Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Baroness Williams of Crosby Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan (CB)]

My Lords, as one who pecked away as rather a nuisance in relation to Section 202 of the Education Reform Act 1988, I give special thanks to the Minister for his courtesy and understanding in this matter. There might well have been a technical argument that the wording of Section 43 of the 1986 Act already covered the point, because it refers to employees in the context of freedom of speech, but it would have been churlish to do so. I am very grateful to the Minister for his chivalry, courtesy, sensitivity and, indeed, his bounty and generosity in this matter.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, wish to echo the thanks to the Minister for his persistence and patience. I am also grateful to him for letting me know that he and his officials are discussing consultation with universities and students with regard to the guidance offered by the Minister. As it happens, I spent Friday with a group of young sixth-formers from, I suppose, every kind of ethnic and religious background, a substantial proportion of whom were Islamic. They all strongly took the view that it was very important to enable discussion and debate to take place at their age level. They suggested, very sensibly, that the Government could help by, for example, encouraging political parties and Cross-Benchers to suggest the names of people who might be willing to speak to sixth forms of that kind and to respond if a school asks for a speaker without itself having one in mind. That was a very good suggestion by these young men and women. I hope very much that the Minister will persist with his discussions with the officials. It is crucial that young people feel themselves involved and part of the whole effort to try to deal with terrorism in this country.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the Minister for the latest amendments that he has tabled, which met very clearly points made by me and others in the debate on Report. I hope that he will not feel the need to answer too clearly the question put to him. In the professional field in which I practised for many years, clarifications were what you called changes of substance that you did not wish the Opposition to be able to say was a change of substance.