Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

First, may I congratulate the Minister for Universities on the very reasonable tone with which she has advocated this Bill, and the Secretary of State on his speech? As he said, this Bill is not a battle in a culture war or an ideological effort, but simply an attempt to defend what is already legal in this country. I do not want to aggravate the culture war—which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) says, we are certainly in—but the fact is that there is a battle of ideas going on in our universities, and if we are to prevent the exacerbation of the culture war, we need this Bill, and ideally we need it to be strengthened.

Opposition Members are right in pointing out that there are very few overt instances of censorship, but nevertheless academic freedom is under sustained intellectual attack in our universities. The battle of ideas that we are in is not one in the traditional sense of a clash of opinions and the normal free exchange of ideas that universities are all about. It is much more fundamental than that. It is a battle between, on the one hand, the very idea of the free exchange of opinions and, on the other, the opinion of the radical left, going back to Marx—the idea that the notion of a free exchange of opinions is itself oppressive.

I do not think many Opposition Members are radical Marxists but, in opposing the Bill, they are empowering radicals. I want to do justice to Members on the other side of the House, so I hope you will briefly indulge some student philosophising, Mr Deputy Speaker. The radical left seems to have two strong beliefs. First, it believes that identity is psychological—that a person’s true essence and self is constructed by themselves or other people. That explains the extreme sensitivity around people’s feelings, because if the self is a psychological construct and people’s identity is basically how they feel, being hurt or offended is absolutely catastrophic. An insult is a form of violence—it is almost worse than violence.

The second belief of the radical left is that people can and do suffer what is called false consciousness: they can believe ideas that are not true and that are, in fact, harmful to their own interests. These ideas are also known as conservative opinions, such as a belief in the western political and economic model, in Brexit or in the Conservative party. That explains why the radical left does not have a problem with censorship and why it thinks that censorship is actually necessary for freedom to suppress false consciousness and allow people to discover their real selves, rather than the conservative self that the ruling class has imposed on them.

[Sir John Hayes]

And that is precisely why the word “heretical” is apposite, because views that do not conform in a quasi-religious way to the orthodoxy that my hon. Friend has described are regarded as heresy. Once they are defined as such, almost anything can be legitimised in putting them down.

[Danny Kruger]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he will be delighted that I am about to quote someone with whom he does not strongly agree: Herbert Marcuse. No debate about universities and students would be complete without Marcuse. He is the great Marxist philosopher who basically wrote the script for the radical left. In his “Repressive Tolerance” essay, which is admirably well named, he argued for

“the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism…or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care, etc. Moreover, the restoration of freedom of thought”—

as he calls it—

“may necessitate new and rigid restrictions on teachings and practices in the educational institutions”.

That is what we are up against. I do not accuse a single Opposition Member of believing that but, in opposing the Bill, they are empowering those opinions. We are in a very parlous state in our universities, so I welcome the Bill, its strengthening of the duty for universities to protect free speech, the extension of this duty to student unions as well, the right of academics to sue if they have been no-platformed, and the role of the new free speech champion at the Office for Students. They are all excellent provisions.

To rebut what has been said by Opposition Members, the Bill does not allow hate speech. Hate speech is illegal. The Bill does not protect Holocaust denial, which is not protected speech. Under the ECHR, Holocaust denial is not protected speech. If a Holocaust denier is no-platformed, they would have no right under the Bill to sue or challenge the university.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is there to deal with the culture of perpetual offence—someone being offended to the point that they are not willing to listen to, or engage in, constructive debate—and that the Bill allows for the promotion of freedom of difference of opinion, so that people can come together and form new ideas but do not always have to agree with what the speaker is saying?

[Danny Kruger]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

I will finish by suggesting a few improvements to the Bill that we might consider in Committee. First, we should go further than insisting that all “reasonably practicable” steps are taken to promote free speech. We should insist that all necessary steps are taken, because there is a real danger in the current wording—for instance, a university might pretend that the cost of security makes an event impracticable, which means that its opponents could effectively boycott it or ensure that it is withdrawn.

Secondly, I think that we should broaden the protections for academics beyond their field of expertise—which begs the question of how we define a field of expertise. What, if a professor of European history were to criticise the Chinese Government, for instance, or indeed criticise his or her own university for being too cosy with the Chinese Government? We need to protect those academics too.

For an academic, in that academic’s own field, there is a very important consideration about control of the curriculum—about not so much freedom of speech as the freedom to teach, and the question of who decides what academics should be teaching. We need to explore the concept of conscience rights for academics to resist a drift towards teaching that they would not accept that they should be obliged to carry out. We need some protection for dissent in the system.

As was mentioned by the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), the Bill does not insist that colleges at Oxbridge and Durham take the necessary steps to protect freedom of speech; that applies only to universities and student unions. I think we should extend the obligation to colleges. We should allow academics to appeal not just through the civil law but to an employment tribunal if their academic freedom is restricted. Lastly, I think we need to clarify the role of the Equality Act 2010, which should not be used to close down an event on the grounds that someone says it would constitute harassment or discrimination.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The hon. Gentleman has just argued for extending the legislation to employment law. Is he aware that universities are covered by a system of tenure which protects their academics? That has nothing to do with employment law.

[Danny Kruger]

The fact is that we are extending protections to universities and all aspects of law should be covered. That should include those who are not covered by tenure—not just academics but visiting speakers, and the students themselves.

As I was saying, I think we need to clarify the role of the Equality Act. Essex University no-platformed two visiting academics who held gender-critical views on the grounds that under the Act the event would constitute harassment or discrimination, and that was quite wrong. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) gave another example earlier.

Opposition Members think that the Bill is unnecessary because there is no real issue and no problem to address. I could not disagree more. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). I do not think we have debated anything as important as this, except perhaps the Brexit legislation, in the 18 months during which I have been in the House. To prevent a culture war, we need to allow dissident views to be given full expression.

I give all credit to the Minister, and also to Policy Exchange, the Free Speech Union, and all those outside the House who have campaigned for this law. It is very necessary, and I support it.

[Several hon. Members rose—]