Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

The passing of this bill is a significant step towards improving the pastoral care of tertiary students in our polytechs, our universities, our private training establishments, and our wānanga up and down the country. I want to acknowledge again and thank the members of the House for their constructive work to bring this bill to its final stage today. The bill will allow for an interim code of practice to be put in place and be effective from the beginning of next year. I’d like to thank all of the officials who worked quickly and swiftly and tirelessly to develop the legislation and to draft the interim code so that it can be put in place in a very short space of time.

I also want to acknowledge the family of Mason Pendrous at this difficult time for them, and I want to reiterate in this House that we want to do all that we can to take steps to ensure that no family finds themselves in the position that they have found themselves in ever again.

This tragic event and the subsequent information-gathering by the Tertiary Education Commission into the pastoral care arrangements of student accommodation throughout the country exposed limitations in the current self-regulating approach to supporting our tertiary students. The voluntary code for student accommodation had not been reviewed since it was brought in 15 years ago, and in many cases had not been followed. We now have an opportunity to change this. The bill, and the subsequently developed code of practice, will provide greater certainty for students, their families, and for providers. The bill aims to address the regulatory gap for the pastoral care of domestic tertiary students. Families and whānau have a right to feel assured that when their young people leave home after Christmas, they are going to be provided with the best possible pastoral care in terms of the safety and the support services that they receive. This bill and the interim code ensures that will happen.

Students need to know that there are minimum standards of safety and there is support available to them if they need it. Providers also need clarity around what they are expected to provide for their students, including specific requirements for halls of residence and for other student accommodation.

The bill is going to enable the code of practice for pastoral care of domestic tertiary students to be issued. It will ensure that providers are accountable for pastoral care standards and that their students can succeed academically in a safe, healthy, and supportive learning environment.

Further work is being done on the development of an ongoing code, and a consultation requirement’s been inserted into the bill. The consultation with students, the wider tertiary sector, including consultation with the Privacy Commissioner, is going to be essential to developing an ongoing code that is robust and that’s effective.

The bill enables the Minister to appoint a code administrator to monitor compliance with the code, and to issue notices and, importantly, sanctions if they are needed. I anticipate the code administrator will have a range of education, information, or influence interventions that are available to them so that they can promote good practice in line with the code of practice.

The entry and inspection powers in the bill will enable the code administrator to monitor or investigate compliance with the relevant code, and the provisions have been amended to strengthen the privacy of students by the select committee. The bill introduces a new criminal offence for breaches of the application of the code without reasonable excuse where those result in serious harm or death. The maximum level of the fine for this offence is $100,000. It also introduces a new civil pecuniary penalty for serious breaches, without reasonable excuse, of the applicable code.

The penalty and offence provisions will apply both to tertiary education providers and to signatories to the code for international students. Additionally, the bill introduces a dispute resolution scheme for domestic tertiary students. But that won’t apply to the interim code in 2020. Details of the application of the dispute resolution scheme to domestic tertiary students will be arranged and agreed over the course of the coming year.

Other than the new offence and penalty provisions, the bill does not propose to change the existing code for international students, which has been in place for some time, and transitional provisions carry forward that existing code.

I want to say again that I appreciate the cross-party and cross-House support for the bill, which has enabled the bill to progress through the House very quickly. The speed is important because it means that the interim code can be put in place from the beginning of 2020 to provide that assurance to students and their families while we work with them to ensure that we have a more long-term code in place from the beginning of 2021.

The interim code will set out a general duty of pastoral care required of all tertiary education providers in relation to domestic students, and specific requirements for student accommodation. The purpose of the code will be to ensure that as far as practicable, domestic tertiary students can succeed academically in a safe, healthy, and supportive learning environment.

I do want to note that some providers may need to strengthen their existing systems and processes for pastoral care of their students. And I note that some providers are already providing a very high standard of pastoral care, with very robust systems in place. It’s this inconsistency that needs to change, and it’s also why I do not accept any excuses that might be made of increased costs, or any intention to pass those on to students as a direct result of the interim code next year, when providers should already be delivering the level of care consistent with that which the code requires.

We’ll be releasing the interim code shortly after this third reading. I understand a copy has already been supplied to the Opposition. Officials will work with the sector to support them in discharging their responsibilities under the code. The interim code will apply from 1 January, and, as I’ve said, we’ll be working to establish the permanent code, which will come into effect in 2021.

