Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Second sitting)

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Western]

Well, thank you for joining us in those circumstances. Professor Stock from Sussex University said she felt that perhaps the university did not promote her enough in terms of her freedom of speech. Do you feel like you do get promoted by Manchester Metropolitan University? The second point she made was that there could be some improvements to current processes on campus; can you suggest any that would obviate the need for this Bill?

Professor Whittle: I have never personally felt that Manchester Metropolitan has not supported me in what I have done, what I have organised or the events that we have had, some of which have been potentially quite contentious. For example, we have had gender critical feminists and trans activists speaking at the same event. The university has always been supportive.

I do not think that universities do enough to promote what we do, to either our student body or to the external world. I often think it is a great shame that we do not get the message out about what our academics are talking about to a wider group than just my department, for example. There must be a better way than sending out a bland email to everybody saying X event is taking place—which most people will then delete. It is thinking about how we want to promote the events that take place; about how we could do that through calendars, through doing more public events, where we invite the public in to listen to what we do and the conversations that we have. That is really important because, the fact is that we have very serious discussions. We often have multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary groups having extremely important conversations about the way we consider the world that we want and how we might live in it. However, in order to do that we have to have the support of the university, in the sense that it believes that we are public-facing and student-facing—we are not little isolated islands within little isolated faculties. There is not a sense, for example, even within the university budget that there is money to promote anything. You have always got to dip into your own budgets. Things like that—the idea that universities really think about looking outwards—would be a really positive change.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Q I am interested to hear your view that, essentially, this is a Bill that is not addressing a problem, because the evidence we have received, both in writing and verbally earlier today, suggests the opposite; academics were saying that it is indeed a problem. They claimed that criticism of the Bill by saying what you have said today is, and I quote, “not true.” There is empirical evidence that the freedom to speak and research of a significant minority of university students and teachers is being inhibited. Specifically, in the summer of 2017, at Bath Spa university, research into transgender detransitioning was prohibited on the grounds that it was politically incorrect. There is in other universities, and in the minds of other academics, a problem. How do you explain that?

Professor Whittle: At that time there was clearly a media scare about the power of transgender activists and about the rights of transgender people. I read the research proposal of that particular piece and I looked at why it was not approved. I do not think that I would have approved it for my university, because it was not sufficiently sound. It was not sufficiently based on preliminary research. I think it had a political motivation, which I would not expect from any of my students; I would expect a certain level of objectivity from them.

I looked at that quite closely, thinking, “Have Bath made a big mistake here?” but I think what happened was that their decision to refuse to go ahead with that research at that time became a media story that they had refused because the transgender world would attack them for accepting it. Good research has been done on the question of young people and whether they would continue to transition or would detransition—a lot, in fact—and I have never known anyone else have their research stopped, but that was not sound. When you read it, it did not feel as if it was a good piece of research. Maybe had Bath addressed it properly, they could have done more to say, “This needs sorting and this does before we will consider it.”

[Sir John Hayes]

Q I want to follow that up. In the light of your advice, Mrs Cummins, I declare my interest as a part-time professor at Bolton University, as recorded in the register. Professor, you talked earlier about ideas that are “so off the wall and out of the water”—your words, not mine—but is that not the nature of all academic inquiry, its cutting edge? To disturb, to alarm and perhaps even to shock, is that not the character of that kind of inquiry?

Professor Whittle: Not all research, of course. Not all research is out there to alarm, to shock and to tear down the wall, but a body of research is. We have to have an opportunity to do what I would call blue-sky thinking in the humanities as much as in the sciences. My own research would have got nowhere if it had been left to the people who thought they knew how the system worked—it was completely off the wall, but it brought new ideas and presented the evidence for those changes.

There will, however, always be concerns that some students and some researchers will always want to do work that is very problematic. For example, I am thinking of a student who applied to do a PhD but never actually got his research proposal approved before he presented his dissertation. The dissertation, which looked into the far right in Europe, was basically a presentation of why we should all move to far-right politics. It was not going to go anywhere. I could not ever have signed it off, because he had not gone through the proper processes. If he had, I think he would have come up with different answers, but we will never know.

