Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Moylan

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I have to say that I am sinking in sympathy on the general principle in this Committee, which is coming at me from every side. Nobody lacks sympathy with what I am saying—in general. It is only in the particular that they object to what might be put forward to practical effect—I am always open to the charge that I may have erred in drafting and may have got the wrong approach, and all that—but without substituting any particular proposal for the ones that they particularly find objectionable in my case. I agree that it is not a suitable parallel. Coercive police powers are not a suitable parallel with pedagogy—I picked it off the shelf—but they are perhaps a suitable parallel with somebody being driven out of their job because of particular views, because that too is a coercive act. If they are not defended from being driven out of their job, and we are simply saying that it will be dealt with by guidance and not in the Bill, what are we doing? They are skewered, because they now admit the need for change but they want it done by somebody else.

I now come to my noble friend the Minister, because I really must wrap up, and we have to move on.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, surely there is a difference between something that is appropriate as guidance, where right-minded people would think that guidance was appropriate, versus Henry VIII clauses, where Ministers are seeking to grant themselves sweeping powers over which there is no scrutiny. What we are saying here is not, “Let’s grant Henry VIII powers to a Secretary of State”, but rather that there are appropriate places for things, and on this occasion, guidance is the appropriate place.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

It is absolutely clear that of course there is a difference between guidance and Henry VIII powers but we are not in that field here. We are talking about what our contribution is as legislators and the fact that, on what we acknowledge to be tricky and difficult issues on which the public and leaders of universities would like to know our views, we are saying, “We aren’t going to agree on any of that. We’re going to give it to a body where we have no say and where there is no supervision for us at all, and we will trust them.” Frankly, it is a cop-out.

None the less, I am going to move to a close and thank my noble friend the Minister for the careful consideration that he gave to my amendment. I think that in some ways he is encouraging me to redraft it better for Report, as he pointed out its various flaws. He somewhat failed the acid test I set him of how his clause as currently drafted would deal with the situation of Professor Kathleen Stock. The noble Lord, Lord Grabiner, said that frankly it did not need to because existing provisions already do so and it was simply a failure of the university to apply them. If that is the Minister’s view, I think he should say so. Still, I am grateful to him because he gave very careful consideration to the amendment. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

I did not say from these Benches that it was too big to be included. I suggested that there needs to be more discussion and clarification of the issues at stake because they are even broader than the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Sikka, were discussing. That is not to say that they should not be included.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I am very grateful for that clarification, which I take as an encouragement to myself and the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, to enter discussions with the noble Baroness as we prepare for the next stage of the Bill to reach satisfactory wording on the topic.

Finally, I simply say how very grateful I am to everybody who spoke in the debate and managed not to say that it should be dealt with in the code of conduct. With that, and given the lateness of the hour—though I suspect the topic may come back—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Smith of Newnham and Lord Moylan

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Thursday 3rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 108, while supporting the other two amendments introduced so powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend Lady Northover, and to which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, spoke so eloquently.

I am completely in support of those amendments, but I wish to speak briefly to the genocide amendment today. On various occasions during the Covid pandemic questions were asked of the then Health Minister about the procurement of PPE. He was not able to give me a straight answer to say, “We can guarantee that no PPE procured could have had anything to do with slave labour or could have come from Xinjiang.”

The NHS seeks to be world leading. We all support it and want it to be able to deliver for every citizen in this country. But that should not be at the expense of the lives of those in other parts of the world. It is not good enough to say that we have the Modern Slavery Act if that will not lead to a change in practices. It is absolutely essential that our supply chains do not include anything that comes from forced labour.

If one looks at what is going on in Xinjiang, it is possible to barter to get numbers of people, just as it was 200 years ago during the slave trade. That is not acceptable. It may be the case that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, pointed out, we will be told, “This is not the right piece of legislation.” If it is not, what will the Government bring forward that will mean that every point of our supply chain—every part of government procurement—ensures that we are not procuring things that have been made using slave labour?

We must not be complicit. This House should support the amendments, and if the Minister is not able to support the amendment, perhaps he could come back with a revised and better version of the amendment that will do what we all seek to achieve.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly only to Amendment 108, which I understand the Government are likely to resist when my noble friend the Minister comes to speak. I say simply, very briefly, that to be persuasive, my noble friend has to explain how through administrative measures the National Health Service will achieve the effects of this amendment. He has to explain that in a credible way and that the effects will be rapid and comprehensive. Any idea that this will be kicked into a long review that ambles on and may or may not produce the effects required by at least the first two proposed new subsections of the amendment will lack credibility; I am less concerned about the chairman of the Select Committee part that comes in the third one. I would like my noble friend to know before he speaks that that is what I think we all want to hear.