To conclude, the bill is vital to ensuring that the protections and supports that we need to have are in place for the pastoral care of all domestic tertiary students. Tertiary students, but especially those young students leaving home for the first time, can be a vulnerable group. Their wellbeing is essential for them to be able to succeed and achieve their aspirations in education. The bill will ensure stronger protections are in place for students and student accommodation, it will support all domestic tertiary students to succeed academically in a safe, healthy, and supportive learning environment, and I commend the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill to the House.

Look, I rise to speak to support this legislation. Firstly, I want to acknowledge the way that members have worked in terms of the Environment Committee to get what I think is an improved law. Can I acknowledge the Minister of Education on this issue. While I will address shortly some of the process concerns that we’ve had, I think that parties across this House have worked constructively on this legislation. Dr Parmjeet Parmar, who chairs our select committee, can I take a moment to acknowledge you as well—it’s been a big year in education—and all of those members on the select committee that have contributed to this legislation.

Look, I think in terms of the purpose of what this is about, we all have already acknowledged Mason and his family. I think when the news of this situation became very apparent, that a young person had lay deceased and undiscovered for nearly eight weeks, it was with absolute sadness and concern that not only parliamentarians wanted to act, but also people across New Zealand have been really concerned about the situation. So National absolutely supports the objective of improving student safety, which is what we think will be the outcome of this legislation.

However, it is upon us to raise some of the issues of process, and it wasn’t just us who were saying that, look, we know we need to move reasonably quickly, but several weeks compared to six months we were concerned about; it was also the Law Society who raised that. We also saw Treasury raise these issues of haste. Treasury went quite far in terms of their comments. The Law Society obviously raised those issues publicly, but Treasury went very far in terms of the unintended consequences that can occur when you move at haste, at pace, in terms of select committee. So we did have some concerns about process.

In terms of the content and the improvement to the bill, I think it is important to acknowledge—and we had this discussion at select committee—that these are young adults. So this ability to move to create a safer environment via a code that can be enforced and with penalties was obviously at the front of mind for select committee members, but we were also aware of that balance of, as well, student privacy. So I want to address some of the amendments that we made at select committee. We obviously made an amendment to the original definition of serious harm. We made amendments around the reference to safety and wellbeing of students, we clarified the single pastoral care code, but this amendment was actually, I think, one of the most important, and that was where we were considering this issue of code administrators seeking consent of students and providing 24 hours’ notice before inspecting rooms. That was about actually saying, look, we want a situation where every young person is safe. We absolutely understand it’s a really tough time for many students. When they leave home, they may be more vulnerable. We know of some of the issues, whether it’s alcohol or, potentially, people get bullied, or they feel uncomfortable because they’re out of their normal comfort zone.

However, we do see the need to balance what are serious issues of safety and standards of tertiary accommodation with that issue of student privacy, and we on this side of the House really wanted to emphasise that. We heard some very powerful submissions from some people, including the Privacy Commissioner, and I want to acknowledge the excellent submission that he gave. I do want to acknowledge that on this side of the House we did want him to be formally consulted. We were not successful in achieving this as part of the legislative process, and I’m sure Clare Curran will have something to say about that, but we were really, really keen to make that happen. We also made a range of changes, including the reasonable excuse defence around penalty provisions.

So, again, I want to acknowledge everybody who’s been involved in this piece of legislation, including Ministry of Education officials. We do support the overall objective. We understand the process in terms of the interim code. I assume that the code has gone to my colleague Dr Shane Reti, so I too will be having a look at that, and there is a transition that needs to occur.

But I think, at the heart of this, what we supported on this side of the House was this ability to say to all of the parents in New Zealand that, actually, we can do better as a country in terms of tertiary accommodation. We can give you greater guarantees that we will never have a situation like what occurred to Mason Pendrous. Again, that is the purpose of this legislation: to lift the safety of tertiary accommodation but also to ensure that we have some basic accountability while balancing those real issues of privacy of students.

Can I just again finish by acknowledging my parliamentary colleagues for your contribution to this piece of legislation. It is great that we can be putting a piece of legislation to the House that has cross-party support in education. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. The tragic death of Mason Pendrous at the Sonoda campus at the University of Canterbury exposed the lack of a consistent approach to the welfare and pastoral care of domestic tertiary students in our country. This was a young man who had his life ahead of him. I want to acknowledge his stepdad, Anthony Holland, for your courage and I acknowledge your grief.

