

young children and members of

their family.

MPs wore white roses and several

women Labour members were dressed

in the suffragette colours of purple

and green. Some MPs wept quietly

as the Speaker, John Bercow, opened

proceedings ‘We meet today in heart-

breaking sadness but also in heartfelt

solidarity… all of us who came to

know Jo during her all too short service

in this House [she had been elected

in 2015] became swiftly aware of her

outstanding qualities, she was caring,

eloquent, principled and wise.

‘Jo was murdered in the course of her

duties, serving constituents in need…

An attack such as this strikes not only

at an individual but at our freedom.’

The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn,

agreed the murder was an attack on

democracy and he quoted from Jo

Cox’s maiden speech when she told

the Commons ‘We are far more united

and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us’.

David Cameron said the House could best honour her memory ‘by proving that the democracy and freedoms that Jo stood for are indeed unbreakable, by continuing to stand up for our constituents and by uniting against the hatred that killed her, today and forever more’.

Tributes were paid from all sides, in a short sitting, which was followed by a memorial service at St Margaret’s, the parish church of Parliament. The Labour MP, Rachel Reeves urged colleagues ‘to carry on Jo’s work and guard against hatred, intolerance and injustice and to serve others with dignity and love…. Batley and Spen will go on to elect a new MP, but no-one can replace a mother’.

Jo Cox had been a leading figure in several all-party groups – the Conservative former International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, served with her, as co-chair of the Friends of Syria, making common cause, as he put it, ‘with a crusty old Tory’.

The Labour MP, Stephen Kinnock, had shared an office with Jo Cox. He spoke first of the unspeakable personal suffering her murder had brought on her family. He said Jo Cox would have been outraged by a poster unveiled on the morning of her death by the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, showing a queue of migrants ‘A poster on the streets of Britain that demonised hundreds of desperate refugees… She would have responded with outrage and with a robust rejection of the calculated narrative of cynicism, division and despair – because Jo understood that rhetoric has its consequences. When insecurity, fear and anger are used to light a fuse, an explosion is inevitable’.

Jo Cox’s maiden speech to Parliament: ‘We are far more united than the things that divide us’




The Government lost more than 50 votes in the House of Lords in the first year of the 2015 Parliament – but by far the most significant, both in terms of the money involved and of the constitutional aftershocks, was the Peers’ rejection of controversial plans to cut tax credits – the benefits used to top-up the incomes of low-paid workers.

Peers are not supposed to meddle in financial matters but this measure was not part of a finance bill. Instead it was put forward in an order, or statutory instrument, issued under existing legislation, which meant it was both un-amendable and subject to a one-off vote.

Faced with claims that the order would cost the poorest families thousands of pounds a year, the Lords passed a Labour motion calling on ministers to postpone the cuts and provide extra support for those affected, for a three-year transitional period. The result was

to throw the Chancellor’s financial

strategy into chaos, because it removed

£4.4bn of savings.

George Osborne immediately warned

that the vote raised constitutional

issues and shortly afterwards the

Government commissioned Lord

Strathclyde, a former Leader of the

House of Lords, to review the powers

of the Upper House.

The debate began with the Leader of

the House, Lady Stowell, defending

the plans. She said spending on tax

credits had risen from £4bn to £30bn

and the bill was no longer sustainable,

warning that interference in a key

budget measure would overstep the

conventions which prevent the Lords

from overriding the tax and spending

decisions of the elected Commons.

‘In our manifesto, my Party made it

clear that reducing the deficit would

involve difficult decisions, including

finding savings of £12bn from the

The Lords reject the Government’s Tax Credit changes

The interior of the House of Lords

welfare budget. The regulations that we debate today deliver no less than £4.4bn of those savings next year alone,’ she explained.

That argument was challenged by Lord Campbell-Savours, a Labour peer and former MP. ‘When the Prime Minister said at the last general election that an incoming Conservative government would not cut tax credits – child tax credits – was he telling the truth or was he deliberately misleading the British people?’ Lady Stowell retorted that the Conservatives had been very clear in their manifesto that they would aim to make welfare savings of £12bn and that working-age benefits would be targeted.

There were four amendments in front of Peers: the Liberal Democrat Lady Manzoor had put down a ‘fatal motion’ which would stop the changes; the second and third introduced delays. The fourth – from the Bishop of Portsmouth – simply expressed regret at the policy. All but the last, Lady Stowell warned, would challenge the primacy of the Commons on financial matters.

