Early Years Childcare

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for opening the debate. I also add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather), who gave an absolutely tremendous speech, full of patriotism and love of community, which is just what we need to hear from the Labour party. He is already an asset to this place, so I welcome him and look forward to the contribution that he will make.

It is a very good thing that the Government are committing such a significant amount of money to the early years. Normally, I do not want to boast about Government spending as if it is a sort of proxy for good work on its own. In this case, however, doubling the contribution that is being made, from £4 billion to £8 billion, is a tremendous demonstration of the Government’s belief in early years and family policy, so I welcome it.

I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) about the importance of the birth rate and fertility, which is a great challenge facing countries around the world, and something that our country will have to grapple with. With that in mind, it is very important that we do put money into families. My anxiety, though, is about the method of implementation and the effect on pre-schools. We are talking about institutions that deliver perhaps 30 hours of education and childcare per week. Increasing the funded hours effectively makes the state the sole buyer of those places at pre-schools. Effectively, we are nationalising these schools and making them clients of the Government. That might be okay. There is nothing wrong with that in principle, except for the fact that the Government are traditionally not very good at setting prices. If, as we see in Wiltshire, the price that is set is way below the actual amount of money that it costs to run the pre-school, then we have a problem. We are distorting the market to the point of destruction. I am very concerned about the effect of that on pre-schools.

Nurseries are able to do better. They run throughout the year and are able to cross-subsidise and to charge for private places. I am afraid the effect might well be that we are driving parents into nursery provision, which is often of a lower quality and out of the pre-school sector. I received a letter from Little Dragons pre-school in Devizes, which I went to see the other day. It said that the current direction of Government policy is towards the state-funded, impersonal supervision of children by profit-motivated businesses from the age of two. I am not saying that is the case for all nurseries, but it is a concern.

I just want to make a simple suggestion—probably an oversimplistic one—to the Minister. We massively over-complicate the provision of childcare and the way that funding works, to the great distress of families and, of course, these providers. We are now putting £8 billion a year into early years. That is £6,500 per family. Why do we not just give that money, by some means or another, directly to families to use as they see fit? In the very early years, up to the age of two, I think that could be in the form of cash—a direct entitlement to parents to spend as they see fit, whether in a formal or informal setting. For three and four-year-olds, there could be a voucher system, redeemable at any registered institution, and it should be allowed to be topped up.

It is wrong that there should be a complete monopoly of state funding in these institutions. Why can a charity like Little Dragons not charge a bit extra if it needs to? Of course, it will also provide a free place to a child of a family who could not afford any additional fee. These schools should be allowed to work that out themselves with their community. Of course there is also quite a significant universal credit childcare entitlement that should enable people to support that cost.

I think we can be more imaginative, more flexible and more respectful of the choices that parents themselves want to make, both for the sake of their own family finances and the way they want to live their lives, but also in order to sustain a healthy and vibrant early years sector.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Let me start my remarks with the word “otiose”. Occasionally the words that frequent a debate come to symbolise the essence of that issue, and for our debate on Lords amendments to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill the word is otiose. It is not a word I had had the privilege of encountering before, but it is a word that will forever be linked to this Bill.

This legislation is now almost worthy of two candles in the making and baking. It is almost two years to the day that the former Education Secretary but five laid the foundations for the debate we are still having on how freedom of speech should be protected on university campuses. I deeply regret that we are still having that debate, not least because every hour of parliamentary time spent debating the Bill and its provisions is an hour not spent debating the real issues faced by students and wider society.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I would be grateful for some clarity from the hon. Member. He says that the whole Bill is otiose, but does he not recognise any challenge to free speech on university campuses in this country?

[Matt Western]

We are talking about the Lords amendments, and what is otiose is the debate that was had in the Lords specifically about the tort I am about to speak to.

Every time I visit a university campus, I not only talk to vice-chancellors and senior leadership teams or tour a new teaching block, but insist on meeting students. I meet them, often on my own, to hear their concerns—the unvarnished truth of what is happening on our campuses—and, above all, to listen to their priorities. I can categorically say that not once has a student ever told me that the risk to freedom of speech on campus is their most pressing concern. Why would it be when three out of every four students are currently worried about managing financially, one in four has less than £50 a month to live on after rent and bills, and 10% of students are using food banks to get by. These insights and statistics are all gleaned from a recent survey by the National Union of Students.

