Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Buscombe and Lord Morgan

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 14. This is one of those moments when I feel, as I suspect other noble Lords also feel, quite frustrated by the procedures of this House. In a way, it is a pity that we cannot hear from my noble friend the Minister about his amendment ahead of the debate. If that were possible we could perhaps give our reasons why some of us feel that, although we are hugely grateful to him for tabling it, his amendment is still—to put it politely—a little timid. There remains a lack of clarity. But there we are; we have the situation as it stands.

Obviously, I support Amendment 14. As a fellow member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, I will not seek to repeat everything that other JCHR members—including the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister, Lady O’Loan and Lady Kennedy of The Shaws—have said already. We looked at this subject extremely carefully when we considered the legislation as a committee.

Although we are, as I say, grateful that my noble friend has brought forward his amendment, he will not be surprised to hear that there is still a lack of clarity. I think that that was demonstrated by the letter in the Guardian yesterday. It was sent by 500 signatories who are genuinely concerned about academic freedom. I would point out one part of the letter in particular. It states:

“Ensuring colleges and universities can continue to debate difficult and unpopular issues is a vital part”—

of responding—

“to acts of terror against UK”,

citizens. It said that it is important,

“to maintain and defend an open, democratic society in which discriminatory behaviour of any kind is effectively challenged”.

We want to be sure that when this legislation leaves your Lordships’ House, there is real clarity and an acceptance and understanding among the academic community and others that we have done all that we can to ensure that the Prevent duty cannot be used to prevent lawful speech. As I said on Second Reading and again in Committee, for so many young people, university is their first opportunity away from home to be able to debate openly and freely and to hear other points of view from different cultures. Therefore, to send out a message that that possibility has been diffused in any way would be a great mistake.

I wonder why—as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, has said—my noble friend the Minister’s amendment does not deal with Scotland. Perhaps that silence is due to the Bill team’s lack of time to respond to our request for referencing Scotland. Perhaps it is to do with negotiations; perhaps it is because the Minister has a strong argument for why Scotland should not be included. We are, as I said, somewhat compromised, because although we will hear from my noble friend, we will not be able to respond.

I hope my noble friend is able to take on board the fact—I think that this feeling is shared around your Lordships’ House—that we have come an awfully long way since the meeting that took place only, probably, three weeks ago. My noble friend as well as the Minister from another place came and gave us and others in another part of your Lordships’ House the time to listen to the concerns of the academic community and others about these clauses. I should perhaps declare that I am not a member of the academic community. We very much hope that we can be more persuasive today.

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a long and fascinating debate and, like other speakers, I pay tribute to the Minister for his rationality, willingness to conciliate and awareness of the seriousness of these issues. Like my noble friends who have spoken, I wish that we were able to go further and to have a government amendment which expressed terms such as “statutory duty” and “the role of university personnel” with much greater clarity. As on previous occasions, I wish our Front Bench had not been less than wholehearted on this matter and taken a view, which many of us knew nothing about, which apparently has guaranteed academic freedom—so that is all right then. It is not a satisfactory position.

I speak not as a party person but as someone who has spent his entire career in the university world. I was a university teacher—I am a university teacher now in my retirement in King’s College—and I was a vice-chancellor for seven years. Universities are a unique marketplace for ideas—that is their ultimate purpose. They may additionally assist with creating wealth and giving local employment but their main function is to be uninhibitedly and courageously involved in ideas, particularly language. If we are talking about terms such as “terrorism” or elements which are conducive or similar to terrorism, you need extreme clarity, including the capacity to debate these matters.

I was concerned when we had a helpful meeting the other day that the reasonableness of the Minister was not paralleled by his government colleague, who talked not about terrorism but about pathways to terrorism. It seems that if you produce a concept which is in the mind of terrorists you are automatically creating a pathway. However, pathways cover many things. They can emerge in an unexpected way and can lead nowhere or everywhere. My friend, the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, referred to the University of Wales, where he knows I had the pleasure of working with him, and how a pathway, when we were talking about the theme of nationalism, led to one or two misguided people blowing up buildings. That was not a necessary consequence of that debate. The effect of opening up the theme of what nationalism was—its different political and cultural expressions and so on—had a civilising effect and nationalism resulted not in bombs but in devolution being debated in this House and on the statute book. Pathway is a dangerous concept. Non-violent extremism has been dismissed as nonsensical by other noble Lords and I need not stress that again.

I wish to make two more points: this duty is unworkable and it is wrong. It is unworkable because I can say that as a vice-chancellor—perhaps other vice-chancellors will disagree—it would not have been possible to carry out this role, this statutory duty: we would be obliged by the nature of our professional role not to apply it. As I say, the purpose is for universities to be free to debate ideas. You would be forced to discuss with student societies who they were going to invite, whether alternative views would be presented and what the general tone would be. You would, in effect, be censoring or monitoring the interchange of ideas in a way which is not compatible with being the head of or a senior figure in a university.

The nature and the force of the statutory duty and the way in which it would be exercised are still not clear in the Bill. It appears to have satisfied our Front Bench but it has not satisfied me or people such as my noble friends who have first-hand experience of working in universities. So, first, it is completely unworkable. It would destroy the very essence of collegial collaboration within a university institution and the element of trust which is absolutely essential to the way in which a university operates.

Finally, this duty is wrong. It is trying to undermine precious, unique and special institutions in this country which are honoured all over the world. These institutions do different things: they are impressive for their intellectual standards, which are widely acknowledged and admired, and for their internationalism. The whole point of being in a university is that everyone is equal there; you do not identify or marginalise any particular minority groups. To even suggest that universities should do anything other than what they do and act as a kind of thought police is deeply damaging to something which has been a pride of the history of this country for many centuries.

I hope that the Minister, with the tolerance, rationality and courtesy that he has shown, will feel able to go further and pursue the path suggested by other noble Lords of removing universities from the Bill.