Queen’s Speech

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I confess that I felt a frisson of excitement at seeing the long-awaited Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill in the gracious Speech. At last, free speech is on the agenda. The Bill is a valiant attempt by the Government to counter the chilling effect of censorship on campus and to strengthen the legal duty to uphold open debate—hurrah for that. I have some reservations. Will it lead to an overly litigious framework that interferes in institutional autonomy? Can you really use fines and threats to guard academic freedom? I am always nervous of outsourcing political battles to lawyers, especially when the problem is less procedural and more cultural.

To those who insist that free speech on campus is hyped-up reactionary scaremongering, tell that the Lisa Keogh, a law student at Abertay University, facing a career-threatening disciplinary action for discrimination for merely arguing biological facts about men and testosterone and women and vaginas in a seminar on feminism. Or say it is exaggerated to the teacher training student at Manchester Metropolitan University who has been threatened with a formal fitness-to-practise panel after raising the disgraceful lack of educational solidarity shown to the Batley Grammar School teacher suspended and forced into hiding, and branded Islamophobic, for showing a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad in a lesson on religious tolerance.

Campus cancel culture is a real and present danger, but I have chosen to speak today because if the Government posit themselves as a champion of free speech on campus, I am worried that aspects of two of the Bills listed here seriously threaten free expression off campus. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill gives the police enormous new powers over public space and threatens, I would say, the very purpose of protest. It is most likely playing on the popular irritation with the undoubtedly anti-social, nihilistic and misanthropic tactics of groups such as Extinction Rebellion. It focuses on the noisy and disruptive process that may cause distress and may inconvenience public services. In other words, the police could stop any protest if assessed as a risk of being too noisy or disruptive. The police already have an armoury of draconian powers that frankly, it seems to me, they fail to enforce consistently. Is it because of a seemingly more politicised or partisan police force, or is it confusion about when or how to intervene? The police do not need more laws, but better leadership. What the public need is the freedom to demonstrate dissent—from Black Lives Matter supporters to anti-lockdown demonstrators—however unpopular their cause to some.

Parts of the online safety Bill have united civil libertarians across left and right, described as

“a frightening and historic attack on freedom of speech.”

The Bill imposes a duty of care on big tech providers to remove content that is lawful for adults but said to be harmful—harmful not in the JS Mill sense, or meaning physical harm, but using concepts stolen straight from the campus safe space canceller’s playbook. Harmful is anything assessed as risking

“a significant adverse … psychological impact on an adult of ordinary sensibilities”


—whatever that is. This vague and subjective diktat will inevitably mean Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram being empowered to double down on removing controversial or offensive views even quicker, and invites platforms to snoop on users more routinely. All of this is to be enforced by Ofcom, the state regulator that this year enlarged the number of protected characteristics, in its hate speech guidance for broadcasters, from four to 48—a catch-all so large that many speeches in this place would fall foul of it—creating ever more people who say they are a victim. That same Ofcom has shamefully elided gender critical feminism with transphobic hate speech too often. The Bill also gives Ofcom the power to police disinformation or misinformation. That should at least give us some pause, if not chill us. In a democratic society, citizens should be free to make up their own mind whether they trust what they read, sources and so on.

The Government boast that the online safety Bill will make the UK the safest place to go online. The danger instead is that it makes the UK a world leader in monitoring and sanitising dangerous views online. I have heard many eloquent and passionate speeches from my noble friends here, opposing laws used to criminalise protest and free speech, but usually they are talking about other countries, such as Hong Kong and Zimbabwe. I hope to hear equally compelling opposition closer to home, and that the Government will resolve their split personality approach. Are they free speech champions or world-beating censors?