Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may briefly follow my noble friend Lady Williams. I declare an interest as a Cambridge academic and a fellow of Robinson College, where I am a graduate tutor and director of studies. I am also, across the university, senior treasurer of the European Society. We do not really expect a great deal of extremism in that society; it is probably a relatively straightforward society to be involved with. However, the person who was key to setting it up was a visiting French student. She was 22, dynamic and really wanted to get something going. She had far more bright ideas than I had at twice her age. I still think that I am young; as an academic, I am probably seen as middle-aged by my students and as relatively young by some of my colleagues. But this young woman came with a set of bright ideas and established an organisation. To impose duties on that organisation without any consultation is not necessarily helpful.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, said earlier, we need to engage in discussion and debate. If it is about Europe, it may be in some ways uncontroversial and not lead to extremism—but in a whole range of other societies, the debates might be controversial or difficult. However, the people who will best be able to say how they can deal with that are not academics, far less administrators, telling students what to do. It will be the students themselves coming up with ideas as to how to engage. I ask that we think through how to engage young people.

The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, asked who responded to the guidance consultation. Of the 160 people who responded, probably none was young. If we can bring those people in and engage them, partly through university structures but partly directly, we will get better decisions and ideas—and, ideally, a better way of implementing the Prevent duty in a way that engages young people and takes them with us, rather than a top-down approach which preaches to them in an unhelpful way.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this brief debate. There have been some excellent contributions. First, I want to clarify something I said earlier which might have sent people down the wrong track. I talked about 42 responses which my noble friend Lord Phillips rightly pulled me up on as being a paltry number. That was the number of academic institutions which responded. In fact, the consultation produced 1,792 responses. Five consultation events were held—in Manchester, Cardiff, Birmingham, London and Edinburgh—that reached a further 300 delegates from specified authorities, including representatives of higher education. So there have been some additional responses. Of course, it would be excellent to see more contributions.

The point that was made eloquently by the noble Baronesses, Lady Williams and Lady Smith of Newnham, on the importance of engaging young people is absolutely right. It would seem perfectly within the spirit and letter of both the guidance and of what we are putting forward here for academic institutions to engage with student bodies and societies; in fact, they should. They should ask, “What is the best way of implementing this within our institution?”. This would be entirely in keeping with the type of approach that we want. We are not talking about the European Society at Cambridge—unless there are instances there in which people could possibly be drawn into acts of terrorism. That would be unexpected and a surprise. We are talking about how to prevent people being drawn into terrorism—so a wider debate, crucially one involving young people, is very important.

Another element, which relates to what my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury had to say in moving his amendment, is the impact of this. We have produced an impact statement on the Bill. My noble friend said that he does not accept what it says on page 7, but it does make some estimates as to the cost of implementing this across 2,000 higher and further education institutions in the UK. This is standard practice. For illustrative purposes, we assume that each institution requires one week of a junior officer’s time—a BIS liaison officer, working with the university—at a cost of £573. Also, it is not—

Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

I declare two interests, one as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is thinking a lot these days about the right to freedom of expression and the challenges to it, and as a university teacher of some 40 years who has quite often not had her lectures drafted very much ahead of having to deliver them. That is a reality of academic life. I heard what other noble Lords have said about the ways these clauses could be counterproductive, but what is missing is positive thought about the ways in which universities have, not always with success but often, opened the minds of their students and countered radicalisation by the only long-term, effective method which is to discuss juvenile claims, hopes and aspirations that reveal hidden horrors within them. It is only speech that can defeat evil speech, and I hope that we will give far more thought to the positive measures that universities can take before we try in such an abstract way to construct forms of regulation that are likely to provoke what they seek to prevent.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am also an academic who tends not to write speeches in advance. I had not planned to speak this afternoon and I did not speak at Second Reading, but I feel it is important to mention something I did last summer which fits very much with one of the anecdotes we heard earlier from the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe.

