The head of the university-standards watchdog has hit back at MPs who produced a report accusing the sector of ¡°defensive complacency¡±, claiming it was based on prejudice.

In a heated exchange at the National Union of Students¡¯ Quality Matters for Students conference last week, Peter Williams, chief executive of the Quality Assurance Agency, said the cross-party committee of MPs ¡°had its thesis in mind before it met anyone¡± and ignored the evidence.

The Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee¡¯s controversial report, Students and Universities, published last month, calls for either the abolition or overhaul of the QAA, and declares the system for safeguarding standards in universities ¡°unfit¡±.

Mr Williams, who is about to retire and stressed that he was giving his personal views, claimed that MPs had produced a classic example of ¡°policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based policy¡±.

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But this did not wash with Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, who was also speaking at the NUS event on 9 September. Dr Harris, a member of the IUSS Committee, leapt to the report¡¯s defence.

He called the sector¡¯s criticism of its conclusions ¡°astonishing¡± and said attempts to undermine them were based on ¡°spurious nonsense¡±.

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¡°I care passionately about academic freedom¡­ but academic freedom is not the same as the freedom to take taxpayers¡¯ money and then have an unfair admissions system. It¡¯s not something that you can hide behind to have poor-quality standards,¡± Dr Harris said.

He added that questions about grading and whether different institutions¡¯ standards were comparable had to be answered, pointing to the near-doubling in the number of first-class degrees over the past decade as cause for concern.

Mr Williams retaliated by hitting out at committee members for their poor attendance record.

¡°This select committee, which has 16 members, was never graced by more than five. It was, to my mind, shamefully small.¡±

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Dr Harris replied: ¡°Parliament is rubbish, it doesn¡¯t work very well. But of the things that don¡¯t work well, select committees are the least criticisable because they are cross-party. The people signing off the report were the ones who sat through every evidence session.¡±

He claimed it was the higher education sector itself that had failed to analyse the evidence.

hannah.fearn@tsleducation.com