I also want to extend a heartfelt thanks, actually, to the Opposition for the way that this piece of legislation has passed through the House so quickly and through the select committee process, and so constructively, so that parents and students going into halls of residence next year can be reassured that there is a code of conduct in place, an interim code of conduct, that is mandatory and that there will be the development of a permanent code of conduct through that time next year. So there was an imperative for this legislation to pass this year in order to ensure that.

We’ve heard that the bill enables the Minister of Education to issue that code of practice to provide that framework—the pastoral care of domestic tertiary students. I just want to reiterate how important it is that that is a mandatory code of conduct and that all providers must comply with it. It’s not just a code of conduct that’s sitting in the back office that nobody ever really pays attention to—that it also sets out arrangements relating to the administration, the monitoring, the compliance, the enforcement, the offences, the penalties, and the dispute resolution. So Parliament has worked hard on this piece of legislation, and it’s important.

The select committee also made some important changes, tweaks, to the legislation mainly to improve language and definitions. The member Nikki Kaye may be interested to know that we actually have recommended that those affected by the code be consulted and that they include representatives of students, parents, providers, signatory providers and the staff of providers, and signatory providers as well as the Privacy Commissioner. So I’m not sure that she had caught up on that, but we have actually accepted that the Privacy Commissioner be consulted. We also note that this bill does not override the Privacy Act.

I’m going to end with that, other than to acknowledge the submitters. There wasn’t much time to submit. There were, I think, 22 submissions—11 submitters were heard, and the Privacy Commissioner, and while it’s passed through this House quickly and an interim code will be released in time for next year, there will be a solid amount of work done next year to get that final code in place, and the consultation that’s needed to take its time to make sure that that’s right will happen.

I really commend this bill to the House. I thank the Minister for taking the initiative so quickly on this—again, to the Opposition, to all the submitters and the officials that worked on it. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m taking this call to support the third reading of the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill. This bill was introduced after that sad incident that happened at Canterbury University. Nineteen-year-old Mason’s body was in his room and nobody noticed. He was there—his body was lying in his room for a number of weeks, and nobody noticed that he was not around. So my hope is that, through this legislation, we are making sure that this kind of incident will never happen again here in New Zealand. This bill allows the Minister to issue a code which will cover both the international pastoral care code and the domestic pastoral care code.

Talking about the international and domestic pastoral care code, I want to highlight that when we talk about international students, our attention towards their pastoral care is a lot more than domestic tertiary students. I can understand to some extent why that exists, because international students come from different countries, different backgrounds, different cultures and societies, and they need time to adjust in our new environment here in New Zealand, and we want to make sure that we are providing them the best possible experience here in New Zealand while they are gaining their tertiary education.

But for domestic tertiary students, we cannot take their wellbeing for granted. I understand that they are in the same country—their home country here in New Zealand—but there could be some young ones that are leaving their home for the first time to move into a hall of residence, and there could be some students that are leaving their hometown going into a different town. So for them also it’s a new environment. For them they have to make new connections, new friends, and, on top of that, there are other pressures, of course—to study, to do well in sports, and there are so many other activities that they might be involved in. So there could be so many reasons that these kinds of things can happen. So we want to see that we have a proactive pastoral care system for our domestic tertiary students as well. I fully understand the difference for the providers for international students—that is, for international students the providers are to take all reasonable steps to protect them, and for domestic tertiary students they are to take all reasonable steps to ensure their wellbeing.

In this legislation, the other thing that is very good is that the Minister is required to consult with students, their families, providers, and also the Privacy Commissioner before issuing a code of practice. I want to especially acknowledge the Privacy Commissioner, because he addressed a lot of concerns that we had during the select committee process. Of course, I want to acknowledge all 22 submitters as well for their contribution, and it’s because of their contributions that we have been able to amend this legislation and bring this legislation back in this form.

We really want this legislation to go through. We want to see that the interim code is in place ASAP, and then the permanent code is in place, because we are really concerned about the wellbeing of our domestic tertiary students. In this legislation, I also want to highlight that while we were trying to balance safety of domestic tertiary students, we wanted to see that their privacy is also maintained, because we know that for parents, their children will always be children and we would like to monitor them 24 hours, 7 days. But that’s not practical, because, in reality, children grow up, and, once they are over 18, they need their space. We wanted to respect that in this legislation. So that has been done in this legislation.

