Command Paper Safeguarding the Union

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I can assure the noble Lord that this is a priority for the Government. We are continuing to work at pace. He will be aware that the veterinary medicines working group is advising the Government. It met in September and will do so again this month; we will provide an update as soon as possible.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

Presumably, the regional envoy has an important role in promoting the union. When will Sue Gray be starting her job?

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I must admit that I am quite fascinated by the noble Lord’s obsession with one individual on what is a major issue for the people of Northern Ireland. As and when, I will be happy to update him when she does.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier. I have the second amendment in this group, Amendment 116. The amendments are connected by the word “compensation”, but they are actually about very different issues. Mine is a probing amendment to discuss how the current court-ordered compensation scheme could be improved. I thank the London Victims’ Commissioner and Victim Support for their very helpful briefings.

We know that crime can have a significant emotional and financial impact on victims, and research shows that many victims value compensation as a tangible form of redress. Court-ordered compensation is financial compensation that a judge or a magistrate orders must be paid to a victim by a convicted offender, and the money owed is retrieved by the Courts Service on behalf of the victim. The worries are that the system of payment and enforcement of court-ordered compensation is causing unnecessary distress and frustration, because too often the compensation is paid in very small instalments, over a long period, or, even worse, not at all.

The Ministry of Justice’s paper, Punishment and Reform: Effective Community Sentences, which was published in 2012, sets out that:

“Compensation orders are an essential mechanism for offenders to put right at least some of the harm they have caused. They require offenders to make financial reparation directly to their victims, to compensate for the loss, damage or injury they have caused”.


The problem is the slow payments and poor enforcement. The system of payment and enforcement is adding unnecessary distress and frustration to victims’ experience of the criminal justice system. The piecemeal nature of payments also acts as a constant reminder to the victim of the crime. This point was recognised by the Ministry of Justice, in a 2014 publication, which stated that

“the current scheme of receiving compensation can be distressing for victims because it prolongs their relationship with the offender and can prevent them from moving on from the experience”.

HMCTS has a number of powers at its disposal to collect payments from offenders, including taking money directly from their earnings or benefits, issuing warrants to seize and sell goods belonging to an offender, or, ultimately, bringing an offender back before the courts. Despite this range of powers, collection rates remained low for a number of years. In reality, many compensation orders are never paid, with victims asked by the court to write off the debt owed by the offender.

To put that in context, in quarter 1 2023, the total value of financial impositions outstanding in courts in England and Wales was £1.47 billion, up 3% on the previous quarter and 4% on the previous year. The amount of outstanding financial impositions has more than doubled since quarter 1 2015. However, we recognise that a change in policy regarding the collection of financial impositions is partially behind the cumulative increase, as unpaid accounts are no longer routinely closed, and therefore more outstanding impositions are carried over. The latest available data shows that, 18 months after being imposed, only 53% of victim compensation was paid to victims. Slightly more recent data shows that, after 12 months, only 40% has been paid, with only a quarter of compensation paid to victims within three months.

I move on to an example of good practice in the Netherlands. In 2011, the Government of the Netherlands introduced the advanced compensation scheme as part of the Act for the Improvement of Victims in Criminal Procedure. Under the scheme, the state pays the victim the full amount—up to a maximum of €5,000—of compensation awarded by the court if the offender fails to pay within eight months. The state subsequently recovers the amount due from the offender. Originally, the scheme covered only victims of violent and sexual offences, but in 2016 it was extended to cover the victims of any crime.

Victim Support’s research has shown that many victims are very distressed. One victim of crime said:

“I still have not received any compensation after a year and a half”.


Another said that

“you have to keep going and be persistent with any claims for compensation that you feel you deserve. Why should you be a victim twice?”

My amendment sets out a possible mechanism to replicate the Netherlands scheme, because we need to find some balance. The whole point of this entire Bill is to smooth the journey for victims. This final part—compensation awarded by the court, recognising that they have been a victim and providing them with some redress—is not working for our victims. I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister. Any suggestions he may have, even if he does not think this is right, would be gratefully welcomed.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 112. My noble and learned friend’s proposal is an excellent one and I urge the Government to address it promptly and seriously.

Companies and persons convicted of matters affecting those overseas, particularly overseas companies and the countries themselves, should be liable to compensation. It is important that it does not just feed more corruption, but the concept is plainly right. It will put this country in a good place in the world and show leadership on a really important topic, because there is far too much corruption around the world and too many countries turn a blind eye to it.