I do not say to the students who are researchers, “You shouldn’t do this,” or, “You shouldn’t do that,” but I do say, “You need to think about what it is that you are trying to achieve. Are you just trying to make a statement, or are you trying to contribute to the academic debate and to improve the world in which we live?” Some just want to make a statement. I think the research that we referred to this morning on detransitioning was exactly that—a piece of research that was preset to provide an answer that the academic wanted—whereas other research is out there to explore the issues properly.

We have academics who are reviewing research all the time. One of my primary functions is to read research papers of various forms, to make those judgments as to whether the research is sound or could be sound, and to decide whether it will receive support from me, or whatever else.

[Michelle Donelan]

Q Thank you very much for sharing your experiences, Professor Whittle. I am interested to hear whether you have spoken to any academics or students whose experiences have differed from your own. We heard from Professor Stock this morning about, in effect, a threshold that academics should be expected to experience. Some of them, such as you and her, may have pushed past that and almost ignored the pressures on them and the challenges that they faced, but not everyone is prepared to do that, hence the chilling effect. I would be interested to hear whether you think there is room for manoeuvre there and whether we need to open up some of these academic forums.

Professor Whittle: Absolutely. I absolutely believe we need to really think, particularly in terms of recruitment and promotion, how we do it. There is an insularity, particularly in promotion, within universities and between universities that prevents people who speak out, or seem to be doing something that is not common enough, getting those opportunities for promotion.

Manchester Met has been incredibly supportive of me and my work over the years, but in 27 years I have never been shortlisted for a job, which means I have never even got to the point of sitting in the chair and being interviewed. It is those things. I know I am facing the concrete ceiling in that because I am doing research that is considered to be a minority interest. I actually do not think I am. I think I am talking about core human rights and about how identity fits within that legal framework of core human rights, but the universities and university departments are incredibly cautious about taking somebody on who might be considered too challenging to a sort of mantra of “we are a safe space.”

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[Mr Jones]

I beg to differ with you on that.

[Sir John Hayes]

Q I am grateful to Emma for drawing attention to my views of the relationship between consciousness and unconsciousness. That is a philosophical debate we could have. I am interested to talk about your views on trust and truth, and whether you think trust is found through synthesis or, as Hegel said, truth was—but let us talk about that on another occasion and in a different place. Dealing with truth and trust, how far has the culture in universities changed? Has this concern about free speech and openness altered in recent years, in your view?

Thomas Simpson: I can give my personal experience. I am cautious about drawing too strong conclusions from that. My personal experience was that as an undergraduate from 1999 to 2002, I felt free to argue a position in my final year dissertation that I knew my markers would reject, but would recognise the quality of the work on its own merits. I had the confidence to do that. The topic was whether God existed, broadly speaking. Cambridge was a very secular faculty at that time; I was examining a recent contribution to that debate.

I had a moment about three years ago where an undergraduate student in a different department from where I work was talking to me about their political philosophy paper. They had written all the ethics of migration, which is a sensitive subject. The philosophical debate is whether countries have the right to control who crosses the borders into their country. The two positions are what is called open and closed borders. The philosophical debate is already right on the edge of the Overton window for public discourse on that topic. It became clear in the conversation that the student’s personal views were in favour of closed borders, so I said, “What did you argue for in the essay?” The student replied, “Oh, I argued for open borders. It would be silly not to do that, because that is where the lecturers were coming from.”

That to me had a sense of tragedy: here was an individual who believes something different and thought they had arguments for that, but felt that the grade they would receive on the exam would be different because of the content of what they argued for. That sense of danger about particular viewpoints is something I have sensed grow within the university over the last five or six years. I think it roughly tracks some of the turmoil we have had in the public space more generally in that time. It is mitigating somewhat now, but the patterns are in place and we need to take steps to counter that.