The third factor was accountability of providers. I just want to highlight one point—other points have been already mentioned. This is establishing a student contract dispute resolution scheme. In this legislation, students will have access to this scheme for seven years. We think that seven years is a reasonable length of time, because that is the length of time for which most of the records are maintained.

Finally, I want to talk about the definition of serious harm in this legislation, because serious harm is central to the issue that we are trying to resolve through this legislation. As the legislation was introduced, various kinds of medical and other interventions were listed under “serious harm”. During the select committee process, we changed that. We didn’t want those interventions listed.

I was asked by the media about the select committee process. The question was: have you diluted the definition of serious harm in the select committee process? I don’t agree with that, because we haven’t actually diluted it; we have actually strengthened the definition of serious harm in the select committee process. We didn’t want to exclude any kind of interventions by listing some interventions in a serious harms definition.

This bill is a much, much better bill after our work in the select committee process, and, once again, I want to thank everyone for their contributions. I support this bill. Thank you.

I rise to reaffirm New Zealand First’s support for this Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill and, in doing so, to poignantly remember the reason why this bill, of course, is being pushed through with such speed through the parliamentary process: the passing of Mason Pendrous. I believe his father may be in the gallery, which makes this a very poignant occasion.

Of course, heading off to university or to vocational training, often in a different city or environment, is an exciting period for young people as they explore their new-found freedoms. But it is also a time when they’re away from their support networks, potentially, and that leaves them vulnerable. Through this process, we have found that there have been some glaring gaps in our regulatory process for domestic students. From a New Zealand First perspective, it’s very hard for us to see why our New Zealand students—our domestic young people—shouldn’t have the same or very similar protections as what we give our international students. The bar should be very high for pastoral care for both of those categories of student.

So this bill, I don’t want to draw it out too much. I think it’s been well traversed by the other speakers. But this bill does bring in, firstly, an interim code for the 2020 year—hence the speed of the process to get something in to give the parents and the young people some confidence that next year we will have addressed this gap in an interim way—and a permanent code will be developed over the following year.

Given it will be my last contribution on education matters this year, I’d just like to take a minute to acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee, which I very much enjoyed being on. I acknowledge the chair, Parmjeet Parmar. Also, our thoughts, of course are with Jan Tinetti, who is the deputy chair and leads the Government side. I know Jan will be watching now, so we wish you well, Jan, with your recovery and look forward to seeing you in the new year—and all the members of the committee, actually. It’s a really constructive committee—both sides of the House. Of course, some are wiser than others, but we get there in the end.

So, anyway, without further ado, I think this is an important bill. It’s important that we get this through so that we can give parents and students everywhere the confidence that this regulatory gap has been plugged for the new year. So New Zealand First support this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to take a call on the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill in its third and final reading here in Parliament. I too would like to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Chris Hipkins, and also the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, Dr Parmjeet Parmar, for this bill and for Parmjeet’s work shepherding it through the House and also the Government’s collaborative approach with Dr Shane Reti in terms of ensuring that the National Party supports this bill, which we do.

This bill is an important piece of legislation. It is about ensuring that the students, the young people who leave home and go to university for the first time, are given the care that they need—the pastoral care that they need and that they deserve—that our institutions are held to account for the care that they provide, and that there will be a code put in place which can then be used to ensure that the appropriate care is made available to these young people.

The circumstances which have brought us to this place have been well traversed, but I do just want to say that I think that this bill is a step towards ensuring that our young people and families have the confidence in the system going forward that their children, their loved ones, will be given the care that they need.

I do hope that this piece of legislation will be something which won’t be putting an increased burden on the costs for these young people. I think that’s something which certainly the committee spent some time on. That was one of the reasons why we pushed for the consultation requirements for the code in this bill—so that young people, families, and those with interests in student accommodation are actually properly consulted so that the code, while it has the appropriate requirements, is also not something which leads to such substantial increases in cost that young people find alternative accommodation where there might not be the same standard of care that we’re hoping that they have.

So that’s something that I’ll be keeping a close eye on as that code is developed. But, in conclusion, the National Party will be supporting this bill. Thank you very much.

E Te Māngai, tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I stand on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, still as our tertiary education spokesperson although, unfortunately, no longer on the Education and Workforce Committee.

💬 Mark Patterson: Boo.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: So I send my condolences, particularly to my colleague Mark Patterson, who I very much enjoyed sitting next to.