Lady Manzoor said 4.9 million children would be affected by the cuts to tax credits. ‘We have a duty in this House to consider our constitutional role but

we also have a duty to consider those

affected by the decisions we make and

the votes we cast.’

She went on to say that it was wrong

to enact such a major change via

‘a statutory instrument, a tool designed

for minor changes to processes

and administration, being used to

implement a substantial change

in policy that will affect millions of

people’s livelihoods. That is not my

decision but I hope that we will do

everything we can to stop it’.

The second amendment was from

the crossbencher, Lady Meacher, who

wanted to delay the changes. ‘The

lowest income families, stand to lose

more than £20 a week. For one of us

this can mean a meal in a restaurant.

For a poor working family it can mean

a pair of shoes for a child who comes

home from school crying because their

toes are hurting in shoes that are too

small, or money to feed the meter to

keep the family warm.’

The Labour former Work and Pensions

Minister, Lady Hollis, proposed the third

amendment which would postpone the

cuts for three years while transitional

protection was brought in. She dismissed

talk of constitutional crisis. ‘We can

be supportive of the Government

and give them what they did not ask

for – financial privilege – or we can be

supportive instead of those three million

families facing letters at Christmas telling

them that on average they will lose up

to around £1,300 a year.’

The Conservative former Chancellor,

Lord Lawson, supported the changes

and insisted peers had no right to reject

them but he wanted reform of the

whole tax credits system because too

much money went to well-off families.

‘It is perfectly possible to tweak it to

take more from the upper end of the

tax credit scale and less from the lower

end,’ he said.

Baroness Stowell argued that tax credits ‘will remain an important part of the welfare system’

Lord Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer



welfare budget. The regulations that we debate today deliver no less than £4.4bn of those savings next year alone,’ she explained.

That argument was challenged by Lord Campbell-Savours, a Labour peer and former MP. ‘When the Prime Minister said at the last general election that an incoming Conservative government would not cut tax credits – child tax credits – was he telling the truth or was he deliberately misleading the British people?’ Lady Stowell retorted that the Conservatives had been very clear in their manifesto that they would aim to make welfare savings of £12bn and that working-age benefits would be targeted.

There were four amendments in front of Peers: the Liberal Democrat Lady Manzoor had put down a ‘fatal motion’ which would stop the changes; the second and third introduced delays. The fourth – from the Bishop of Portsmouth – simply expressed regret at the policy. All but the last, Lady Stowell warned, would challenge the primacy of the Commons on financial matters.

Lady Manzoor said 4.9 million children would be affected by the cuts to tax credits. ‘We have a duty in this House to consider our constitutional role but

we also have a duty to consider those

affected by the decisions we make and

the votes we cast.’

She went on to say that it was wrong

to enact such a major change via

‘a statutory instrument, a tool designed

for minor changes to processes

and administration, being used to

implement a substantial change

in policy that will affect millions of

people’s livelihoods. That is not my

decision but I hope that we will do

everything we can to stop it’.

The second amendment was from

the crossbencher, Lady Meacher, who

wanted to delay the changes. ‘The

lowest income families, stand to lose

more than £20 a week. For one of us

this can mean a meal in a restaurant.

For a poor working family it can mean

a pair of shoes for a child who comes

home from school crying because their

toes are hurting in shoes that are too

small, or money to feed the meter to

keep the family warm.’

The Labour former Work and Pensions

Minister, Lady Hollis, proposed the third

amendment which would postpone the

cuts for three years while transitional

protection was brought in. She dismissed

talk of constitutional crisis. ‘We can

be supportive of the Government

and give them what they did not ask

for – financial privilege – or we can be

supportive instead of those three million

families facing letters at Christmas telling

them that on average they will lose up

to around £1,300 a year.’

The Conservative former Chancellor,

Lord Lawson, supported the changes

and insisted peers had no right to reject

them but he wanted reform of the

whole tax credits system because too

much money went to well-off families.

‘It is perfectly possible to tweak it to

take more from the upper end of the

tax credit scale and less from the lower

end,’ he said.

Baroness Stowell argued that tax credits ‘will remain an important part of the welfare system’

Lord Lawson, former Chancellor of the Exchequer




When an inquest jury ruled that the

96 Liverpool football fans who died

at Hillsborough on April 15th 1989

had been unlawfully killed and that

mistakes by the police and ambulance

services had caused or contributed

to their deaths, the Home Secretary,

Theresa May, came to the Commons to

announce the Government’s response

in an emotionally-charged statement to

the House.

