Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

Labour values universities. Sadly, recent Conservative Governments do not and this one seem bent on destroying what even David Cameron described as the “best of Britain”. We intend to oppose the Government’s amendments this evening, preferring to free our world-class universities, student unions and students from the threat of costly harmful litigation and, just as importantly, their unintended consequences.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

I rise to support the Bill in general, and specifically to support the Government’s decision to reject Lords amendment 10.

It continues to be a matter of great regret that in a country like ours, it should be necessary to legislate to protect free speech, but we have reached a point where it clearly needs to be done. Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of any democratic society, and in a society like ours it should be a given. Throughout history, philosophers have understood that creativity and progress in a society depend on acts of intellectual rebellion, dissent, disagreement and controversy, no matter how uncomfortable they may be. To a very large degree, freedom of speech matters most when it is controversial, because this is how pre-existing thinking can be challenged and new ideas can develop. In a democratic and free society, discussion, challenge and debate are healthy, and our universities have traditionally been at the forefront of this battle of ideas.

As I stated on Second Reading, university should be a place where ideas are freely exchanged, tested and, yes, criticised. However, in recent years, free speech has increasingly been eroded, particularly on university campuses. I served on the Public Bill Committee and the evidence we took from eminent academics was deeply worrying, so much so that I really do wonder if the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) was actually listening. Evidence was given of the chilling effect in universities, where academics feel obliged to self-censor for fear of the consequences of daring to express views that do not accord with an increasingly intolerant monoculture.

One of our witnesses was Dr Arif Ahmed, reader in philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He informed the Committee, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) said, that a 2017 University and College Union survey found that 35% of academics felt obliged to self-censor. To paraphrase Dr Ahmed, many academics are not speaking their minds or pursuing important research, simply because they fear facing disciplinary action from their university or being ostracised by their peers. As Professor Matthew Goodwin of the University of Kent told the Committee, not only does the issue affect academics, but a quarter of students are self-censoring.

If academic freedom is under threat, so too is freedom of speech. Another of our witnesses was Professor Kathleen Stock; she was still at the University of Sussex at the time, but shortly afterwards she was finally hounded from her job after enduring an entire year of bullying, marginalisation and intimidation. In recent years, there have been repeated accounts of speakers whose views do not correspond with the prevailing monocultural mindset being disinvited from speaking engagements, of reading lists being censored, of publishing contracts being cancelled, of reputations being trashed, and of “safe spaces” being created in which nothing but the prevailing view is permitted to be heard.

The truth is that it is not about protecting delicate sensibilities from offence; it is really about censorship. After all, in a free society people can always protect their own sensibilities if they wish: by not going to the speech, by not watching the film, by not reading the book. Nobody is compelled to engage if they do not wish to do so, but when people are explicitly or indirectly no-platformed, those who take such decisions are not protecting themselves; they are denying others the right to hear those people and challenge what is said. That is exceptionally damaging. If dissent and debate can be silenced at university, they can be silenced elsewhere.

As I outlined at the beginning of my speech, I cannot support Lords amendment 10, which would delete clause 4. Clause 4 is what gives the Bill its teeth. Removing it would reduce much of the Bill to impotence; retaining it is crucial to securing the cultural and behavioural shift needed in our higher education sector. The Minister said:

“I stand firm in my belief that the tort is an essential part of the Bill.”

I entirely agree.

I will conclude by quoting George Orwell:

“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

George Orwell’s words remain just as apposite today as when he wrote them nearly eight decades ago. The Bill will protect that liberty, and I fully support it.

[Layla Moran]

I rise to speak in support of Lords amendment 3. I am frankly delighted that it has received Government support. It will do what I and others across the House have for some time been calling for, which is to ban the use of non-disclosure agreements by universities in cases of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, bullying and other forms of misconduct.

I thank everyone who has worked on the campaign. I thank Lord Collins for tabling the amendment; the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who have campaigned with me; and Zelda Perkins and Can’t Buy My Silence for their tireless campaigning over the years. More importantly, I want to thank the young women, particularly Ffion from the University of Oxford and everyone involved in the campaign It Happens Here—those brave survivors who have spoken out about their experiences.

My involvement began as the constituency MP for some of those young women, who first came to me in 2018 with shocking testimony about gagging clauses being included in agreements signed in the wake of an instance of sexual assault. One woman had to sign not an NDA—this is a critical point—but a no-contact agreement that prevented her assaulter from having access to her accommodation, among other safety measures. That agreement, which was meant for her safety, included a clause that prevented her from making any information public about the assault, or indeed about the investigation. It was so poorly explained that she took it to mean that she could not even speak to her GP.