Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Debate between Lord Grabiner and Lord Stevens of Birmingham

Committee stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Grabiner (CB)]

My Lords, is this not another example of why it would be helpful to have a definition provision in the Bill? If there was one, “academic staff” and “members” could be defined, and there would not be any debate about who did or did not fall into one or other of these categories.

In this context, it is worth bearing in mind another point. All universities, as institutions, will have either statutes—as in Cambridge, Oxford and some other universities, such as Durham—or their own constitution. You would glean from the constitutional documents of the institution who is a member of the academic staff and who is a member. We are a bit in the blind here, because in order to determine whether person X is a member of the academic staff or person Y a member of some institutional college, you will have to look at the constitutional documents of the organisation to find the answer. It would be quite helpful to have it in the Bill as well, so that there could not be any misunderstanding. Also, we could end up protecting through the Bill people who, strictly speaking, might not fall within the relevant definition of a particular institution. In that sense, the Bill could improve the position of individuals who are, to use a loose expression, associated sufficiently with the world of academia and who are deserving of cover here.

For example, there is a big difference in Cambridge. Once you are a student in a college, you are a member of that college for life. That may not be true in other universities—I do not know. For example, it probably was not true at the LSE; I do not remember. It is certainly true of any college in Oxford and Cambridge, so it is a bit unsatisfactory not to have a sufficiently clear definition applicable to everybody.

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

My Lords, picking up that last point, I support the amendments in this group that expand the definition of what constitutes an academic, but I wonder whether the Minister in his response can provide reassurance on the interaction between the academic freedom requirements of the Bill and the ability of universities to ensure high academic standards. Most of the amendments before us relate to the question of what constitutes freedom of speech, rather than academic freedom per se. I think the Minister said a moment ago that nothing in the Bill prevents bad science on campus. The corollary of that should be that nothing in the Bill should prevent universities preventing bad science on campus.

We cannot have a situation in which the academic freedom protections are used to allow those who do not believe that smoking causes cancer to continue at a medical school or those who believe in creationism to lecture in the physics faculty rather than the theology faculty, to cite a well-known example. Indeed, the University of Manchester had the discretion to take action against its PhD student who, noble Lords may have observed, is pursuing a thesis on paedophile masturbation, which is deemed not to meet sufficient academic standards. Yet under the definition of academic freedom here, those views could affect the likelihood of that person’s promotion or securing different jobs at the provider.