The new inquest had been ordered

following the devastating findings of

the Hillsborough Independent Panel,

chaired by Bishop James Jones, which

had re-examined the evidence. Its

revelations that witness statements

by police officers had been altered

were so significant that it led to

the new inquest and to two major

criminal investigations. With 296 days

of hearings it had been the longest

inquest in British legal history.

Theresa May said that the findings

‘Overturns in the starkest way possible

the verdict of accidental death

returned at the original inquests.

However, the jury’s findings do not,

of course, amount to a finding of

criminal liability and no one should

impute criminal liability to anyone

while the ongoing investigations are

still pending’.

She praised the families and survivors,

who had never accepted official

accounts which laid the blame on

Liverpool fans. ‘They have faced

hostility, opposition and obfuscation

and the authorities, which should have

been trusted, have laid blame and

tried to protect themselves instead of

acting in the public interest.’ As some

MPs wiped away tears, she added

‘No-one should have to suffer the

loss of their loved ones through such

appalling circumstances and no-one

should have to fight year after year,

decade after decade, in search of

the truth’.

Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary,

Andy Burnham, said the inquest

jury had delivered a ‘simple, clear,

powerful and emphatic’ verdict. ‘But

it begged the question: how could

something so obvious have taken so

long? There are three reasons: first,

a police force that has consistently

put protecting itself over and

above protecting people harmed

by Hillsborough; secondly, collusion

between that force and a complicit

print media; and thirdly, a flawed

judicial system that gives the upper

hand to those in authority, over and

above ordinary people.’

He said a similar inquiry was now

needed to clear up what had happened

The Hillsborough inquest verdict

The 96 remembered at Hillsborough

at Orgreave during the 1980s Miners’

Strike and his final words, about the

families of the 96, produced applause

from MPs. ‘They have kept their

dignity in the face of terrible adversity.

They could not have shown a more

profound love for those they lost on

that day. They truly represent the best

of what our country is all about. Now

it must reflect on how it came to let

them down for so long.’

The Conservative, Bob Neill, who

chaired the Commons Justice Select

Committee asked the Home Secretary

to look at creating a mechanism to

ensure ‘proper equality of arms,’

between the families of disaster victims

and the authorities in dealing with

inquests and legal proceedings.

The former Lord Mayor of Liverpool,

Steve Rotherham, – one of several

MPs at Hillsborough that day – said

the Liverpool fans had always known

they were not to blame. ‘It took

political intervention to force the

judicial process of this country to take

27 years to recognise what we knew

from day one – that Hillsborough

was not an accident… that drunken

and ticketless fans did not turn up

late, hell-bent on getting in and

that it was not caused by a drunken

“tanked-up mob”.’

The Liberal Democrat, Greg

Mulholland, said the families of victims

had been treated appallingly in the

aftermath of the disaster. ‘We saw

police officers sitting eating chicken

and chips in the gymnasium as the

bodies were lying there, while families

were told that they could not hug

their loved ones in body bags because

they were the property of the coroner.

Worst of all, the initial coroner forced

alcohol testing on all these victims –

including children such as 10-year-old

Jon-Paul Gilhooley – of this unlawful

disaster. That was a disgrace, and we

want to know that it will never happen

to a single victim again.’

When the Speaker called on Jeremy

Corbyn, as Leader of the Opposition,

at Prime Minister’s Question Time

(PMQ), it was the first time in 30 years

in the Commons that the veteran

left-winger had spoken at the Dispatch

Box. Unlike the three rival candidates

he had defeated so conclusively in

Labour’s leadership election, he had

never been a minister or shadow

minister still less sat in Cabinet or

Shadow Cabinet.

An unexpected Leader of the Opposition

Theresa May, speaking as Home Secretary



at Orgreave during the 1980s Miners’

Strike and his final words, about the

families of the 96, produced applause

from MPs. ‘They have kept their

dignity in the face of terrible adversity.

They could not have shown a more

profound love for those they lost on

that day. They truly represent the best

of what our country is all about. Now

it must reflect on how it came to let

them down for so long.’

The Conservative, Bob Neill, who

chaired the Commons Justice Select

Committee asked the Home Secretary

to look at creating a mechanism to

ensure ‘proper equality of arms,’

between the families of disaster victims

and the authorities in dealing with

inquests and legal proceedings.

The former Lord Mayor of Liverpool,

Steve Rotherham, – one of several

MPs at Hillsborough that day – said

the Liverpool fans had always known

they were not to blame. ‘It took

political intervention to force the

judicial process of this country to take

27 years to recognise what we knew

from day one – that Hillsborough

was not an accident… that drunken

and ticketless fans did not turn up

late, hell-bent on getting in and

that it was not caused by a drunken

“tanked-up mob”.’