I urge the Government to take this amendment very seriously. I hope they will have come up with a concrete proposal to endorse it by Report. I commend it to the Committee.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I support the probing amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which is an opportunity for the Government to look at court order compensation.

The compensation for victims when they leave a court is not the amount they receive and it takes many years. I will not repeat what the noble Baroness has said—it is on my sheet as well—but, for the victims I meet, compensation causes further problems and trauma. It gets worse if victims apply for criminal injuries compensation, because the court order compensation is deducted from any award that is made. This is fine where the court order compensation is paid, but, if not, the victim is left worse off as a result. I agree that we should look at how the Netherlands pays up front.

I know that there is no money tree but, to make it smooth for victims, instead of being for the offender to hide once again and use as a tool in financial cases for coercive control, I hope the Government will review this court order compensation scheme. I know from speaking to judges that they know that, when they award this, the offender will pay it in dribs and drabs. Now is the time for a good review of this.

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Moved by

[Lord Sandhurst]

113: After Clause 27, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to inform victims and families of the unduly lenient sentencing schemeAfter section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, insert—“36A Duty to inform victims and families of the unduly lenient sentencing scheme(1) The Secretary of State must nominate a government department to inform victims and their families of their rights set out in section 36 (reviews of sentencing).(2) The information provided under subsection (1) must include the type of sentence and the time limit for application, and advise that applications must be made to the Attorney General.””Member's explanatory statement
This amendment will ensure that victims are aware of the Unduly Lenient Sentencing scheme which presently has a strict 28-day timeframe in which to apply, there being no power to extend the time.

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[Lord Sandhurst]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 113 and 114. Amendment 113 seeks to impose a duty to inform victims and families of the right to refer an unduly lenient sentence. Amendment 114 seeks to extend the time, in exceptional circumstances, for such a reference. I begin by declaring my interest as a member of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee.

Currently, the position is that victims have a strict 28-day time limit from the day of passing sentence to make an application under the scheme. The right is simply to have the case considered by the law officers within the Attorney-General’s Office. It is that office which decides whether to take it to the Court of Appeal as an unduly lenient sentence.

The victim, or family, if they are to make use of this, must know in good time of: first, the right to refer; secondly, the time limit for doing so; thirdly, the date when the sentence will be passed, which they have to know in advance; and, fourthly, the sentence itself, if the victim was not present, for whatever reason. At this point, I refer to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, who signed this amendment, and who had hoped to be here but has had to leave. As she said very succinctly to me, there is no point in having an unduly lenient sentence regime if victims do not know about it. That is where we are.

Importantly in this context, the 28-day limit is not open to extension, even in special or exceptional circumstances. That is the point of my second amendment. I am informed by Claire Waxman, the Victims’ Commissioner for London, that victims do not always attend sentencing, and often do not receive communication of the fact that they can refer a matter as an unduly lenient sentence or that they have to do so promptly. Of course, offenders can appeal their sentence outside the 28-day time limit, which is on paper there, if they show good cause. There is a statutory exception for them.

However, the revised victims’ code now includes an obligation for witness care units to highlight the scheme to victims, at the same time as informing them of the sentence in their case. That might be a good thing, but it does not go far enough, because witness care units engage only with victims who are witnesses in the court case. This will not apply to a proportion of victims, including bereaved family members. There is no organisation which currently has the responsibility for informing those victims.

In the debate on earlier amendments about training and so on, when I addressed this Committee the other day, I showed that many victims are unaware of the code, unaware of its contents and not kept abreast of their rights. Someone has got to grip this point as well, and make victims aware of their right to refer to the Attorney-General their dissatisfaction with a sentence. They especially have to be informed of the 28-day time limit. They have to know when sentence will be passed and, if not present, what was said.

Let me give a rather stark example of an unfairness that has happened. Alex Belfield received a five and a half-year prison sentence for a campaign of stalking various employees of the BBC. Claire Waxman personally referred that sentence to the Attorney-General’s Office. She considered it to be unduly lenient. A response was received several weeks later that explained that the case had been referred back to the CPS, which had requested the matter to be relisted in the Crown Court under the slip rule. The judge had looked at it again; he agreed that he had erred in his approach to sentencing, but he declined to change it; so that sentence stood. The CPS explained that the time limit for referral to the Court of Appeal had, however, now passed. So the Attorney-General’s Office could not refer this case under the ULS scheme, despite the initial reference having been made in time. It had been made in time to the CPS, but it had not referred it on because the CPS had taken the slip rule route. A possibly—and I do not say it was—lenient sentence, therefore, which might have been referred, stood.

