At-risk Academics: UK Support

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK support for at-risk academics.

Yesterday evening, I was privileged to attend a remarkable 90th anniversary event hosted by the Royal Society and the British Academy. In 1933, the skies over Europe were darkening. The Nazis had come to power in Germany and were already making racial discrimination against non-Aryans, principally Jews, part of their state policy—the early steps on the road to the holocaust. One of the first such steps came on 7 April that year, with the passing of the so-called “law for the restoration of the professional civil service”. An innocuous title covered a grim reality. The law forced out of their posts civil servants of non-Aryan origin, primarily those of Jewish descent, together with members of political organisations that were deemed to be hostile. Jews, other non-Aryans and political opponents were also barred from holding positions as teachers, professors or judges.

Up until then, the German educational system, and especially its universities, had been among the best in the world. Leading German academics were outstanding in their fields and had many contacts and connections with their counterparts in the UK, yet the new law meant that many faced immediate dismissal with no prospect of further work in Germany. Happily, the reaction of their colleagues here in the UK was immediate and decisive. The prime mover was Sir William Beveridge, then the director of the London School of Economics, who happened to be in Vienna that April and was horrified to hear about the purge. Returning home, he immediately began to create an organisation to raise funds to help its victims.

The result, on 22 May 1933, from the rooms of the Royal Society at Burlington House the founding statement was launched of what was initially called the Academic Assistance Council, or AAC—a major initiative of which the UK can rightly be proud. In just a few weeks, 41 university chancellors and vice-chancellors, distinguished professors and other public figures had come together to pledge support for the planned rescue of their colleagues and counterparts in Germany. They included no fewer than nine members of the Order of Merit and, I am pleased to say, a serving Member of this House, the then Conservative MP for Hastings, Eustace Percy. They defined their mission as

“the relief of suffering and the defence of learning and science”.

It was a mission to save not just the individuals and their families, but also the hard-won knowledge and skills held within their heads.

The founders’ appeal for funds immediately bore fruit. Between May and August 1933, the AAC raised nearly £10,000 to get its work off the ground—about £900,000 in today’s values—and much of that came from UK academics. In the following six years until the outbreak of war, the AAC—later called the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning or SPSL—and its individual council members helped between 1,500 and 2,000 academics to escape from Germany and other countries under fascist influence or control. Their contribution to the arts and sciences here in the UK and elsewhere proved to be immense: 16 of those helped by the AAC/SPSL later won Nobel prizes, 18 were knighted and over 100 became fellows of the Royal Society or the British Academy.

Ninety years on, sadly, many academics around the world are again at risk. Some are caught up in conflict. Their universities may have been destroyed or left without power or water, making productive work impossible. Just getting to and from work may now mean running a gauntlet of rival militia gangs. Others face violence or persecution at the hands of repressive regimes or extremist groups, which see a free-thinking and free-speaking academic as an intolerable challenge to their authority.

As we know, women in Afghanistan can no longer go to university at all. In certain countries, academics are in serious danger because of their sexual orientation. Elsewhere, those who defend democracy and denounce state corruption are subjected to arbitrary arrest and physical violence, as happened as recently as July to Dr Gubad Ibadoghlu, a renowned senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, who was seized in Azerbaijan while visiting his mother and, disgracefully, is still incarcerated. It is therefore just as well that the organisation originally founded to rescue academics from the Nazis is still at work today. Now known as the Council for At-Risk Academics, or Cara, it is busier now than at any time since the 1930s, fielding hundreds of applications for support, especially from Afghanistan, Ukraine and the middle east, but also from many other countries around the world.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

The right hon. Gentleman and I are well aware of the situation of Dr Gubad Ibadoghlu in Azerbaijan. He is a distinguished academic, proud of academic independence and the objectivity of his work and studies. He will not be intimidated by anybody regarding what he writes or how he writes it. He is in a difficult situation at the moment, and I would be grateful if the Minister could assure us that the British Government will do all they can to ensure that he gets the medical support and attention he needs, as well as to ensure his right to pursue his profession and live in peace.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I entirely agree with everything the right hon. Member says, and I told a special adviser before the debate that I would be mentioning this case. I understand that there has been a statement of concern from four countries—the US, the UK, France and Germany—about this case, and I hope that those in power in Azerbaijan will take the representations seriously.

My first contact with Cara came during the fall of Kabul in 2021, when a constituent sought my help to bring her sister-in-law, an academic opposed to the Taliban, to safety in the UK and to a Cara fellowship at the University of Southampton. The task was neither quick nor easy, but it ended successfully with Cara’s help. It is a pleasure to see the executive director of Cara, Stephen Wordsworth, present at the debate today. I am grateful to him and his organisation for all they did for my constituent’s sister-in-law.