[Sir John Hayes]

Q The implication from earlier witnesses, Arif Ahmed, Nigel Biggar and others, is that there is what amounts to a culture of fear. You are setting out the very reason why the Bill is pertinent now there has been a change. Is it that what is acceptable has been redefined, and what is unacceptable is now no longer permissible? It will always be true that there will be differences of opinion, and some people would find certain views agreeable, but is the change that ideas have gone from being disagreeable to, in effect, prohibited?

Thomas Simpson: I have been really inspired by the observation that Scalia and RBG, the two SCOTUS justices, used to go to the opera together. They were ideological opposites and I am sure that they even viewed the other person’s views as reprehensible at times, but there was a collegiality about their ability to do their work together. That collegiality exists in very many places, but it is under pressure, and that is the challenge that we are facing.

[Mr Jones]

Q Where is the evidence?

Thomas Simpson: I have already given the evidence.

[Mr Jones]

We need figures, facts and this, that and the other, but we are not seeing any of that.

[Sir John Hayes]

Perhaps a way of resolving the difference of view between the right hon. Member for North Durham and the witness is for the witness to cite some of that evidence in writing as a follow up? I would like to know about courses that have been cancelled, stopped or never delivered, speakers who have not been invited or where invitations have been withdrawn, and funding that has not been granted on the basis of all of those things being “unacceptable”. It would be very useful if you could provide some kind of note with that as a follow up, which will hopefully allow us to move on.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

Q Paraphrasing slightly, you talked about the chilling effect when you were answering the Minister earlier. Over what period of time do you think the chilling effect, as you put it, has developed?

Thomas Simpson: In my view, the past five years have been particularly difficult. I think it is a longer-running trend and probably stretches back to early 2010s. I was out of academia for a key period during the early 2000s. I do not know where the data is on that. If I may come back on the data question, Professor Eric Kaufmann is in a much better position on that, as that is his speciality, whereas I am the philosopher here, so he would be well placed to speak to about those challenges.

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[Emma Hardy]

Q Finally, the online safety Bill will be going through Parliament. What thought have you given to that Bill, how it will potentially limit freedom of expression and how it interacts with this Bill going through Parliament at the same time?

Dr Harris: I have not really thought about how it interacts with this Bill. Certainly I have considered it otherwise. There needs to be a joined-up approach between the various instances of reform. The danger is that we end up with an anomaly. For example, Twitter’s house rules under the online safety Bill will have to be consistent with Ofcom codes of practice. There is a danger that something might be perfectly allowable under Twitter’s house rules, but unlawful in some other way.

[Sir John Hayes]

Q Notwithstanding Kevan’s point about university charters, is the real issue not about policy making? While it is true that a university in its charter is committed to openness and free expression, in policy making the story is far from that. Is it not really the case that universities persistently misinterpret the legal definition of harassment and underestimate freedom of expression and openness in their policy documents? You talked earlier about balance. Isn’t the question about this Bill not the effect it will have on law, in the sense of legal cases, but more the effect it will have on universities looking again at their policies and policy-making process?

Dr Harris: Yes, I very much agree. I think that what the Bill needs to do—this fits with the previous question—is elevate freedom of speech to the policy decision-making process, or the matrix, so that it is one of those considerations that is always baked into decision making.

To give you an example, the University of Cambridge launched a really quite restrictive reporting website where it asked staff and students to report micro-aggressions, which could include raising your eyebrows and that sort of thing. Now, the FOI request that we did on that showed that there were something like 400 pages of planning, correspondence and decision making about this report and support website. How was there so much consideration of this policy, and at no point did anyone step in to say, “Is this compliant with our legal free speech duties?” It is this absence from decision making. I think all this Bill needs to do to be successful is to cause a momentary pause. It needs to cause a degree of reflection.