The witness care unit, as I said, does not address non-witnesses. Others also might have reasons for being late. The information for victims given on the CPS website does make reference to the unduly lenient sentence scheme, but it is in there among a lot of other information. It still requires a victim to be proactive, to know that there might be something worth looking for, to think about it, and then to know where to look. That is not really a very satisfactory state of affairs. Something must be done. Making reference to a scheme in materials is very different to actually informing a victim. The witness care unit does not reach all victims, as I have explained. More must be done.

As for the power to extend time, it should be only in exceptional circumstances. I do not ask for anything different, so it is not going to create an open-ended time limit for appeal. The Attorney-General’s Office is the office that decides whether to take it to the Court of Appeal, so it acts as a filter. It will filter out at once all silly and unreasonable applications. If the amendment is granted, the discretion to consider reasons for lateness—whether they are exceptional and so on—remains with the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General is not going to start wading through large numbers of late references. The statutory guidance produced alongside such legislation could provide guidance on what circumstances might be treated as exceptional. Properly managed, therefore, there will not be unfair uncertainty for convicted prisoners who think they got a sentence of a particular length and suddenly are caught by surprise five years later.

Currently, offenders have 28 days to appeal their own sentence, but they have a right to apply to extend that time limit, which in the right circumstances may be granted, in order to appeal. This amendment, therefore, seeks to give some level of parity between the rights of the victim and the rights of the convicted defendant. I commend these amendments; information of rights is essential and power to extend time is only fair. There should be a measure of parity between victims and convicted defendants. I beg to move.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I signed this amendment, and it is a rerun for me, as I had similar amendments in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Most of the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has put forward responded to what the Minister said from the Dispatch Box during the passage of that Bill. These two amendments have been tightened to focus on the real areas of concern. One is not just to inform victims, but also their families; the second is to ensure that the time limit in exceptional circumstances could be extended.

Prior to laying previous amendments, I met Tracey Hanson, whose son Josh Hanson was murdered in 2015. After her son’s killer was sentenced in 2019, no agency made her aware that she was able to appeal the sentence under the ULS scheme. It was only when she approached Claire Waxman, the London Victims’ Commissioner, on the 28th day following the sentencing, that she was made aware of the scheme. Nobody in the system connected with the case contacted her. She was family, obviously not the victim. She submitted her application to the Attorney-General’s Office on the 28th day—that same day—at 8.40 pm. However, this was rejected because it was outside of court hours. At the time, there was no mention of office hours or court hours within the victims’ code or on the Government’s website. Tracey has campaigned for reforms to the unduly lenient sentence scheme, asking for the 28-day time limit to be given flexibility in certain circumstances, such as when the victim or their family is not informed of the scheme. She asked that the scheme be referenced in the judge’s sentencing remarks.

It is worth noting, though, that this still requires statutory responsibility for an agency to communicate those remarks to the victim. Can the Minister respond again—it was not him before; it was his predecessor—to see how we can smooth the journey for victims and families as they go through the judicial process? This particular case is really egregious in having an inflexible time limit for victims and families and yet a flexible one for convicted offenders.

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[Lord Roborough (Con)]

The noble and learned Lord makes a very sensible request, and I will do my best to write to him.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to various noble Lords for their support, the points that they have made, and, if I may say so, the very sensible suggestion from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, about collecting data.

If I may comment on my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier’s observations, they show that good information is necessary. It is absolutely essential. He says that these are simple and reasonable obligations; in which case, they must be explained to everybody. The guidance should set it out, and it should say simple things such as: “The Attorney-General has only 28 days in which to lodge a reference. If you are minded to complain about the sentence, you must do so straight away so that the Attorney-General has time to consider it properly; otherwise, I am afraid that there is no prospect of a reference being made”—something to that effect.

As for the extension of time, I hear what is said. It will be only in exceptional cases, and it will be the Attorney-General who decides. I just do not see what the problem is. If it is there and remains because the Government do not change it, it is really important that proper information is given.

I am grateful for the answers given by my noble friend Lord Roborough, standing in on short notice and dealing with these rather tricky little points. In the circumstances, having heard what has been said, I will withdraw my amendment. But I really do hope that something can be done, administratively at the very least; that we can receive proper assurances that victims and particularly those who are not witnesses, such as the bereaved and so on, really are told properly; and that a log is kept showing that they have been told—when and where and in what terms. I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 113 withdrawn.