Since then, I have drawn attention to Cara’s work several times and was pleased to table early-day motion 1188 in May, with the backing of 20 more MPs on both sides of the House, to mark the anniversary of its 1933 founding statement. That success for my constituent was just one of hundreds of cases with which Cara is dealing. The charity has steadily built up its support network of UK universities and research institutes, now numbering 135. Most of them host a Cara fellow, often several, and act as their visa sponsors.

The House should note that Cara fellows come on regular visas, not as asylum seekers, and, to their great credit, the supporting universities usually cover much or all of the cost of each placement. Thanks to that support, some 170 academics from all around the world are safe with their families on Cara fellowship placements in the UK. At any given time the Cara team are working to help place dozens more, while other new applications are being carefully sifted and assessed. Many of them will soon lead to successful placements. For each one who comes, however, another will apply and will deserve help.

We talk often about attracting the best and the brightest to this country. With the generous support of the UK’s universities and research institutes, Cara plays a crucial part in this endeavour—but with the important difference that were it not for Cara, these highly talented people would in many cases be destitute, locked up, badly injured or even dead. The work is painstaking and unrelenting, and it is carried out by just 14 people. The hope is always that Cara fellows will one day be able to go home safely, and some do, with individuals recently returning to Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Turkey, Iraq, Palestine and Azerbaijan, which we just mentioned in another context. Others, however, must continue to wait. I could provide dozens of examples but shall limit myself to just a few. For their safety and that of their relatives and friends still in their home countries, some of the names are pseudonyms.

Naila was an accomplished academic in Yemen in the field of public health. When she first contacted Cara, she was living with her husband and a young child. They were under siege and fearing for their lives. With Cara’s support, she secured a placement at Cambridge University, where she now works on a global talent visa.

Nadiya, a Ukrainian academic with vast international experience in civic education and citizenship linguistics, was forced to flee Ukraine with her 12-year-old daughter after Russia’s invasion. Cara helped her to secure a visiting research fellowship at the department of education at Oxford, where she is now continuing her research.

Wynne was a renowned environmental researcher and activist in Myanmar with over 30 years’ experience, who sought Cara’s help after the 2021 military coup. He is now a visiting fellow at Oxford, researching drought and water insecurity.

Oleksandra was a professor of economics in Kyiv. She left with her daughter after Russia’s invasion and is now a visiting researcher at the London School of Economics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Dines]

I agree with the hon. Lady that there is much we gain by way of academic research. Indeed, we enjoy the best not only of academia but of what the inquiring mind can bring to our institutions with a global feel. I agree with her wholeheartedly.

We thank Cara, similar organisations and the wider university sector, which create these opportunities and reach out to eligible individuals and groups. I also thank all those people who are here in Westminster Hall today. It is so nice to see the Public Gallery so very full. It includes Stephen Wordsworth, who is the director of Cara and who is here today with colleagues and friends. You are most welcome.

My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East is also the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. As I alluded to earlier, he has said on a number of occasions that some states will continue to project threats to individuals even when those individuals are in the UK, having sought safety here. We will seek to identify and mitigate those threats wherever they exist. If threats should follow any academics to the United Kingdom, our world-leading intelligence and security agencies would take a proactive and robust approach to identify those threats and, where they exist, to provide protective security in whatever form is necessary.

There have been various interventions in the debate. It is not right for me to talk about specific cases, but I will ask the Immigration Minister to write to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) to address the points that he raised. I am grateful, as always, for the intervention by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I think he has just left, but he always brings great experience and wisdom to these debates, and he works collaboratively across parties.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the Minister for the remarks she has just made, but would it be possible for the Government to put more direct pressure on Governments such as that of Azerbaijan about the treatment of academics, as well as about the individual cases that have been raised today?

[Miss Dines]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Government work very hard to promote the interests of academic and personal freedom across the globe. I cannot mention specific cases, but I will definitely get back to him through the Immigration Minister on the case that he mentioned. The Government will continue to seek academic freedom wherever they can throughout the world in cases of unjust and unfair incarceration.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr Lord) was right in his intervention. Everybody who is here in this debate has the same heartfelt feelings about how we need to assist academia across the globe and provide, where appropriate, safety for academics to express their views.

It has been an interesting and informative debate. I hope I have left my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East and other Members in no doubt of the Government’s enduring commitment to protect, promote and support academia and research, which benefits so many of us. I offer my thanks again to my right hon. Friend for securing this important discussion.

Question put and agreed to.