The Liberal Democrat, Greg

Mulholland, said the families of victims

had been treated appallingly in the

aftermath of the disaster. ‘We saw

police officers sitting eating chicken

and chips in the gymnasium as the

bodies were lying there, while families

were told that they could not hug

their loved ones in body bags because

they were the property of the coroner.

Worst of all, the initial coroner forced

alcohol testing on all these victims –

including children such as 10-year-old

Jon-Paul Gilhooley – of this unlawful

disaster. That was a disgrace, and we

want to know that it will never happen

to a single victim again.’

When the Speaker called on Jeremy

Corbyn, as Leader of the Opposition,

at Prime Minister’s Question Time

(PMQ), it was the first time in 30 years

in the Commons that the veteran

left-winger had spoken at the Dispatch

Box. Unlike the three rival candidates

he had defeated so conclusively in

Labour’s leadership election, he had

never been a minister or shadow

minister still less sat in Cabinet or

Shadow Cabinet.

An unexpected Leader of the Opposition

Theresa May, speaking as Home Secretary




He was facing a Conservative Leader

who had been one of the main players

in PMQs for a decade and who had

coached previous Tory Leaders on

how to handle it for years before

that. Things were about to change,

Labour’s new leader wanted a different

kind of PMQs, led by the concerns

of the public – and he received

40,000 replies when he asked people

to email him with their questions for

David Cameron.

‘I have taken part in many events

around the country and had

conversations with many people about

what they thought of this place,

our Parliament, our democracy and

our conduct within this place,’ he

explained. ‘Many told me that they

thought Prime Minister’s QuestionTime

was too theatrical… and that they

wanted things done differently but

above all they wanted their voice to be

heard in Parliament.’

The result was something quite

different, dominated by bread-

and-butter issues but with little of

the familiar professional political

fencing – at least at first. The opening

question was from a woman called

Marie who wanted to know what the

Government intend to do about the

‘chronic lack of affordable housing

and the extortionate rents charged by

some private sector landlords’.

David Cameron observed parliamentary

protocol and congratulated Mr Corbyn

on his resounding leadership election

victory and he welcomed the idea

of a new style at PMQs. He agreed

more affordable housing was

needed but added that the record

of the Governments he had led was

better than that of the previous

Labour Government.

Mr Corbyn followed up with

questions from Steven, on social

rents and from Paul and Claire, on

cuts to tax credits– a subject raised

in a thousand of his emails – that

he warned would cost families

up to £1,300 per year and was

‘absolutely shameful,’ he said. The

strategy was to continue; by his

hundredth question, in March 2016,

he had asked about health issues in

25 of them, welfare in 24, housing in

16 and education in five; it was a far

less Westminster-centric approach.

Those first exchanges were courteous

and careful as the two circled one

another. It was left to the leaders

of two of the smaller parties in the

Commons to insert a couple of

barbs. The first came from the SNP’s

Westminster Leader, Angus Robertson,

who said he was looking forward to

working with the new Labour Leader

to oppose Tory austerity and fight

against renewal of the Trident nuclear

missile submarines – a highly divisive

issue among Labour MPs, most of

whom do not share their leader’s

unilateralist views.

Then, the Leader of the DUP at

Westminster, Nigel Dodds, raised

Mr Corbyn’s key appointment to

Labour’s front bench team, his veteran

left-wing ally, John McDonnell, as

Shadow Chancellor. Mr Dodds pointed

to the plaques by the entrance to the

Jeremy Corbyn took a different approach at his first PMQs, tackling former PM David Cameron with crowdsourced questions

It had been a long time coming, and

the Parliamentarians in both Lords

and Commons had complained about

the time taken by Sir John Chilcot to

produce his report on the decision

to go to war in Iraq. When it did

arrive, seven years after he started

work, his two million word verdict

provoked cross-party soul-searching

and recrimination.

Sir John concluded that the UK went

to war before the peace process

was exhausted, that the intelligence

on which the decision was based

was flawed and that the planning

for the aftermath was inadequate.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron,

responded with a Commons statement

– he began by addressing the families

of the 179 British servicemen and

women and 23 British civilians who

died in the conflict. ‘In their grief

and anger, I hope they can draw at

least some solace from the depth and

rigour of this report and, above all,

some comfort from knowing that we

will never forget the incredible service

and sacrifice of their sons, daughters, husbands and wives.’