Democracy Denied (DPRRC Report)

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, these are two excellent reports; sadly, they are not the first. As the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, has just reminded us, the Constitution Committee expressed serious concerns in its 2018 report, The Legislative Process: The Delegation of Powers, about the use of statutory instruments to give effect to significant policy decisions. It identified the core problem as the absence of a genuine risk of defeat with no amendment possible, which I shall come back to.

During the pandemic, over 400 statutory instruments were made. The vast majority took effect with no scrutiny at all. Legal changes were often set out in guidance or announced in media conferences before Parliament had even had the opportunity to scrutinise them. I wrote papers about that.

In June 2021, the Constitution Committee, to which I and others gave evidence, reported in COVID-19 and the Use and Scrutiny of Emergency Powers. This identified serious weaknesses in the way a huge body of regulations was made. It pointed out that the Government are required to report, explain and defend their policies. When scrutiny is limited through the fast-tracking of legislation, or the extensive use of secondary legislation, essential checks on executive power are lost.

However, 18 months later, here we are again. What is to be done? I endorse the recommendations made in these splendid reports. Time is tight, so I will focus on four points. I acknowledge that delegated legislation is necessary. Modern society is complex and changes too fast. Government often needs speed, flexibility and adaptability if it is to serve society.

First, at the heart of the problem perhaps, as others have said, is the all or nothing principle. We must address this. We must at least make more use of the delayed affirmative procedure. Further, as others have said, the two Houses should work to introduce a convention and a mechanism whereby the other place may reintroduce a statutory instrument which this House has rejected, or send it back amended on the basis that it will not be rejected a second time. The elected Chamber will then prevail, but after consideration and after having heard serious debate in this House.

Secondly, sunset provisions should be used more frequently. These would clear undergrowth, make for cleaner regulation and lessen the burden on business.

Thirdly, tertiary delegation is dangerous ground. When I studied administrative law 50 years ago, the maxim was “delegatus non potest delegare”. It seems all that is gone. Not only is Parliament’s scrutiny lost—so is the oversight of the Minister. The Secondary Legislation Committee is absolutely right that, when a statutory instrument includes a delegation of power, the Explanatory Memorandum must provide a full explanation of why the power is needed and of its scope. In my view, this will make those in the Minister’s office show their reasoning. They will have to think about it first, like a judge does when he gives his reasons in court.

Fourthly and finally, I turn to statutory guidance. We have heard about this from others. The Department for Education’s website today says:

“Statutory guidance sets out what schools and local authorities must do to comply with the law. You should follow the guidance unless you have a very good reason not to. There is some guidance that you must follow without exception. In these cases we make this clear in the guidance document itself.”


In this way, statutory guidance has escaped all scrutiny. This morning, the Department for Education’s website listed—I have them here—53 unscrutinised statutory guidance publications for schools and authorities. Of course, there are practical reasons for this, but we really must look at this more carefully.

So I endorse entirely what my noble friend Lord Blencathra said on the issue of guidance. Something must be done. Let us take back at least a little control.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the Minister’s observations. I listened to his assurances and the issues he raised with interest. I would like to consider them carefully before Report. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 12 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 69 from the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst. The Committee will note the unusual situation, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and I have both signed the same amendment. That shows that there may be different ways of coming at this issue. My focus is very much on the independent evidence and the statistics about the impact that Prevent has had in universities.

I begin with the leading human rights group, Liberty, which says that the biggest threat to free speech in our higher education institutions comes from Prevent. To quote its director of advocacy:

“There is a substantial irony in the government spuriously accusing today’s students of threatening free speech when, in fact, the true threat to free speech on campus is the government’s own policies”.


The University and College Union briefing is useful to the entire Bill. It notes that

“Prevent has encouraged the policing of mainstream discussion of topics such as British foreign policy and Palestine”.

The Committee might ask how many events this affects. Figures from the Office for Students, from 2019, show that, in more than 300 higher education institutions in England, nearly 60,000 events and speakers were considered under the Prevent duty. Nearly 2,100 appeared only with conditions attached. We do not know how many proposed events and speakers did not even get to that stage because people were scared off by the idea of being tangled in Prevent—but that is 2,100 events.

If the Committee does not want to listen to those sources, perhaps it will look at the inquiry of the Joint Committee on Human Rights of the two Houses, which reported in 2018. I come back to comments I made on Monday about the direction, and indeed the existence, of this Bill. The Joint Committee said that this area relates to

“a small number of incidents which have been widely reported”.