It is now a sobering 637 days since the Bill was introduced in this House—incidentally, the longest that any Bill sponsored by the Department for Education has taken to progress through the House since 2010—and during that period we have had three Prime Ministers and five Education Secretaries. The higher education brief has been bounced around the portfolios of five different Ministers like a political pinball but without the wizard—so much so that I find myself in the somewhat absurd position of debating a Bill about freedom of speech on campuses and academic freedom with a Minister for children, families and wellbeing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I rise to oppose the motion to disagree with Lords amendment 10.

There ought to be a basis for cross-party agreement, as there was in the Lords. I sense from many of the contributions so far that there will not be cross-party agreement, and that wiser heads are not prevailing on the Conservative Benches—those wiser heads are being kept below the parapet.

I read the letter that the Minister circulated yesterday, in which she acknowledged that creating a statutory tort

“has been a contentious measure throughout the passage of the Bill”.

That is something of an understatement. She went on to acknowledge that, in what she must recognise was a thoughtful and serious debate in the other place, many peers had

“raised concerns that the measure would subject higher education providers, colleges and students’ unions to costly, time consuming and unmeritorious or vexatious claims”.

But in her letter she just brushed that aside, on the basis that she had spoken to many academics who agreed with her, which is a rather interesting example of cancel culture at work, as she casually disregarded views that do not fit with her own.

We should be clear in this debate that, on both sides of the House, we all strongly believe in freedom of speech within the framework of the law. We should particularly cherish it in our universities, but we should also recognise the difficulties associated with legislating to that end. The right hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), the former universities Minister and, as of today, the new Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, saw those difficulties for herself when she explained the Bill’s operation at the start of its long life.

The hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), who is no longer in his place, said he is concerned that we have reached the point at which this sort of legislation is necessary. How we manage the rights and obligations of free speech has been a live issue of concern for many years, and not simply in relation to universities. That is why Parliament has framed the limits of free speech.

In a previous life, I was responsible for co-drafting the University of Sheffield’s code of practice to ensure compliance with section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, and I oversaw its operation in providing a platform for speakers with whom I profoundly disagreed. There is an irony in that, because the Government soon came to regret the way the Act’s provisions were used to secure platforms for those with whom they profoundly disagreed, and they raised those concerns with universities and students’ unions.

Some of the invitations to speakers after the passage of the 1986 Act were made vexatiously by those who were more interested in testing the legislation, or in trying to create embarrassment for a university and its students’ union, than in the issue under discussion. The fact that 36 years on we are debating the same issue is a reflection of the difficulties of making laws in this area, and that is something we should think about carefully when there are good alternatives.

More recently, I served on the Public Bill Committee for the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, and I recall expressing my concerns over aspects of the Government’s proposals for the creation of the Office for Students. I argued with the then Conservative Universities Minister, now Lord Johnson of Marylebone, who made the case for the Office for Students as the way of regulating the sector. So I was interested to read his contribution to the debate in the House of Lords, where he argued that clause 4 was not only unnecessary but would “undermine the regulator”—the regulator that the Conservative Government have put at the centre of the higher education architecture in this country. He powerfully made the case that the OfS can deal with these issues more effectively than civil litigation by imposing

“conditions of registration on any provider that falls short of the enhanced duties created by this Bill.”

He went on to say that those conditions of registration provide a wide range of

regulatory tools…from simply seeking an action plan from a university…through to imposing fines on an institution if it does not deliver”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 November 2022; Vol. 825, c. 716.]

I was also struck by the contribution of another Conservative former Universities Minister, Lord Willetts, who highlighted the role of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, in addition to the OfS, in providing a “clear process” to which any student can turn with a concern about any potential suppression of freedom of speech. But far more importantly—this point has been made and Ministers would do well to pay regard to it—Lord Willetts argued that the provisions of clause 4

“could have exactly the opposite effect to the one intended.”