He turned to the keystone of the argument for war in 2003. ‘Central to the Government’s case was the issue of weapons of mass destruction. Sir John finds that there was an “ingrained belief” genuinely held in both the UK and US Governments that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological capabilities.’ The evidence for that belief, he found, was not properly examined.

Mr Cameron voted for military action as a Conservative backbencher, in 2003. He said lessons needed to be learned – and the first was that ‘taking the country to war should always be a last resort and should only be done if all credible alternatives have been exhausted’. He then added that the British people should not, in future, recoil from any military intervention. ‘There are unquestionably times when it is right to intervene, as this country did successfully in Sierra Leone and Kosovo… there have been times in

Responding to the Chilcot Report on the Iraq War

Chamber in memory of Airey Neave,

Robert Bradford, Ian Gow and Sir

Anthony Berry – MPs murdered by

terrorists. He added ‘The Opposition

Leader has appointed a Shadow

Chancellor who believes that terrorists

should be honoured for their bravery.

Will the Prime Minister join all of

us, from all parts of this House, in

denouncing that sentiment and

standing with us on behalf of the

innocent victims and for the bravery of

our armed forces who stood against

the terrorists?

That produced loud “Hear, hears’ and the Prime Minister replied that Mr Dodds had spoken for the vast majority of people in Britain. ‘My view is simple, the terrorism we faced was wrong… The death and the killing was wrong. It was never justified and people who seek to justify it should be ashamed of themselves.’

That flash of steel was a harbinger of the Prime Minister’s increasingly dismissive treatment of the Labour Leader in later PMQs – culminating in his advice to Mr Corbyn to ‘put on a decent suit’.

Nigel Dodds, Deputy Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)

Tony Blair, Prime Minister during the invasion of Iraq



It had been a long time coming, and

the Parliamentarians in both Lords

and Commons had complained about

the time taken by Sir John Chilcot to

produce his report on the decision

to go to war in Iraq. When it did

arrive, seven years after he started

work, his two million word verdict

provoked cross-party soul-searching

and recrimination.

Sir John concluded that the UK went

to war before the peace process

was exhausted, that the intelligence

on which the decision was based

was flawed and that the planning

for the aftermath was inadequate.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron,

responded with a Commons statement

– he began by addressing the families

of the 179 British servicemen and

women and 23 British civilians who

died in the conflict. ‘In their grief

and anger, I hope they can draw at

least some solace from the depth and

rigour of this report and, above all,

some comfort from knowing that we

will never forget the incredible service

and sacrifice of their sons, daughters, husbands and wives.’

He turned to the keystone of the argument for war in 2003. ‘Central to the Government’s case was the issue of weapons of mass destruction. Sir John finds that there was an “ingrained belief” genuinely held in both the UK and US Governments that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological capabilities.’ The evidence for that belief, he found, was not properly examined.

Mr Cameron voted for military action as a Conservative backbencher, in 2003. He said lessons needed to be learned – and the first was that ‘taking the country to war should always be a last resort and should only be done if all credible alternatives have been exhausted’. He then added that the British people should not, in future, recoil from any military intervention. ‘There are unquestionably times when it is right to intervene, as this country did successfully in Sierra Leone and Kosovo… there have been times in

Responding to the Chilcot Report on the Iraq War

Chamber in memory of Airey Neave,

Robert Bradford, Ian Gow and Sir

Anthony Berry – MPs murdered by

terrorists. He added ‘The Opposition

Leader has appointed a Shadow

Chancellor who believes that terrorists

should be honoured for their bravery.

Will the Prime Minister join all of

us, from all parts of this House, in

denouncing that sentiment and

standing with us on behalf of the

innocent victims and for the bravery of

our armed forces who stood against

the terrorists?

That produced loud “Hear, hears’ and the Prime Minister replied that Mr Dodds had spoken for the vast majority of people in Britain. ‘My view is simple, the terrorism we faced was wrong… The death and the killing was wrong. It was never justified and people who seek to justify it should be ashamed of themselves.’

That flash of steel was a harbinger of the Prime Minister’s increasingly dismissive treatment of the Labour Leader in later PMQs – culminating in his advice to Mr Corbyn to ‘put on a decent suit’.