I contrast this with the kinds of examples noble Lords have raised. Remember, it was the Joint Committee on Human Rights of both Houses that noted that Prevent was a significant “chilling” factor on free speech in universities. It said that there is “fear and confusion” surrounding the Prevent strategy.

I note also that research from SOAS academics found that Muslim students on campus were modifying their behaviour because of Prevent, for fear of being stigmatised, labelled as potentially extremist or subjected to discrimination on campus.

My position remains that this Bill is not necessary or productive. However, if we are to have it, it should surely contain Amendment 69, which addresses what a number of independent sources have identified as the most chilling source of restrictions on free speech on campus.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the support that has already been given to Amendment 69 by the noble Baronesses. I can therefore deal with it quite quickly, just to explain what it does.

It would add a new provision to Section 31 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act. The effect would be that the duty imposed under Section 26(1) of that Act, which I will explain in a moment, will not apply to any decision made by a provider, in effect, which directly concerns the content or delivery of curriculum, the provision of library or other teaching resources, or research carried out by academic staff.

The simple way to look at it is this. Section 26(1) of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act applies directly to a specified authority and imposes a duty to

“have … regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”—

in other words, the Prevent duty. Section 31(2) provides that, when a specified authority—in other words, an academic institution—is carrying out that duty, it must have regard to the Prevent duty. Such an institution

“must have particular regard to the duty to ensure freedom of speech, if it is subject to that duty”

and

“must have particular regard to the importance of academic freedom”.

Amendment 69 would clarify what is to be encompassed in that on a more express basis by making it absolutely clear that, where the specified authority is directly concerned with content or delivery of curriculum, the provision of library and teaching resources, or research, the Prevent duty will not apply. That is all it does. It is very simple and clear, and it protects academic freedom. I think that is all I need to say in the light of the speeches that have been made.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, on this occasion I speak as myself—I do not think I have to go quite as far as the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, in saying that I speak as myself and not as a Cambridge academic. And I do not have to channel my noble friend Lord Wallace, because he did not give me any briefing notes for these amendments.

The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, are potentially helpful but I assume that, as with any legislation, the Government are extremely unlikely to say, “That’s a really good amendment. We’ll just take it lock, stock and barrel and put it into the legislation”. That normally does not happen. Even if a Minister agrees in Committee that an amendment might have some validity and value, there is usually a reason why its wording or a particular idea in it would not be quite right. I therefore ask the Minister, in responding to the amendments, to respond instead to the sentiment of what the noble Lord, Lord Mann, is saying.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 31st October 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 30. I should first apologise for not speaking at Second Reading. Because of other commitments I could not be there at the beginning and the end, or indeed to speak in the middle.

Amendment 30 seeks to add to the proposed matters to be addressed in the education providers’ code of practice. It would add a new paragraph to new Section A2(2), which would impose an obligation within the code of practice to put in place measures to ensure that politically motivated complaints against academics do not lead to time-consuming investigations. Education providers should have procedures enabling them to dismiss vexatious, frivolous, malicious or politically motivated complaints made against a member of their community—in other words, to snuff them out at the start. It might be that sensible universities will do that anyway, but if it is made part of a mandatory condition of the codes of practice then they will all have to do that, and make certain that they do.

It is plain that there are plenty of academics who hold unfashionable views of one kind or another, and they sometimes bring in unfashionable speakers with minority views. It is also plain from newspaper reports that we operate in a climate of fear, in the sense that academics and students are sometimes afraid for their careers. Without going into any unnecessary detail at this stage, the latest incidents were at Cambridge, where Professor Arif Ahmed, who is professor of philosophy, invited Helen Joyce, who has rather clear views on sex issues. We do not have to go there, but there was a tremendous hullabaloo and his own college, Gonville and Caius, made life very difficult for him.

What might have happened is that there might have been a complaint after the event or at the time. If a summary procedure is open to the university, it would see at once that such a complaint should not go any further but should be snuffed out at the beginning. This amendment is designed simply to provide for that and to encourage universities and other education providers to do things quickly and appropriately. That will help to improve the atmosphere.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 36 in my name. I apologise for not speaking at Second Reading. I was then in the acute phase of Covid-19, so I guess noble Lords will all be rather pleased that I was not in the Chamber at that time.