He set out two ways in which this might be the case. The first was that

“people who are thinking of…inviting speakers or organising events—

would be—

“inhibited from doing so for fear that they could potentially find themselves caught up in complicated and demanding legal action”.

I have to say that in a different way I saw that chill factor in operation as a result of the 1986 Act.

Secondly, Lord Willetts highlighted the costs of litigation and the uneven resources available to those taking and defending action, pointing out that there is a “real risk” for student unions that would not have the resources to defend themselves against litigation. As he said, student unions

“are an important place in which students with a wide range of political views have their first experience of organising debates, exchanging ideas and disputing.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 November 2022; Vol. 825, c. 713.]

He pointed out that the “threat” of potential litigation that could bankrupt a student union would not serve the interests of freedom of speech in our universities.

So two former Conservative Universities Ministers—the two who have arguably had the most impact on our higher education system over the last 13 years—are both saying that the tort provided by clause 4 is wrong and both back Lords amendment 10. It did not stop there. Lord Pannick argued that effective regulation from the OfS is quicker and cheaper than civil litigation. My good friend Lord Blunkett, who has talked about his experience of being no-platformed as a Secretary of State, made the case that the tort will cause “more confusion” and “difficulty”. Lord Grabiner has been mentioned and, as somebody who should know, he said that High Court judges are less well placed than the regulator to deal with these issues. Lord Macdonald, as a former Director of Public Prosecutions, said that the clause, far from encouraging free speech, will have a “chilling effect”.

The case could not be clearer. Creating the tort would cause confusion, slow down redress, open the terrain to vexatious claims, waste resources, undermine the regulator that this Government have put in place and, above all, create a chill factor that would undermine free speech. We should come together tonight to reject clause 4 and support Lords amendment 10.

[Danny Kruger]

I rise in support of the Government and am pleased that they have decided to reinstate the clause that includes the tort. I was taken aback by the shadow Minister’s suggestion that such a provision was otiose. He suggested that there are much larger issues that the House should be debating. I think that this is where we see a real difference between our parties. The fact is that we think that few things are more important than the quality of cultural and academic debate in our country, and the context in which young people are educated and brought up. But a spirit of oppressive cultural conformity has taken root across the institutions of the United Kingdom and, worst of all, it has taken root in our universities, where freedom of speech should be protected.

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

If the hon. Lady had been listening, she would know that I just said we will be publishing early in the new year; if she was not just reading out a scripted question, she might have cottoned on to that point. This is an important area. I have many affected constituents so have seen all of this first hand, as I have in previous roles and from talking to parents across the country. We want to make sure that we are delivering for parents and children with SEND. We will set out that paper early in the new year addressing many of the challenges they are currently facing.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to increase the number of school places for pupils with (a) special educational needs and (b) disabilities.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

7. What steps her Department is taking to increase the number of school places for pupils with (a) special educational needs and (b) disabilities.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Claire Coutinho)]

We are making a transformational investment in SEND places by investing £2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to help deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision as well as up to 60 new special and AP free schools.

[Danny Kruger]

I welcome that news and investment. Wiltshire Council has a policy of investing, particularly in mainstream places for children with special needs, and I applaud that. Does the Minister agree that that means parents need proper accountability for the performance of the schools their children are going to, and will she encourage Ofsted to do more to appraise mainstream schools on the support they give to children with special needs?

[Claire Coutinho]

My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner for Wiltshire and I applaud the council on the work it is doing. Ofsted is revising its framework on this area, which was set out in the Green Paper earlier this year. My hon. Friend might be interested to know that we are also looking at better local and national dashboards to improve local accountability.

Independent Review of Children’s Social Care

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I cannot commit to implementing the entire report in full; there are more than 80 recommendations and it is right that we take it away, stress-test it, consider all the aspects of the proposals and their consequences, intended and otherwise, and speak with the sector and stakeholders. I recognise the level of ambition and I support huge aspects of the review.