[Sir John Hayes]

Q And in that sense, it will change the balance of power between academics and university bosses, because there is a sense—and this is about governance as well, isn’t it—that in that kind of process that you have described, academics are often not involved, so they are asked to do things that they have not had a role in helping to shape. Is this not also good in the sense that it only protects academics, but really curbs the power of some of the university chiefs, who sometimes impose these policies top-down? As an addendum to that, every time Kevan speaks about this dystopian future of a militant Government, he waves his hands vaguely in John’s direction. I wanted to defend John.

[Mr Jones]

John and I disagree on quite a lot.

[Sir John Hayes]

It could be unconscious bias.

[Mr Jones]

No, it’s conscious bias—[Laughter.]

Dr Harris: Yes, absolutely. For instance, in the determination of curriculum content, that is something where there absolutely must not be imposition of bureaucratic standards. The example that I cited in the written submission was that of the University of Oxford’s music faculty, which decided to decolonise its curriculum. I should say that that is a legitimate exercise of academic freedom, but it then said, “Members of the faculty must not disparage the curriculum.” Obviously, curriculums are changed by disparaging them—that is how they came to be decolonised in the first place—so we cannot stop the process.

There needs to be, and I think the Bill could include, a right of consultation. It is academic good practice anyway, and it slightly demeans universities that they need to be told that, because it should be part of academic ethics. There is also the right to criticise one’s institution. That is part of the international law standard of academic freedom. It is embedded in a number of university statutes. Whatever happens, the standard adopted by the Bill should be at least what is already best practice in the sector. I do not think it should go beyond that.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (First sitting)

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

[Sir John Hayes]

[The Chair]

[Sir John Hayes]

[The Chair]

[Sir John Hayes]

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (First sitting)

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

It is, but you are not the one giving the evidence. Dr Ahmed, do you want to say anything on this?

Dr Ahmed: I have relatively little to add to what Kathleen said on that point. The only thing I would add is that I would like to see a situation in which there was a possibility of extremely draconian measures against universities that are not fulfilling their basic function, and in an ideal world they would never be used.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Q I am going to use this microphone as instructed, Sir Christopher—my apologies for speaking from the wings. I refer members of the Committee and others to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Dr Ahmed, you wrote in your evidence, and you have repeated it today, about self-censorship and how that had changed. Would it be fair to say that the culture in universities has changed quite radically? You mentioned the Equality Act, and you might just as well have mentioned the growth of the internet and the intimidation that is delivered through that. How far does that soft censorship, which you implied a moment ago, affect people’s prospects at universities—the acquisition of fellowships, promotions, funding and so on? What evidence do you have that that has changed in universities, in your academic experience and more widely?

Dr Ahmed: With regard to your point about the internet, I would echo some of the things that Kathleen said in her written evidence, to the effect that Twitter, for instance, allows the mobilisation of mobs, quite quickly, against individual academics. That has been one of the effects. As you said, in addition to the Equality Act, the internet has had an effect on that—by which I mean Twitter.

With regard to self-censorship, my own experience has been that it has changed drastically over the last 10 years. Now, for instance, one would regard it as a typical experience to be in meetings where things are being proposed where I certainly sometimes—rarely, in my own case—bite my tongue. I know that there are people who bite their tongues in the sense that they will not object to certain things that are pointless and stupid, simply because they are afraid of the consequences.

What are those consequences? It is different in different cases. In my own case, I have tenure, fortunately, and I am relatively secure, but for someone who is on a temporary contract, you do not even have to be fired or face disciplinary action. All that needs to happen is that you come to end of your temporary contract, which you would normally expect to be rolled over, which typically does happen in academia, and they will just decide for some reason—as one of your colleagues was saying, it can be quite easy to invent a pretext—“Well, actually, we won’t be needing you any more.”

People in short-term positions are, I think, especially vulnerable and are perhaps the ones who are most likely to self-censor. My own experience is that this is happening a lot more now than in the past. That is from my experience of meetings with decision makers at high and low levels within Cambridge University.

