Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Bell Ribeiro-Addy Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab) [V]]

The University and College Union has rightly argued that there is

“no evidence of a free speech crisis on campus”

and, in 2018, the Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that there was

“no wholesale censorship of debate”,

so why on earth are we here? The Government want us to believe that they are engaged in some liberal defence of freedom of speech, but it is a complete farce. The Bill is in fact a threat that tramples on students unions’ autonomy, overturns students unions’ long-standing no-platform policies, narrows the legal definition of academic freedoms and fails to address the real threats to campus free speech: the ever-failing Prevent duty, casualised employment, insecure research funding and, of course, the Government. The Bill is yet another part of the Government’s authoritarian agenda. For immediate proof of that, it is almost unique in the breadth of its provision. For example, rules on judicial review state that if someone wants to challenge a decision of Government, they must have standing, which means they must be affected by the decision that they are challenging. The Bill requires no standing, so any person, any business or any campaign can sue. What a free-for-all that will create. Where are the safeguards that the Secretary of State spoke of?

I hope that, in my short time in this House, I have proved that I am a civil libertarian. I was also a full-time National Union of Students officer, a liberation officer and the union’s anti-racism and anti-fascism convenor. I defended its long-standing no-platform policy against attack then, and I am proud to defend it today. However, I cannot say how much it irks me to find myself again making those arguments I made 10 years ago and—worse—not on a student campus or at a student conference but in the House of Commons. That is further evidence of how regressive a decade of Conservative Government has been.

The Government need to realise that while we decide who should be allowed on university campuses, for many students studying at colleges and universities those campuses are their homes. What has possessed the Government to put demands in law that students must allow anybody—even fascists—into their home and safe space of living and learning? We routinely saw that whenever speakers who espoused fascist views were even promoted as coming on to campus, racist and homophobic attacks against students increased. The Secretary of State said that holocaust deniers would of course not be allowed free rein on campus, but this ill-advised Bill does not realise that, over the years, the no-platform policy has served as the main line of defence for keeping holocaust deniers and other fascists off our campuses. Who gets to decide the remit? The Government —and they routinely pass legislation that goes against our equalities legislation without even publishing an equality impact assessment. Hon. Members will forgive me for not trusting the Government to defend liberation groups even within the law. Why should students trust the same Ministers who repeatedly endorsed the booing of England players at the start of the Euro 2020 tournament? The racist abuse now directed at them was sanctioned from the very top. Students unions cannot depend on the Government to protect them, and the Bill stops them from protecting their members.

I have heard many arguments about what should be debated and how debate should expose things, but the neo-liberal, supposedly free-speech fanatics do not seem to realise that while they are in a room putting together well-informed arguments for fantastic debates, young black, Muslim, Jewish and LGBTQ people out on the streets are being victimised, verbally abused, physically assaulted and, in some cases, murdered. What exactly is there to debate? What possible arguments are there to pose? They are basically saying that those people face discrimination because they cannot argue their case well enough.

The hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) said that we should hear both sides of any debate. Should we debate a paedophile who thinks it is okay to have sex with children? There are people who believe that children should be able to consent. Shall we debate misogynists on whether women should have equal rights to men? We have seen that on the rise with incel groups. Shall we debate people who want an all-white Britain and say that black, Asian and minority ethnic people should not have the right to live and worship as they choose, free from discrimination?

Free speech is not an absolute right. No rights are absolute in a society, because all rights come with responsibilities to others. We legislate for those responsibilities in this House. The right to live free from hate is not up for debate and it never should be. That is not stifling freedom of speech; it is exercising our human rights and defending those of others. The Bill wants to stop that. We do not expose fascist beliefs by debating them. We do not give fascists a platform to give more oxygen to their hate. If we do, we are saying that their views hold the same value as ours, and that is not true in a civilised society. The Government say that the Bill is about freedom of speech, but we know it has got nothing to do with that.