Vetting Social Media Accounts

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what policies they have in place for vetting the social media accounts of speakers invited to address Civil Service events, and cancelling invitations where past postings are critical of His Majesty’s Government; and what assessment they have made of the compatibility of any such policies with their commitment to free speech.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are not in the business of limiting free speech. It is the Conservative Party that has consistently defended free speech against attacks from across the political divide. The only guidance we have produced is for cross-departmental diversity networks, to ensure that they conduct checks on external speakers before inviting them to participate in Civil Service events. The guidance helps to maintain impartiality, given that these events take place in Civil Service workplaces and workspaces. For anything beyond that, it is for departments to set their own approach.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I find that a little difficult to accept, because we have slowly begun to hear about who has been cancelled. A chemical weapons expert was cancelled from a chemical weapons conference because of some social media tweets he made two or three years before on other aspects of government domestic policy. If we are going to cancel experts from expert conferences—experts on medical research, digital research or whatever—the Government are going to lose a lot, and not just freedom of speech. The Minister in the Cabinet Office said in the Commons that it is concerned only with

“speakers linked to abhorrent organisations”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/5/23; col. 421.]

The chemical weapons expert, whom I have met, is an active Liberal Democrat and an Anglican: I do not know whether the Government regard those as abhorrent organisations. Does the Minister accept that it may now be time to have a free-speech champion in Whitehall along the lines the Government insist on having for universities?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I like to think that we are free speech champions. Unfortunately, the matter the noble Lord raises is now the subject of ongoing legal correspondence, which means it would be inappropriate for me to comment at this stage.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

We certainly are not. I think the noble Lord does not understand what we are trying to do. In the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, the Prime Minister recently stressed the importance of freedom of speech, and we have taken action through it in universities because challenge, debate and free speech are a vital part of British life and the British constitution.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I am confused by all the references to the diversity network. My understanding from at least two of those who have been cancelled in this way was that they were invited, in their capacity as experts, to expert conferences. The chemical weapons expert was invited to speak again to a Ministry of Defence-led conference on chemical weapons at which, on the previous occasion, he had spoken alongside a Chinese Communist official who was also a chemical weapons expert. Importantly, the relevance of their views on domestic politics to their expertise is low and should not be a reason for cancelling them. If we are going to go down that road, the Government will be denying themselves a great deal of expertise which is valuable for policy development. Is that the direction in which we may be going?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Of course we need expertise in policy development—I am as keen on that as the noble Lord—but the guidance was developed by the Government People Group for the specific use of the cross-government diversity networks. I cannot comment further for the reasons I outlined at the beginning of the debate, although I believe the Ministry of Defence is looking into the circumstances of one of the cases the noble Lord mentioned, and I will keep him updated when I am able to do so.