Nigel Dodds, Deputy Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)

Tony Blair, Prime Minister during the invasion of Iraq




the recent past when we should have

intervened but did not, such as in

failing to prevent the genocides in

Rwanda and Srebrenica.’


who voted against military action

in 2003, was heckled by some of

his MPs when he condemned the

invasion. ‘Frankly, it was an act of

military aggression launched on a

false pretext, as the inquiry accepts,

and has long been regarded as illegal

by the overwhelming weight of

international legal opinion. It led to

the deaths of hundreds of thousands

of people and the displacement of

millions of refugees… By any measure,

the invasion and occupation of Iraq

have been, for many, a catastrophe.’

In what many took to be a veiled

reference to Tony Blair he added.

‘We now know that the House was

misled in the run-up to the war and the

House must now decide how to deal

with it 13 years later.’

The Chilcot inquiry published more

than 200 memos from Tony Blair to

President George Bush. The Leader

of the SNP at Westminster, Angus

Robertson, pointed to one which he

thought was particularly telling. ‘On

28 July 2002, Tony Blair wrote to

President Bush saying I will be with

you, whatever.’

His point about the real reason for

the invasion was picked up by the

senior Conservative, David Davis. ‘The

aim was regime change, not WMDs.

That fact, and the fact that, as Sir

John Chilcot says, Blair’s commitment

made it very difficult for the UK

to withdraw support for military

action, amount to a deception

and a misleading of this House of

Commons. It is not the only one. Sir

John has been very careful about

avoiding accusing the former Prime

Minister of lying to the House but a

lot of the evidence suggests that he

did. What action can this House take

to deal with that?’

UK troops in action in Iraq

The publication of the Panama Papers, a massive cache of documents detailing the tax-avoidance activities of thousands of people across the world, became a personal crisis for the Prime Minister, David Cameron, when his late father’s name cropped up.

The leak was from the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca, and documented the activities of more than 200,000 companies holding property and bank accounts in offshore tax havens like the British Virgin Islands. No-one suggested that the Prime Minister’s father had done anything illegal; Ian Cameron had run an offshore fund through Mossack Fonseca that avoided British taxes for thirty years.

Faced with rising anger about the extent to which rich people could avoid taxes, David Cameron released a summary of his tax returns for the previous six years, plus details about money inherited and given to him by his family, his salary, the support received as Leader of the Conservative

Party, the income from the renting out of his home and the interest on his savings. The Chancellor, George Osborne, followed suit and the Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, published his tax return. The Prime Minister made a statement to the Commons, as soon as the House returned from its Easter break.

He was not suggesting all MPs would have to publish the same information, arguing that since the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and their Labour opposite numbers were, or wanted to be, responsible for the nation’s finances, they were a special case.

He accepted criticism of the way he’d handled questions about his finances but told MPs he’d been angry about the way his father’s memory was being traduced ‘I want to put the record straight. This investment fund was set up overseas in the first place because it was going to be trading predominantly in dollar securities so, like very many other commercial investment funds, it made sense to be set up inside one of the main centres of dollar trading.’

He added that pension funds, along with other institutions, invested in offshore funds and that, from now on, most British overseas territories which are tax havens will share information with the UK authorities.

Jeremy Corbyn said the Panama Papers had ‘driven home what many people have increasingly felt: that there is now one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest. I am honestly not sure that the Prime Minister fully appreciates the anger that is out there over this injustice... with families lining up at food banks to feed their children, disabled people losing their benefits, elderly care cut

David Cameron and the Panama Papers

Labour MP Dennis Skinner was thrown out of Parliament for labelling the Prime Minister over his personal finances.



The publication of the Panama Papers, a massive cache of documents detailing the tax-avoidance activities of thousands of people across the world, became a personal crisis for the Prime Minister, David Cameron, when his late father’s name cropped up.

The leak was from the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca, and documented the activities of more than 200,000 companies holding property and bank accounts in offshore tax havens like the British Virgin Islands. No-one suggested that the Prime Minister’s father had done anything illegal; Ian Cameron had run an offshore fund through Mossack Fonseca that avoided British taxes for thirty years.

Faced with rising anger about the extent to which rich people could avoid taxes, David Cameron released a summary of his tax returns for the previous six years, plus details about money inherited and given to him by his family, his salary, the support received as Leader of the Conservative

Party, the income from the renting out of his home and the interest on his savings. The Chancellor, George Osborne, followed suit and the Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, published his tax return. The Prime Minister made a statement to the Commons, as soon as the House returned from its Easter break.

He was not suggesting all MPs would have to publish the same information, arguing that since the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and their Labour opposite numbers were, or wanted to be, responsible for the nation’s finances, they were a special case.

