Policy background
The policy underlying many of the provisions in this Act was consulted on in the Green Paper "Higher education: teaching excellence, social mobility and student choice", published in November 2015. The Government’s response to the consultation was published as a White Paper, "Success as a Knowledge Economy: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice" on 16 May 2016.
	The Conservative Manifesto of 2015 stated:
we will ensure that universities deliver the best possible value for money to students: we will introduce a framework to recognise universities offering the highest teaching quality; encourage universities to offer more two-year courses and degree apprenticeships and require more data to be openly available to potential students so that they can make decisions informed by the career paths of past graduates;
through Paul Nurse's independent review of research councils, we will seek to ensure that the United Kingdom continues to support world-leading science, and invests public money in the best possible way;
we will ensure the continuing success and stability of our higher education reforms, so that the interests of both students and taxpayers are fairly represented.
	In the policy paper "Fixing the foundations: creating a more prosperous nation" published in July 2015 the Government committed that:
it would introduce a new Teaching Excellence Framework to sharpen incentives for institutions to provide excellent teaching, as currently exist for research;
it would work to enable the best new providers to compete on a level playing field with established universities. As part of the review of validation arrangements, the Government would explore options to allow the best providers to offer degrees independently of existing institutions before they obtain degree awarding powers;
providers with good quality teaching would be able to raise their fees by the rate of inflation from 2017/18.
	At the Spending Review and autumn statement in November 2015 the Government stated:
that is was taking forward the recommendations of the Nurse Review and, subject to legislation, would introduce a new body - Research UK - which would work across the seven research councils;
that it would also look to integrate Innovate UK into Research UK in order to strengthen collaboration between the research base and the commercialisation of discoveries in the business community. Innovate UK would retain its clear business focus and separate funding stream.
	This Act enables the Government to meet these commitments.