Business of the House

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I pay tribute to all the hon. Members who are raising, as they often do, this appalling problem of the rise in knife crime, which is incredibly concerning. I will not repeat the answer that I gave to the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues, but we also have the Offensive Weapons Bill, which seeks to make it more difficult for young people to obtain knives online and so on. I encourage hon. Members to seek a Backbench Business debate or a Westminster Hall debate before such time as I can offer more parliamentary time. I have given two days of debate to the matter, and we have Home Office questions on Monday 21 January, so the hon. Gentleman may want to raise the matter directly with Ministers then.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

May we have a debate on the importance of academic freedom? Universities are about the free and frank exchange of ideas, even if they are unfashionable and unpopular. Is it not wholly unacceptable to suggest that a respected academic such as John Finnis, emeritus professor of law and legal philosophy, who has taught at the University of Oxford for some 40 years, should be removed from office simply for holding traditional Catholic views? Is that not the opposite of diversity and open, robust debate?

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. It is essential that young people at university learn how to engage in robust debate and to challenge views with which they may not agree. The solution is not to silence those who make them. The Government said in our response to the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report that we have concerns about the culture in universities in relation to free speech, and we made it clear that all

“education is a place where students should be exposed to a range of ideas, including those that may be controversial and unpopular—and where they learn to think critically and challenge those who they disagree with, not shut them down.”