He accepted criticism of the way he’d handled questions about his finances but told MPs he’d been angry about the way his father’s memory was being traduced ‘I want to put the record straight. This investment fund was set up overseas in the first place because it was going to be trading predominantly in dollar securities so, like very many other commercial investment funds, it made sense to be set up inside one of the main centres of dollar trading.’

He added that pension funds, along with other institutions, invested in offshore funds and that, from now on, most British overseas territories which are tax havens will share information with the UK authorities.

Jeremy Corbyn said the Panama Papers had ‘driven home what many people have increasingly felt: that there is now one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest. I am honestly not sure that the Prime Minister fully appreciates the anger that is out there over this injustice... with families lining up at food banks to feed their children, disabled people losing their benefits, elderly care cut

David Cameron and the Panama Papers

Labour MP Dennis Skinner was thrown out of Parliament for labelling the Prime Minister over his personal finances.




When the Government proposed a

relaxation in the Sunday trading rules

in England and Wales it created a rare

political conjunction. Much has been

written about David Cameron’s narrow

majority but for him to actually lose a

vote in the Commons requires an issue

that unites Labour, the SNP, most of

the minority parties and a significant

number of Conservative MPs.

The proposals in the Enterprise Bill,

which would have given local councils

powers to relax restrictions on

Sunday trading, provoked just such a

combination. In a late addition to the

The Commons votes down an attempt to loosen the Sunday Trading Laws

and slashed and living standards going

down. Much of that could have been

avoided if our country had not been

ripped off by the super-rich refusing to

pay their taxes’.

The leader of the SNP at Westminster,

Angus Robertson, also complained that

the rules for normal taxpayers were

different from those ‘for a small ultra-

rich elite’ but he focused on the UK’s

‘particular responsibility’ for dealing

with tax avoidance in its overseas

territories and dependencies.

Andrew Tyrie, the influential

Conservative Chair of the Treasury

Select Committee said there was ‘no

point in moralising’ about legal tax

avoidance – what was needed was

action to close loopholes in the law and

tax simplification to ensure there were

are fewer of them.

Meg Hillier, the Labour ex-minister who

chairs the powerful Public Accounts

Committee (PAC), said the publication

of the Panama Papers ‘shone sunlight

on areas where some people did not

want it to go and she called for more

corporate tax transparency. That theme

was picked up by her predecessor

at the PAC, Margaret Hodge, who

had led a high profile inquiry into

tax avoidance by multi-nationals.

She wanted assurance that HMRC

would have access to the register

of companies operating in British

Crown dependencies.

A Conservative former minister, Sir

Alan Duncan, accused the Prime

Minister’s critics of hating ‘anyone who

has even a hint of wealth in their life…

we risk seeing a House of Commons

that is stuffed full of low achievers who

hate enterprise and hate people who

look after their own family and who

know absolutely nothing about the

outside world’. The Prime Minister may

not have found that entirely helpful,

saying ‘I do not want us to discourage

people who have had a successful

career in business or anything else from

coming into this House and making

a contribution’.

Labour veteran, Dennis Skinner, said

the Prime Minister had failed to answer

questions about a taxpayer-subsidised

mortgage and to Conservative fury he

added ‘Maybe Dodgy Dave will answer

it now’. The Speaker immediately

stepped in to ask him to withdraw

the word ‘Dodgy’ but Mr Skinner was

unrepentant ‘This man has done more

to divide this nation than anybody

else and he has looked after his own

pocket. I still refer to him as Dodgy

Dave’. Moments later he was ordered

from the Chamber.

Bill ministers wanted to give councils a new power to extend Sunday trading hours beyond the current six-hour limit for larger stores.

Opponents struck when the Bill reached its Commons Report Stage, the point when all MPs have a chance to consider amendments – including the Government’s addition on Sunday Trading. Conservative opposition was led by an influential backbencher, David Burrowes, who said he was all in favour of the Bill’s central aim of cutting red tape and freeing business but this was a step too far.

He feared an ‘inevitable domino effect, of a race to the bottom, if local authorities get hold of the powers’ and that once one had extended Sunday trading hours, neighbours would be forced to follow. He was, however, challenged by a Conservative colleague, Robert Jenrick, who said people should have the right to shop when they wanted. Mr Burrowes retorted that he had been listening to his constituents. ‘I am not sure whether he has looked at his mailbag

but I have looked at mine and many shop workers, faith groups and others have asked me, “Why are we doing this? Why are we trying to unpick something that is fairly settled, even if it is not perfect?”’.