I was doing a training session for parliamentarians from another country, a private event, and I was trying to explain to them the merits of the legislative process in the United Kingdom. After a while, one of them said, “I know what we need to do; we need a revolution”. I said, “Could you explain what you mean?”, thinking it was a term of speech. No, they really meant that they wanted to overturn their Government. Clearly, I was not in any way trying to incite terrorist or any other activities to overthrow the state, and I was slightly afraid that if anyone had been listening in, they would have thought that I was leading the wrong sort of class.

If we are engaged in free speech in universities, things can happen. There can be discussions and the idea that somehow the Government should be trying to impose duties on academics to say in advance what they are going to say, and to censor in advance what outside speakers are going to say, is very malign. I am very supportive of the amendments, and like the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I am not opposed to Part 5 and Schedule 3 in total. For local authorities and other organisations that are clearly state organisations, imposing a duty may be appropriate, but for higher education institutions, it is fundamentally wrong.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

My Lords, it should be no surprise that this debate has lasted as along as the debate on Monday on 17 new clauses around communications data retention. Perhaps that is an indication of the knowledge, concern and experiences of noble Lords here today. This has been a long debate. It has been a healthy and very well informed debate. The Minister may feel slightly embarrassed that he has found no friends for the Government’s position during the debate. It would be wrong to caricature the debate as people not wanting to avoid individuals being drawn into terrorism. That is very clear. I concur entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, who made clear why that is so important and the dangers of terrorism. I hope that no one would caricature this debate as showing that any noble Lord is not committed to ensuring that that is avoided at all costs and that action is taken.

I am not convinced of the need to pull universities out of Part 5 completely, but the reason there is very great concern is that the provision seems poorly drafted. It has created serious concern about the duties and responsibilities on universities. The issue is around free speech, which is what I want particularly to address because the Minister has an opportunity to win widespread support from your Lordships’ House and to respond to the eloquent and important points that have been made and to address the heart of the concerns. He will have heard them raised at Second Reading. They were reinforced tonight.

My noble friend Lady Lister said that her amendment may be technically deficient. It may be technically deficient, but she was very clear in what she was saying about her concerns about what could be seen to curtail free speech, proper debate and controversial debate within universities and higher education establishments.

The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, who is not in her place, made an important point about the consultation on this. It does not help debate in your Lordships’ House to be discussing guidance which is still open for consultation and which was not available at all in the other place. It was published after the other place debated this issue. We have had sight of the consultation, which will not close until the end of the week. The Minister recognises in his letter the concerns that have been raised. That letter was written only yesterday, which is why a number of noble Lords who have spoken about the duty regarding giving advance notice of speeches have not had time to read it. This is not the way we should establish guidance. This is not the way we should be debating legislation. In a later amendment, we will propose that because of the delay in the guidance and its importance, it should come back to both Houses and be subject to an affirmative resolution of both Houses before it can be accepted. It is completely unacceptable for us to be discussing this issue in such an abstract way.

I thank the Minister and his colleague in the other place, James Brokenshire, who tried to address a number of the issues raised by noble Lords in the helpful briefing he gave a couple of weeks ago, but I fear that that briefing raised as many questions as it answered. One issue has been raised again tonight. If the Minister is able to answer it, it would be very helpful in understanding the debate. A number of noble Lords referred to the work ongoing in universities under the Prevent programme and the arrangements being made. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, gave a helpful example regarding the banning of a particular song which shows that universities are fulfilling their duties. A question raised at the briefing has been raised again today and my honourable friend Diana Johnson has been asking questions on this in the other place. We have not had an answer. How serious it is for those universities which the Minister says are not complying with Prevent? He said that most universities are complying with Prevent, which implies there is ongoing work which is successful. He wants to bring the other universities up to the same level, but how many are we talking about? Are most universities complying? Is it a few? Is it 50? We have no idea of the scale of the problem which he has indicated to us that makes this legislation necessary. It would be helpful if he could say something about that.