Funding is important, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is as committed as I am to ensuring that all children are given an equal chance to succeed by supporting the most vulnerable in our society. Look at the evidence from “The Case for Change”, which set out the initial findings of the care review: more than £2 billion into children’s social care; £695 million into the supporting families programme, a 40% increase which I know the hon. Lady will welcome; £259 million into building new children’s homes, secure and open; and the £300 million investment in family hubs in half the local authorities in our country.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I too welcome the report wholeheartedly. In my view, Josh MacAlister has set out a template for social policy in general, not just for children’s social care. Too often, our interventions in the social space are too late, too siloed and too statist, whereas what Mr MacAlister suggests is a framework around building stronger families and stronger communities that also funds prevention, in the knowledge that that will save money later, as well as distress. I see my right hon. Friends the Minister for Crime and Policing and the Home Secretary on the Treasury Bench, and we are talking about saving their budgets too. Does the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), accept the argument that up-front investment in a good system will save money later and pay for itself?

[Will Quince]

I certainly do accept that argument, but it is a case that we all will have to make to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is a significant spend-to-save argument in the review. It is important to stress that we have already invested significantly in early intervention. I talked about the package for families—family hubs, start for life services in more than 75 local authorities across our country, and the expansion of the supporting families programme. That is all part of the mix, but we will continue to consider carefully those issues on which the review suggests we should go further—in particular issues around early help and making the case for it. As I say, we have an ambitious implementation strategy and implementation plan, which I will report on by the end of the year.

Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

How to follow that! Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will try to just use the microphone for amplification.

I am grateful to the Opposition for choosing this subject. It is a very good way of framing the mission that we have as a country. A nation in which it is good to grow up and grow old is one that is also ready for the threats of our times. I am with Edmund Burke who said that

“the sources the commonwealth are in the households”.

The strength of our country is found in our families and in our communities.

The threats are very real. We have seen in this century already how precarious our financial system is. We have seen very recently what a pandemic can do to global health and economic systems. We are witnessing now the appalling reality of war in Europe and the real threat of nuclear war. I think also of the threat of technological collapse triggered by accident or sabotage, and of the prospect, even if we do not fully believe the prophets of the apocalypse, of what climate change could do to the developing world, inducing extraordinary upheaval and the prospect of hundreds of millions of people on the move, heading for our safe and temperate continent. We face a series of very real threats to our country and to our civilisation.



There is a lot to be confident about in the UK, though, such is the strength of our institutions, including our democracy and, for all our disputes, the strength of this place—our Parliament. I think also of the dedication of those who serve the state on the frontline, not least in the British Army. I mention those who form the largest garrison in the UK in my constituency in Wiltshire.

Some of our country’s greatest assets are not found in the agencies of the British state. I think of two recent crises that did us proud as a country: the situation of millions of isolating people during the covid lockdowns and the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. For all the efforts of Ministers and officials in both those situations, it is fair to say that the apparatus of the state struggled to manage fast enough to help. But society did not: millions of people stepped forward spontaneously during covid to organise mutual aid groups to support their neighbours, and hundreds of thousands of people have offered homes in support of refugees. In both cases, the state enabled and helped to fund the work of communities, but it was communities that took the initiative and did the work.

That brings me to the nub of my argument: if we are to rise to the threats of our time, the crucial thing—the watchword of our whole strategy—should be resilience. That of course means national security, and yes, we need to modernise the British state and to invest even more than we currently do in our national defence. We also need real security in our energy supplies, in our food supplies and in technology. The system we really need to be strong, though, is not the state or the economy but society itself. That is the real foundation of national resilience and national security: the security of our communities and families.

How do we strengthen our communities and families? Communities need the plans outlined in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill in the Queen’s Speech: more devolution and more community power. I also want to see more reform of our public services to put them in the hands of local people, rather than have them as outposts of the central state. Families need more power and resources, too. We need more family-sized homes, including the affordable and social housing that has been announced. I also welcome the plans for the expansion of the community hubs programme.

When it comes to childcare and social care, the answer does not lie in ever greater, larger provision, large-scale warehousing of children and the elderly, trying to arrange for the home and the family to do as little as possible. We must help people to live as they would prefer, to work closer to home and to have time for meaningful family life. We need people to be able to spend the money that is available for childcare and residential social care in the way that is best for them, to look after their children or their parents at home if they wish, or to pay for informal support among friends and family. To put it bluntly, it should not be possible to get Government money only if you put your dependants in an institution.