He received unaccustomed support from Labour MPs. Joan Ryan noted that 49% of retail workers were parents or carers ‘and their Sunday is special to them’. Jim McMahon, newly arrived in Westminster after a by-election in Oldham, reminded MPs that he had been a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority which the Government consulted on the devolution of Sunday trading powers. ‘I can categorically say that those powers were not asked for or requested; they were forced on that body.’

Sensing trouble, the Government had offered to restrict the change to 12 pilot areas – but the Speaker had declined to select for debate the last-minute amendment offered by ministers, on the grounds that it had been put down too late.

The Enterprise Bill would have relaxed restrictions on Sunday trading



Bill ministers wanted to give councils a new power to extend Sunday trading hours beyond the current six-hour limit for larger stores.

Opponents struck when the Bill reached its Commons Report Stage, the point when all MPs have a chance to consider amendments – including the Government’s addition on Sunday Trading. Conservative opposition was led by an influential backbencher, David Burrowes, who said he was all in favour of the Bill’s central aim of cutting red tape and freeing business but this was a step too far.

He feared an ‘inevitable domino effect, of a race to the bottom, if local authorities get hold of the powers’ and that once one had extended Sunday trading hours, neighbours would be forced to follow. He was, however, challenged by a Conservative colleague, Robert Jenrick, who said people should have the right to shop when they wanted. Mr Burrowes retorted that he had been listening to his constituents. ‘I am not sure whether he has looked at his mailbag

but I have looked at mine and many shop workers, faith groups and others have asked me, “Why are we doing this? Why are we trying to unpick something that is fairly settled, even if it is not perfect?”’.

He received unaccustomed support from Labour MPs. Joan Ryan noted that 49% of retail workers were parents or carers ‘and their Sunday is special to them’. Jim McMahon, newly arrived in Westminster after a by-election in Oldham, reminded MPs that he had been a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority which the Government consulted on the devolution of Sunday trading powers. ‘I can categorically say that those powers were not asked for or requested; they were forced on that body.’

Sensing trouble, the Government had offered to restrict the change to 12 pilot areas – but the Speaker had declined to select for debate the last-minute amendment offered by ministers, on the grounds that it had been put down too late.

The Enterprise Bill would have relaxed restrictions on Sunday trading




That left the Minister for Housing and Planning, Brandon Lewis, in the uncomfortable position of asking his opponents to back down, on the promise that he would change the Bill later… ‘An evaluation of this exploratory phase will be published. We are circulating a draft for colleagues to consider and I will be asking them to support… which will then allow us to do this in the House of Lords.’

He said that the laws on trading in England and Wales were last updated in 1994. ‘Back when the only time we heard of Amazon was when we talked about the river and back when our high streets faced no external pressures. The internet is liberating and changing the way we live and work but the pressures on our high streets are rising and the internet plays a part in that. Our measures will help them by giving local councils the right to expand Sunday trading.’

That brought a scornful response from the SDLP’s Mark Durkan. ‘He is trying to tell us that he is selling on some sort of deferred click and collect basis – an option that is not available or in front of us today. Is the Minister not pushing something that will be a predictive text version of public policy that will end up becoming the default position for local authorities, firms and workers who do not want it?’

A Government defeat had looked likely ever since the SNP announced its intention of opposing the Sunday Trading proposal. Eyebrows had been raised because the change wouldn’t affect Scotland where there is no similar Sunday trading restriction – but their spokeswoman, Hannah Bardell, was concerned about the knock-on effect. ‘The shop workers trade union, USDAW… has warned that the implication of the legislation, without safeguards, is that premium pay for

Scottish workers, and indeed workers across the UK, will be threatened by erosion.’

When the issue was put to a vote the Government lost by a margin of 31: In the end 26 Conservative MPs lined up with the Opposition – prompting the Shadow Business Secretary, Angela Eagle, to ask if the Government would ‘respect the will of this House and abandon their tawdry attempts to reintroduce this proposal?’

The Business Secretary, Sajid Javid, said the defeat was ‘disappointing’ and that more flexibility on Sunday Trading would have helped protect jobs in ‘struggling local businesses’. He accused the SNP of ‘childish and hypocritical actions… They seek to deny English and Welsh shoppers the same freedoms that are enjoyed in Scotland and although they are a party built on the principle of devolving powers from Whitehall, they deliberately stand in the way of a measure that does just that’. Later, the Government confirmed it would not seek to overturn the vote.

Brandon Lewis MP describes trading laws as outdated with the rise of online businesses such as Amazon