Campus Antisemitism in Britain: Community Security Trust Report

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Wednesday 12th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Community Security Trust, Campus Antisemitism in Britain 2022–2024, published on 9 December 2024; and what steps they have taken to ensure an appropriate response to its recommendations from university authorities.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, the recommendations of this report focus on improving processes for reporting and investigating campus anti-Semitism. We have discussed it with the Community Security Trust and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. The Secretary of State will shortly host a round table with vice-chancellors to discuss, among other matters, how the report’s recommendations might be implemented. The forthcoming Office for Students E6 condition will require universities to demonstrate that they are preventing and tackling harassment.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, and wish to press her on further action. The events of 7 October have released a 117% rise in anti-Semitic incidents on campus and released into the mainstream an anti-Semitism that was always under the surface—what a failure of education. The incidents reported, which include acts by lecturers, are shameful: calls to “Kill Jews” and “Bring back Hitler”, comparisons of Gaza and Auschwitz, physical assaults and isolation—the like of which I have never seen before in academic life. Will the Government tell the Office for Students to use its regulatory powers to ensure a good complaints system which is speedy and punishes the malefactors? Will the Minister follow this up? Will she tell vice-chancellors to stand up for persecuted Jewish minorities and to stop appeasing and negotiating with vandals? Vice-chancellors should follow the example of the noble Lord, Lord Hague, the new Chancellor of Oxford, who has spoken out against the situation.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that there are some shocking examples of anti-Semitic abuse, some of which I was able to hear about yesterday during a session run by StandWithUs, at which students themselves movingly and distressingly talked about their experiences on campuses. The noble Baroness is right that higher education needs to focus on the recommendations of the report and, in thinking in advance of the implementation of the new OfS condition in August, on what action it can take. That is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State will be bringing together vice-chancellors to make that message very clear.