Freedom of Speech

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Friday 10th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, for a Methodist Minister to be standing second to the Archbishop of Canterbury is the nearest that he will get to preferment. I hope that it will guarantee some quick access to heavenly places in due course. We are all grateful to the most reverend Primate for securing this debate and for delivering his speech with such courage. We wish him well in getting over his ailment. This is a subject of great concern, and I did not know whether to begin my remarks by thinking of the times—the years—that I spent at Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner; freedom of speech is pretty much written into the raison d’être of that particular experience.

However, I start somewhere else. I am a member of the Communications and Digital Select Committee and I am happy to note that other members of the committee are here to speak on this important matter later in the debate. Our report was published in July, and many of the points in it have been raised by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop in his remarks a moment ago. Of course, all of us on the committee are looking forward very much to the day that the House gets round eventually—I repeat “eventually” for the ears of the Minister—to debating the report.

One of the people we interviewed in the course of our deliberations was Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of the Guardian newspaper and currently a member of the oversight board of Facebook, which we must now call Meta. I remember his rigorous defence of free speech. He insisted that offensive speech should not be regulated or banished simply because it is offensive. Bad speech should be met with better speech, offensive views should be countered with determined and constructive argument. He was clear that where offensive matter is intended to stir up hatred and even violence, it should be dealt with under the provisions of the Equality Act. Such matters are not part of the case that I wish to make now. As far as is humanly possible, civil society, public and private sectors together should envisage maintaining the possibility of open discussion, even when offensive views are uttered.

Faith communities have not, over the years, proved to be exemplary in these matters—the most reverend Primate hinted at this in his own speech. From the very beginning of Christianity, “heresy” was the word used to describe those to whom freedom of speech was to be denied: those who held divergent views from the “orthodox” mainstream. They were often persecuted or exiled—or worse. The examples of the history of the formulation of the Nicene Creed, the split between Western and eastern Christianity, the Protestant Reformation and, even at a humble level, the ejection of Methodists from the Church of England for the ignoble sin of being enthusiastic all offer ample illustration of the way that Christians have fought bitter battles which have ended in fragmentation and division. The notions of excommunication, heresy and blasphemy—polar opposites of free speech—are only too evident in the history of the Christian Church. It seems indeed to be part of our DNA: just read any account of the making of the Nicene Creed, or Aldous Huxley’s Grey Eminence, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov or even Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley to get the picture of these goings-on in the first five centuries of the Christian Church, or the 17th-century, or 19th-century Russia or even 20th-century Wales.

The Motion that we are discussing asks us to be “contemporary” in our consideration of these matters, so let me move from the past to the present and from the general to the particular. I am a Christian and, consequently, my values are focused on and flow from the person of Jesus Christ. I admire his teaching, I am ready to commend his example to all and sundry and I will proudly advocate his cause in debate with anyone, anywhere, at any time. Here is someone who has been subject to continuous and intense scrutiny down the centuries, much of it negative. So how should I take some of the treatments of this man, to whom I owe such complete allegiance? He has variously been described as an adulterer, a homosexual, a social revolutionary, a fanatic, other-worldly, a fool, a clown and much else. I could easily point to the films, poems, novels, diatribes, statues, paintings and dogmas that are inspired by these critiques.

Far from feeling threatened or offended by these often dismissive views, I must say that it somehow pleases me his persona is considered important enough to go on being given attention down the centuries. Indeed, I feel stimulated by such categorisation, caricature and critiques to put forward an alternative viewpoint. I know that the strongest recommendation for anything one believes in can come only from the way that one lives one’s life. But there is a proper place for argument, discussion and debate, and I want this to be as lively, real and honest as possible, however cantankerous it may sometimes be.

From these remarks and in the short time available in this debate, let me assure noble Lords that I would happily put on a series of lectures somewhere on the premises at any time for those who would like a fuller treatment of each of these schematic points. A Welshman who has been to university both has something in his head and, especially, the gift of being able to put it into words—so there you go; that is an offer.

In conclusion, I hope that noble Lords will feel that I have addressed the Motion before us directly and honestly—and personally. If this approach to offensive discourse is valid in the realm of faith, I suggest that it may be equally applicable in other areas of our lives too.