I begin by saying that I believe that this is an unnecessary Bill that is clearly playing politics with the very important issue of how critical and independent thinking happens in our country. I share the view of the University and College Union that there are great threats to academic freedom in our country at the moment. Those threats include the extreme casualisation of many parts of the university workforce, low pay and the fact that universities are being forced increasingly to act like businesses. We see the impact that that has had on freedom of speech. At Leicester and Sheffield, universities I know quite well, we had seen that whole departments doing really creative, original, critical thinking have been decimated or destroyed by the imperative to go for business returns. However, I will resist the urge to make a Second Reading speech, tempting as it is, and focus on my Amendment 36, which is drawn from an amendment that was tabled in the other place and makes a crucial point.

Anyone who read the Times this morning will have seen some very disturbing articles about harassment, particularly sexual harassment, in our military. That is a reminder of how institutions that have existed for many centuries have accumulated cultures that tend to be extremely hierarchical, and it tends to be the more junior elements who suffer pressure from the more senior. That is where harassment can be a particular issue, as was identified by the article in the Times about the military this morning.

I bring a little personal experience in that, many years ago, before the Green Party took over my life, I was very interested in history. I went to a great many academic history seminars and one thing I noticed in those seminars was that questions were asked by the senior professors, then by the professors, then by the associate professors, then by the senior lecturers, and then by the lecturers. Universities and academia in general can be surprisingly extremely hierarchical organisations. When we talk about protection from harassment, we have to look particularly at the situation of more junior staff, especially those with the casualised contracts I mentioned earlier, as so many are.

I would prefer that the Bill did not exist at all, but since it does exist, I believe it is important that we have this protection against harassment, particularly harassment against more junior members who may find themselves effectively subjected to a barrage of attack under the guise of free speech. It is crucial that the Bill does not empower that to happen.

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[Lord Triesman (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 22. One of the things that I have inevitably observed over a long period is that the proportion of the academic and academic-related staff who are on full-time contracts of the kind that we used to describe as tenured contracts has declined significantly. In some institutions it has declined almost to the point where they are a small minority. I do not agree with why that has happened, but I understand why it has. Generally speaking, it is quite difficult to get rid of people who are tenured, and if you are in economically straitened circumstances, you are probably looking for the least protection possible for some grades of staff.

But it is also true that the number and proportion of staff, and I make the point about both, who are no longer tenured but are absolutely vital parts of the academic community and are now on part-time, hourly and short-term contracts—a whole variety of contracts that do not conform to what we would have thought of as tenured staff—are increasingly women and members of ethnic minorities. There are all sorts of reasons why that is the case. For women, it is often said that, because their careers get interrupted for various reasons, it is easier to deal with them if they are not in a tenured position. For example, you do not have to replace them for maternity leave purposes. This has had a detrimental effect on the security of employment that is also discriminatory.

I will make two points that I hope the Grand Committee will feel are not in any sense unhelpful. First, if we want to ensure that the whole of the academic community buys in effectively to these concepts and the Bill’s key propositions—I share with my noble friend Lord Hunt and many others who have spoken the belief that this is probably not the right way of going about it, but none the less we are going about it so I am going to do my best with what we have—then we need to make sure that universities understand that it means the whole of the community. I regret to say that many universities tend to think of the academic community as being the tenured staff; I fear that that is probably also true of some Cambridge and Oxford colleges, having known those colleges myself over the years. They have much less regard for whether other aspects of academic life apply to all the other academics. I am not even being particularly critical of that; I am just saying that it is one of the ways that the sector has evolved.

Secondly, as I have said, this has had a discriminatory effect. When we talk about the academic community, it would be very easy to say that we do not have exceptions in mind. As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said just a few moments ago, we mean the whole thing, because we intend that the Bill’s impact should be on the whole of that community who are employed as academics, irrespective of the character of the contract they hold. I do not even believe that it would have any difficulty embodied in it for contractual or other purposes; it would simply be everybody who is employed to teach or research. I include in that “academic-related”, because, rather like the librarians in your Lordships’ House, there are a number of people who do background research that is fundamental to the academic conduct of an institution.

I commend this amendment without embarrassment, because either the Bill means what it says or it means it for only some people.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I will address Amendment 26 and the consequential Amendment 71, which we need not look at. Amendment 26 effectively aims at much the same target as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman. It may be that the definition is different and it may be that we can discuss this, but the point is exactly the same: it is to include the whole of the academic community in the university. We must get these words right. If there is a practical difficulty with the use of “emeritus”, for example, we can look at it.