But the topic of this legislation that brings us here in the Chamber today is actually of quite a sombre tone. I want to acknowledge, as all of those speakers who have so far, Mason Pendrous from the University of Canterbury, and his whānau, who, you know, I have a limited understanding of the grief of that loss, but I’m sure you’ll still be grappling with that. So I want to acknowledge that.

I’m gutted—and the Greens and, I’m sure, all of us are gutted—that it took a tragedy like this, a loss of a young life, to actually look at such a glaring gap in our legislation and in our care for young people who are going out there into the world, often leaving home for the very first time, and engaging in what should be a really exciting first new chapter out of the compulsory education sector.

When I became our mental health spokesperson for the Greens in 2018, I went on a tour around university campuses to understand mental ill-health as it was presenting on those campuses, given that tertiary students are often those who are pretty good at voicing and communicating their concerns and what they perceive as political failings. In speaking to those university students, a number of themes presented themselves. Actually, a number of Residential Assistants (RAs)—those being students who are put in a position to look after, at times, hundreds of students in university halls—recounted to me that they had been put in positions with a huge amount of responsibility, next to no backing to do it, and a very limited period of time—that being their supposed working hours—to actually address those issues as they were presented.

The way that one of these RAs put it to me is that students and parents, in particular, are sold this vision of university halls on these glossy magazine covers—where, you know, why would you choose to go into a flat when you can go into this place, which is going to look after you and help you transition into a university lifestyle—which for me actually brings out the point, to address what had been raised just then by my colleague Simeon Brown, around the potential for increasing costs. I believe it was put quite well by the Minister Chris Hipkins with regard to how any of those university halls and university providers who are speaking about increasing their costs in response to this are gouging. Because, quite frankly, it’s indicative of how they have cut costs through cutting wellbeing, through cutting the pastoral care that they are supposed to be providing through that advertising that they’ve put out into the world on those glossy magazine covers.

Why on earth would any student, any parent, decide to put their child in one of these halls when it’s cheaper to put them into a flat, if not for the supposed level of service that is provided through this kind of pastoral care that’s supposed to be there?

It’s been raised by a number of those who have addressed the bill so far, the intricate details like how no pastoral care actually existed for domestic tertiary students, no code existed, prior to the passage of this legislation, at the end of these speeches today. A voluntary one was set up in 2004 but it hasn’t been regularly reviewed or updated. I would hope that in light of this tragedy and in light of the anomaly, particularly, picked up between international and domestic student care, we don’t let that lapse again, that we continue to keep that emphasis that is required on wellbeing and on the mental health of students, and indeed, of all in the society.

I also want to speak about the point that had been raised by a number of my colleagues, most notably the Hon Nikki Kaye. I sat on the Education and Workforce Committee up until the point that we reported this back to the House. I’d just like to correct the record that it was actually myself who prompted the fact that there should be consultation with the Privacy Commissioner in here. That was off the back of a brilliant submission from the Privacy Commissioner. I did receive support from National Party colleagues at that point in time, but due to the bizarre vagaries of voting and all of us walking in and out of the room, I don’t think we passed it through the select committee stage, but we did end up getting it through by amendment from the Minister. So thank you, Minister Hipkins, for paying attention to that detailed report from the select committee.

That’s really important to me that we have that consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. It’s really important to the Greens because we’ve seen an abuse of that privacy of students in a number of different situations in the past few years. University students at Otago University will be aware of their proctor engaging in some mischievous behaviour and walking on to their property.

But we also want to make sure that we don’t end up with a hyper-paternalistic model which talks down to our young people just as they’re seeking to get their foot out there into the real world, which is also why it’s crucial that alongside speaking to providers, to staff, and to parents, students are central to this conversation. That was a thread of argument that we heard from a number of student associations who submitted.

Just in summary, the Greens are proud and happy to be commending this bill to the House on a day that it appears that we’ve got another piece of legislation with unanimity, particularly because it is so crucial to guarding the wellbeing of our young people. I hope very strongly that it is the case that we never again see the tragedy that fell upon Mason Pendrous and his whānau. Kia ora.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It is right that we try and do our best to achieve a balance around student safety with this particular piece of legislation, but also maintain student privacy, and for this particular young adult age, their right to act as an adult. So it has been a really interesting passage talking around incentivising and encouraging tertiary providers to do their best, but also looking at costs and the impact and, hopefully not but potentially, perverse effect of passing legislation for which we don’t exactly know all the impacts.