While I am at it, we need taxes and benefits that reward couples rather than penalising them. The family is the best and most important welfare agency that we have or possibly could have. We should invest in it and trust in it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think I will decide whether something is in order or not, but thanks for that little lesson for me. Just to say, I do laugh when you talk about policy when the Government have been in power, so I try to balance out the political issues and objections on both sides.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill is one of the most important Bills now before Parliament. When does my right hon. Friend expect the Bill to come back before the House?

[Michelle Donelan]

I can inform the House that the Bill will be back in due course, and we can guarantee this Government’s commitment to honour our manifesto pledge to strengthen free speech in our universities, because of how important we believe it to be.

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

This is an important area of work within both the computing curriculum and the advice on keeping children safe in education. We certainly want to ensure that children are safe whether they are learning in the classroom or online.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to tackle the provision of low-quality university courses.

[The Minister for Higher and Further Education (Michelle Donelan)]

I believe that every student has the right to a high-quality education. The Government are committed to tackling low-quality courses and ensuring that students and the taxpayer see a return on their investment. We have worked with the Office for Students to tackle low-quality higher education courses and it will now, for the first time, impose stringent minimum standards for drop-out rates and progression to graduate jobs.

[Danny Kruger]

Wiltshire has no university, as my right hon. Friend knows, but we have something better in the form of Wiltshire College, which provides a fantastic range of courses for young people and adults, including at the great agricultural campus at Lackham. Will she join me in congratulating Wiltshire College on its retention of students and the progression that they achieve? It does that by working with employers to design courses that work for the local economy. Does she encourage universities to learn from the college sector how it does that?

[Michelle Donelan]

I agree completely with my hon. Friend’s assessment of Wiltshire College. Like so many further education colleges, it works closely with local businesses to ensure that residents get the skills that local employers need. That is why the Government are investing in further education. We are providing investment to transform the Lackham campus into an agritech hub, with £1.2 million of capital funding for Wiltshire College, as well as £4 million for the delivery of T-levels to ensure that learners continue to have high-class learning facilities.

Coronavirus: Education Setting Attendance and Support for Pupils

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

Absolutely, and I thank not only my hon. Friend’s school but all schools across the country that have gone above and beyond at this very difficult time. We have asked a great deal of our teachers and school leaders, and they have risen to the challenge.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

I am delighted to see my hon. Friend in his place. Will he join me in congratulating schools across Wiltshire, and particularly in my constituency, on getting back to work so effectively and educating all their children once again? Now that 12 to 15-year-olds are eligible for the vaccine, does he agree it is important that all children, and their parents, get the proper information, so that they can make the right decision for themselves and their community?

[Alex Burghart]

It sounds like Devizes is doing a cracking job in meeting the challenges of covid, and I say again to all parents, teachers and pupils who are looking for advice that the NHS is the place to go, and we are in safe hands when we take its advice.

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—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

As the hon. Lady will know, before Christmas we set out plans to support youngsters who were going to be facing the greatest hardship. We continue to keep this under review, and we will continue to work with the sector to provide the best support to students up and down the land.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to ensure the adequacy of remote education for children during the covid-19 lockdown.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to ensure the adequacy of remote education for children during the covid-19 lockdown.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger [V]]

All schools are under huge pressure, delivering teaching both in class and online at the same time, and many are doing an absolutely fantastic job. However, some parents are naturally worried that their children are not getting as much direct live teaching as pupils at other schools they have heard about, and they have a right to understand why. Does my right hon. Friend agree that parents should challenge their school directly and discuss their concerns with the head of the governing body and that making a complaint to Ofsted, as Ministers have suggested they do, should only be the last resort?

[Gavin Williamson]

Absolutely. We have always been clear—and I stated this to the House just a couple of weeks ago—that we encourage parents, in the first instance, to speak with a teacher or headteacher, and only as a last resort to go to Ofsted. We want to see and encourage as much live teaching as possible, which is shown to be the best way of delivering teaching, but a whole spectrum of resources can be offered. It is really important to work with schools, with parents supporting those schools, to ensure that we get the best solutions for all our children.