What is really necessary is that “academic staff” is made clear in the Bill and that it covers the range of people who are most vulnerable. The most vulnerable are not those on full-time contracts; they are the doctoral students, other teaching staff and researchers, and those on part-time or less secure contracts. It is vital that, if they are pushing forward ideas that happen to be unpopular in their particular community, but are legitimately doing their job well, they are not dismissed or otherwise penalised for holding those views and expressing them.

Amendment 26 was tabled at Report in the Commons, and on 13 June, the Universities Minister offered the following clarification:

“To clarify, the Bill uses the term “staff” to broaden the existing reference to employees, as not all those who work for a higher education provider have an employment contract or employee status. I can confirm that it will include those on short-term, casual contracts and PhD students undertaking teaching.”—[Official Report, Commons, 13/6/22; col. 72.]


I suggest that my amendment would go a little further and make it absolutely clear that it encompasses all those who will need protection.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, much has been said that I agree with. I shall speak to Amendment 26, to which I put my name. As people have been declaring their interests, I should say that I have never run an Oxford college and am never likely to, but in the Academy of Ideas, I have been working with students for a long time on the issues of free speech and academic freedom—that is the kind of work I do—and a number of those students go on to become young academics. I fully support the broadening out of what we mean by academics, because sometimes it means the seasoned prof rather than the broader community of the academy.

The recent report of the Policy Institute at King’s College London said that 41% of students agreed that academics who teach material that offends students should be fired. That is extraordinary, if you think about it: they think that they should be sacked if they teach the wrong things. I do not suggest that those students cannot be won round or that those academics will all be fired, but that is the kind of climate we are talking about. There is an institutionalised acceptance of this—which, by the way, I think is partly due to the students-as-consumer atmosphere, and the managerialism and commercialisation of universities. It is a bit like saying, “I don’t like what you teach, I find that offensive; you should be sacked.” That is one explanation of why nearly 36% say that they are self-censoring.

When I have talked to young academics, I have found that they are the ones who feel that they cannot speak out, and that they are looking over their shoulder all the time. A number of older professors who are prepared to speak out say, “Well, what can they do to me, I am about to be emeritus?” But even then they do not speak out because they say, “I don’t want my reputation to be sullied, to be slandered or to be called a bigot.” If you are trying to get research grants, or get on the ladder of work and so on, you are going to be wary.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Sandhurst]

12: Clause 1, page 2, leave out lines 7 and 8 and insert—
“(5) A provider must—(a) take the steps set out at subsection (1) to secure the academic freedom of—(i) academic staff, and(ii) visiting speakers who are academic staff of any other higher education institution; and(b) not subject any member of academic staff to any detriment (including dismissal) through any act, or deliberate failure to act, done on any ground that the member of academic staff has exercised his or her academic freedom.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to extend academic freedom protection to academic visiting speakers, and to forbid outright any punishment of academics for lawful exercise of academic freedom.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, the importance of this amendment is to put the duties towards academic freedom on a rather different basis from those currently in the Bill. New Section A1(5) says:

“The objective in subsection (2), so far as relating to academic staff, includes securing their academic freedom.”


We want to secure their academic freedom, but that is—via new subsection (2) and then back to new subsection (1)—on a “reasonably practicable” basis, so it is not an absolute duty.

The effect of the amendment is, first, that:

“A provider must … take the steps set out at subsection (1)”—


which is a “reasonably practicable” duty—

“to secure the academic freedom of … academic staff, and … visiting speakers”.

That will remain on a “reasonably practicable” basis. But secondly, under proposed new paragraph (b), the amendment would

“not subject any member of academic staff to any detriment (including dismissal)”

and so on, and is subject to the “must” clause because it does not link back to new subsection (1).

The important essence of this amendment is to impose an absolute, rather than a “reasonably practicable”, duty not to dismiss or punish an academic for exercising his or her academic freedom. Without this amendment and this change to the structure, a provider could argue that continuing to employ an academic who has stirred things up and who is unpopular with activists would be impracticable. That would be particularly relevant, for example, where an academic is conducting or has conducted a line of research that is socially or politically sensitive so far as the end product is concerned, and where that research perhaps upsets existing social norms as well as academic norms. In the field of science, for example, one can think of genetics, sex, race or psychology. It can also be in political contexts.

Let us assume it is completely bona fide scientific research but of a novel line that has discovered things that upset people dramatically. There is then an uproar, and the university just says, “This is all too difficult—I’m afraid Dr X has to go”—and, actually, Dr X has been doing proper research subject to all the norms of academic freedom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grabiner (CB)]

Looking at proposed new subsection 5(a)(ii), I do not really understand why the noble Lord wishes to confine this to

“academic staff of any other higher education institution”.