[Sir John Hayes]

Q The implication of what you are saying is that a lot of that will be invisible, because we do not know what people do not say. We do not know who would have been promoted had they said something else, believed something else or taken other stands. Actually, what we may be seeing is the tip of the iceberg. Is that fair? We cannot know how many people are constrained by the culture you have described and by the capacity of the mob to pursue them.

Dr Ahmed: Correct. Of course, you are quite right that it is the tip of the iceberg. The evidence that we have—I am referring again to the UCU survey, which is the largest evidence base that we have—says that 35% of academics self-censor. When you think that that includes people who work in totally uncontroversial fields, such as Diophantine equations, that is a very significant proportion. There is some evidence, but, as you say, it is probably the tip of a huge iceberg.

[The Chair]

Before you go, Sir John, may I ask you to expand on your interests?

[Sir John Hayes]

How long have you got?

[The Chair]

I ask because, obviously, people do not have access to the register.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am a professor at the University of Bolton.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q I have to declare an interest. I am a trustee at the University of Bradford union. I have received donations from the University and College Union. I was the UCU co-ordinator at the University of Sussex and I received money from that university to provide educational opportunities for their students. I would like to think that I work in the sector.

Professor Stock, thank you for your evidence. I must say, actually, that your vice-chancellor did sing your praises to me the last time that I met him and said how excited he was for you to be coming here to show the diversity of views at his university. He was very positive, actually, and I have the email to prove it. That might reassure you. He is leaving anyway, so we will see.

You have raised some really important points about making sure that there is diversity in views at a university. Is there a problem, however, if this is put in legislation, that that becomes too strictly defined as requiring balance? We have debates about the BBC and climate change denial, and the need to have equal airtime for people who disagree and for people who agree. Is there sometimes a necessity for a university to develop a course that is balanced not just numerically but also in terms of where the academic weight is?

Professor Stock: There is a useless way to balance and then there is a productive way to balance. The BBC is a completely different context, because often you have to present both points of view simultaneously, and they just start shouting at each other and nobody’s the wiser. However, on a course that extends through time, and possibly over years, it would be unacceptable not to balance. Balance just means going through lots of different points of view that disagree with each other and trying to work out what you think. It means telling the students that it is their job to work out what they think—that they are not necessarily supposed to agree with you just because you think something, but they are supposed to develop their own points of view.

What is happening at the moment, for me personally, is that—completely extraordinarily, relative to the norms of the sector—whenever I do manage to get an invitation to speak somewhere from some poor, hapless person who does not know my reputation in advance, complaints pile in, and they say, “We’ve got to find a trans person to be on stage with you for balance.” I have had the Francis Bacon keynote at the University of Hertfordshire completely changed in format—until covid meant that it did not happen anyway—just because this idea of balance was required. That is much more like the BBC kind of balance. I do not see why I should have had someone right there when no one else is required to have someone there.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Second sitting)

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Western]

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

[Sir John Hayes]

[Michelle Donelan]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

[Sir John Hayes]

[Sir John Hayes]

[Mr Jones]

[Mr Jones]

[Sir John Hayes]

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Hardy]

[Sir John Hayes]

[Sir John Hayes]

[Mr Jones]

[Sir John Hayes]

[Mr Jones]

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

I am sorry, but I do not think the Secretary of State has been able to answer my direct question about instances of Uyghur and Hong Kong students being deterred from speaking on our campuses. He talks in general terms about some groups being silenced—I agree with him that that is wrong, and I will come on to that point in a moment—but I have asked him to present specific instances to the House. If he cannot do that this afternoon, and I understand that he may not have that information in front of him, perhaps later he will put that evidence in the House of Commons Library so that we can all examine it before the Bill goes into Committee.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, for whom I have a great deal of respect—I would like to put that on the record—but she is wrong about that. There have been instances, and I am happy to give her detail of them, of groups of Hong Kong students in British universities being surrounded, physically intimidated and verbally intimidated by students from the Chinese mainland who are also students in this country. This is not isolated; unfortunately, there is a theme of this kind. I know that she would not want to associate herself with this kind of thing.