We also did not know all the contents of the interim code that’s about to come New Zealand’s way. I’d like to acknowledge the submitters who strayed into out of scope areas, and I realise and we can understand why they wanted to address what will actually be in the code, but this particular legislation did not address that.

We do support the passage of this. We know that the current self-regulating approach has not worked and it was exacerbated or highlighted by the tragic death of 19-year-old Mason Pendrous. We’ve just had confirmed, the New Zealand public, about 24 hours ago that we won’t ever know how and why he died, but what we do know, and in the words of his stepdad, was that he wasn’t the young man that died alone; he was the young man that changed the law. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, it’s a great pleasure to rise and acknowledge the unanimous agreement here in the House for the passing of the Education (Pastoral Care) Amendment Bill. I want to thank the Minister and officials in the select committee for this really constructive process. I was not a member of that select committee, but I acknowledge that this has been a serious matter that all parties have taken a very careful and compassionate approach to, to fix a gap in the system which none of us actually realised was there.

I want to acknowledge the very tragic death of Mason and I want to acknowledge his stepdad in the gallery today. We hope that this piece of legislation goes some small way to ease the pain of losing your stepson. I commend this bill to the House.

It is deeply sad that it took the tragic death of Mason Pendrous for this legislation to come before the House. Members in this debate have acknowledged how horrified we have all been by the events that preceded his death and what it revealed about the quality of care in university hostels around New Zealand. Like others, I want to acknowledge his whānau and I want to acknowledge all those affected by his loss. I want them to know that his death was not in vain. His death ensured that we lifted the lid on the lack of pastoral care in many student hostels, despite the fact that families pay very high fees for those hostels in the expectation that a higher level of pastoral care will be provided.

The voluntary code did not work and that is why this House has come together to legislate and to put in place a framework which will be compulsory. I know that students here in Wellington have some concerns that a code of this sort could lead to higher fees for student hostels, and, to those students and to the people who run those hostels and to our universities, I say: do not let this be an excuse for raising your fees exorbitantly. It should be possible for good quality pastoral care to be provided within a framework such as this without huge fee increases. National supports this bill and we commend it to the House.

This is not a controversial bill. This is a bill that’s needed. There are acknowledgments that have been made in the House tonight to the select committee, to the Minister, and to the family as well. So I’ll keep it short and just commend this bill to the House.

In similar vein, as the final Opposition speaker I will give a very brief response. I do want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Chris Hipkins, for the way in which he has dealt with this matter. I’m sure that it has been widely respected. I also want to acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee, who, clearly, were faced with a distressing situation and have handled it in a very sensitive manner.

As others have done, I simply wish to add to the expression of sympathy from colleagues right around the House to the family. I can’t see them above me, but I understand that there are some in the gallery today. It is deeply distressing that the tragic death of a young man should have given rise to our understanding of the regulatory gaps that this measure is designed to address.

So without wishing in any way to sound disrespectful by speaking so briefly, could I just say that I welcome this measure and, in particular, the very dignified and compassionate way in which all members have handled it.

It is always a solemn occasion when this House’s activity is prompted by tragedy, and I acknowledge people in the gallery who have come here to see what’s going on today for that very reason.

I want to say that when people do send their children and young people to university, they place a solemn trust in that institution, and it is perhaps with surprise that we look back and discover that there wasn’t a legal obligation as to how that trust was discharged. It’s good to see that we’ve managed to cooperate and move quickly to put in place this measure.

I must say, having spent a lot of time as an academic at a university and as one perhaps does grow a little older, we realise the considerable distance and perhaps immaturity of some of those students and the fact they do need care and they are not adults who are necessarily able to weather the storm of what goes on in that situation. So this bill is a good measure. It will have to be proportionate, because not all students are the same and we know that many students live in halls of residence and so on and they may be 20-plus years old and will able to manage, but it’s those 17- and 18-year-olds that we’re particularly concerned about.

It was also of note that in this instance this was a privately managed institution, one in which the duties had essentially been subcontracted, and that may be a lesson for us. But I know that the vice-chancellor of that university, Cheryl de la Rey, is working very hard to rebuild the trust around what goes on in that university. I wish her well in that. I know she absolutely has the interests of those students very much at heart.

So in terms of this bill, it’s a tool with which to put in place these codes of conduct that the Minister has oversight of. It’s an important step and one in which we can now make sure that that solemn trust that we have to look after our young people in the education system is discharged. I commend it to the House.

Bill read a third time.