A visiting speaker may not fall within that definition, but is nevertheless a person who in principle should be protected and allowed to speak, and have freedom of expression. I do not really understand why it is restricted in that way.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

What we are concerned with in particular is people losing their employment, but I am happy to go further.

[Lord Triesman (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish to introduce Amendment 14. It touches on the kinds of concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, has just raised and it is, in my estimation, a kind of partner clause that I want to explore with your Lordships to the one introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, at the very beginning.

One of the arguments I have tried to advocate to the Grand Committee is that, if this is to work at all, it must be felt to be under the ownership of the university and higher education world. For people to address a cultural problem, they need to get to grips with it. It is not about just processes and techniques—it is to do with very fundamental feelings. However many times references to academic freedom are made, if they are not made in a way which aligns with how the academic world and the academic community understand the meaning of those words, it is unlikely to take root and will not have that cultural impact.

That is why I have raised the question, which was also raised earlier by my noble friend Lord Collins, of the UNESCO normative instrument. This was a worldwide UNESCO conference, which adopted a worldwide definition of academic freedom which had been promoted by the academic world, the very people we are trying to address, as a definition to which they could all assent and which they would all defend. I make that point because, if we are to achieve success in this, we certainly want them to adhere to it and defend it.

The work was invited by UNESCO of a body that at that time I had the great honour to chair, which was the Association of Commonwealth Universities, an association of universities literally throughout the Commonwealth. It was drafted—some bits have been cited by my noble friend Lord Collins already—in the United Kingdom and Canada, and went through a very long process to try to make sure that this was the definition of academic freedom which the world of academics would feel was theirs.

If we had gone to UNESCO slightly earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, would have been the Minister. If it had been slightly later, it would have been the noble Lord, Lord Henley. As it happens, it was just after the general election of 1997 and, as a consequence, it was a Labour Minister who spoke to it. I make that point because there was never a cigarette paper—I know nothing about cigarettes, but the Committee will bear with me—of ideological difference between us about this. There were some differences around the world about it, and one or two nations—only one or two—declined to sign it, much to the annoyance of the rest of us. Saudi Arabia declined on the grounds that it covered women academics as well, and it did not accept that anything should be a right or privilege for women academics—no rights to academic freedom whatever. If we had included a clause restricting it to male academics, Saudi Arabia would probably have signed it as well. I just make the point that this was as close to universal as you could get in academic life where, believe me, getting universal agreement is very close to impossible.

The merit of that is that it provides us with a definition of academic freedom. It may be said that there are other definitions, but this provides us with one that the academic world itself formulated, adopted, approved and, with the exception of people who did not want women to be covered by it, was accepted by everybody. I should probably add that Qatar did not like it either for the same reason, but none the less, all the rest of us did. I commend it to the Government because, if the Bill is to become law—we have expressed our anxieties about whether it is the best way forward, but it may very well do; it is government-backed legislation, after all—I appeal to them to try to ensure it brings along everyone, because short of that, its prospects in practice are very poor.

That is why I provided a small history. As it turns out, it was engendered in the Commonwealth, in institutions with which we are probably all very familiar, against the background of a set of values with which we are all familiar and opposed only by people who, if I may say so without being unnecessarily unkind, do not share some of those values at all. Aside from having the assent of the academic world and being still referred to and related to by it, it establishes in a way we would all want that if people want to get up within the law to make controversial, difficult, unpopular or any other kinds of propositions and speeches in the academic world, it is a global right to do so, signed off by the first signatory to it, the United Kingdom.

Coronavirus Grants: Fraud

Lord Sandhurst Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am aware that my noble friend has much experience in this area, linked to her work on pensions and in respect of HMRC. She is absolutely right: preventing fraud is incredibly important. We designed the schemes to prevent as much fraud as possible before any payments were made, while still quickly supporting those who needed them in unprecedented circumstances. For example, the first furlough payments went out within six days of being announced. We had to move quickly but, clearly, as she said, lessons will be learned.

[Lord Sandhurst (Con)]

My Lords, yesterday, my noble friend Lord Agnew of Oulton told the House that he was at odds with what he said was the Treasury relying on after-the-event audits, saying that this was “too reactive” and too late. Why have the Government relied on auditing lenders after the event instead of taking preventive steps beforehand?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

That is a good point. It is certainly something that I shall need to look into and I shall need to write to my noble friend about it. There is no question but that the auditing side is particularly important.