[Kate Green]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that information, which is clearly shocking. Of course, my question to the Secretary of State would be: if intimidation is involved, why are we not already using the criminal law to address it?

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[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

To think and speak freely is the foundation of an open society; there will be little disagreement about that across this House. One might think that the institutions that, in the words of Cardinal Newman, give a man

“a clear…view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in urging them”,

would be the champions of challenging contrasting ideas —the scions of scrutiny. It is therefore a bitter irony that some people with power in higher education today are the enemies of freedom and that many of those who are not are intimidated into acquiescence. How sad it is that intellectual freedom has to be protected by law from those with power in those institutions.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) cited some examples, and there are many. Let me just give a flavour. Selina Todd, the professor of modern history at Oxford, following pressure from trans activists—she was accused of transphobia, needless to say—was no platformed at Exeter College. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) mentioned, former Home Secretary Amber Rudd also had her invitation to speak at Oxford rescinded.

It is not only visiting speakers but academics and students in our universities who are subject to this kind of intolerance. The University of Plymouth investigated a senior lecturer, Mike McCulloch, for tweeting “All lives matter” in June 2020; a student at Leeds University was placed under investigation for questioning Black Lives Matter; and a first-year student at the University of Kent, as the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) no doubt knows, was placed under investigation for questioning whether George Floyd deserved martyrdom given his criminal record—a violent criminal record, indeed.

Those are all contestable opinions. Of course they are all matters of debate and of course some of them are contentious views, but the whole point about a free society is that we should be able to hold and express contentious views. It is worrying—more than that, chilling—that, as has been said, we are creating a cohort of young people who are hyper-sensitive: no longer daring; no longer prepared to think the unthinkable; deprived of intellectual rigour and imagination. The hallmarks of that woke culture—as we have heard, perpetuated principally on social media—are spite, hate and vitriol. Frank Luntz, the American pollster, has warned that the culture battles we have seen so far are nothing compared with what is on its way. The cultural detritus from the United States is making its way to our shores relentlessly: a culture that is intolerant of measured, principled disagreement. It has gripped many in the United Kingdom, as I have already described. I could go on with a list and I am happy to make that list available to the House of Commons Library if that is helpful to colleagues who doubt the depth of the problem.

The deliberate machinations of the few are dividing the many. We should react with horror when some of those trusted with fostering the flower of Britain’s academic youth are instead intent on producing a carbon copy of politically correct individuals: less ambitious, less daring, less imaginative than the generation that came before. Policing the thoughts of those students who disagree has become commonplace, for the defining traits of the unblinking all-seeing eye of wokery are short sight and narrow minds. George Orwell recognised that this is not simply a problem for students. Academics are subject to the same kind of faults. He said that the charlatans of his time were peddling ideas that were so stupid only intellectuals could believe them. The people who seem to want to impose their exclusive vision on us are so often ignorant of history, apparently ignorant of biology and certainly ignorant of human nature.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I wholeheartedly agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that we must remind people that we must hear, if not accept, other arguments, and that if we continue to raise generations who believe their opinion trumps others and that to disagree with them means to hate them, we will find ourselves in a very different UK?

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is right that having one’s views challenged, testing ideas and being scrutinised is the characteristic of the open society advocated at the beginning of my speech. It is right that we should both have our views challenged and sometimes be disturbed by counter-arguments. It is extraordinary that feminists, notably Germaine Greer and Julie Burchill, have been no-platformed for believing in biologically based legal rights that women fought to have protected for so long.

