Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:38 pm on 3 November 2021.
I think the Member makes an important point. I think there is a difference in approach in higher education and further education for reasons that I know that she will understand. And I think that illuminates a larger point that, whereas we want a single sector, there are a diversity of players within that sector, and I think that balance is the right balance to strike.
I refer to the point about academic freedom that Sioned Williams made, but there is a mechanism, of course, for registration in the Bill, and there's a range of ways in which the commission can engage with institutions who are not in compliance with their registration conditions. And it's a sort of gradually escalating set of interventions really about advice and engagement, and then there's the possibility of a direction and then more stringent enforcement activity for the most egregious, and one would hope and expect, unlikely scenario. So, the Bill sets out a sort of escalating range of interventions, which, in the worst situations, the commission could avail itself of. But, the register is the mechanism for delivering that oversight.