The enemies of an open society have successfully cancelled a litany of students and academics who dared to espouse understandings of race, gender and sex which were once regarded as a priori assumptions. Those without wealth or influence to resist have too often been left at the mercy of the mob. These are the quiet everyday stories of the liberal tyranny which go unreported. These are the people who need recourse and outreached hands to assure them that the Government believe in the right to disagree and, yes, disturb—and perhaps, yes, to offend. For to be inspired means first being moved and changed in a way sufficiently startling to open up new horizons, extend boundaries and give life to opportunities. Deprived of that we are lessened, because in safe spaces where nothing disturbs there is no room for inspiration, no space for innovation. Without the freedom to say what they think, people are poorer. Without laws to defend the lawful entitlement they confer, nations are weaker. Without the chance to read and hear, contest and condone all kinds of ideas, our children are robbed of their future chance to flourish.

The Bill must pass into law in a state that leaves no room for doubters and schemers to carry on with their sanctimoniously bigoted practices. Through ignorance or inaction, we cannot condone the wicked ways of the self-appointed thought police. Make no mistake: this culture war is the issue of our age. It is the struggle of our generation. Nothing matters more. This is our battle of Britain.

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[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Let me declare some interests: I chair the all-party parliamentary university group and I represent an education city with a fantastic further education college, Cambridge Regional College; two great universities that are very different but both outstanding, and very well led by Roderick Watkins and Stephen Toope; and the University of the Third Age. We are brilliant at universities in this country.

There is so much talk of our being world-beating; we actually are world-beating when it comes to universities. Would it not be nice to have a Minister for universities rather than an Education team for doing us down? I am not saying that everything is perfect, because there are huge challenges, not least for students, who have had such a tough time and still face huge debt for an experience very different from that of those who went before. Would it not be nice to hear something positive from the Government Front-Bench team about the amazing work that staff in universities have done as they have transformed their practice to devise online courses to go alongside the traditional teaching methods? The Government could have been talking about that today, or the thorny issues around finance. Where exactly is the Augar review, beyond leaks and rumours?

As we have heard, we live in a world where international students play a huge role in the financing of our universities, but those students cannot be taken for granted. The Government could tell us today about the quarantine arrangements that will be needed when 100,000 students from red-list countries are expected in September—that is urgent; or about the impact of a 43% fall in the number of students applying from the EU; or about the challenges facing research when official development assistance cuts are biting and there is still no clarity on how the Horizon gap will be funded.

All those things matter, but for this Government the only thing that matters is themselves. How can they stoke up some more divisions to throw more red meat to people who do not like universities? It is pretty hard to take this pathetic Bill seriously. Is there an issue around free speech? Of course there is—there always has been and always will be. Labour’s commitment to free speech is uncontestable: as we heard from the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), it was Labour that brought the European convention on human rights into UK law. Is free speech more difficult now, in a socially media-driven, instant communication world? Yes, but it is not just universities that face that; it is a wider societal question.

Members on the Government Benches should remember how they got their get-out-of-jail card on the vaccine: it came from universities—researchers working together, using the huge amount of detailed knowledge accumulated across institutions. Our universities are world-changing and world-beating. Are those universities calling for this legislation? Hardly. They know how difficult it is to balance the rights and freedoms of different groups and individuals because they do it every day. They have been doing it for years, since long before the “here today, gone tomorrow” lot opposite snatched power, and they will be doing it for years to come. Will there be incidents and flashpoints? Yes, of course there will, as there always have been, because freedom allows for that.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful and measured speech, and I agree with him that the problem is much wider than universities. He talked about social media, as many have, and there is an increasingly vitriolic level of debate that has coarsened and damaged discourse, perhaps irreparably and certainly profoundly. However, dealing with universities is surely part of that, and that is what this Bill attempts to do. He is right to say that it does not solve everything, but it certainly does no harm and, in my judgment, it does a great deal of good. By the way, I ought to have referred Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests when I spoke earlier; I do so now.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I was happy to take the right hon. Gentleman’s intervention, but the point about freedom of speech is that it is always difficult to deal with because, as others have pointed out, freedom allows for a fair amount of offence to be given until it becomes too much and we have to respond. However, that is a judgment call. We cannot legislate for that. It is a great irony that a Government who claim to be Conservative are promoting measures that many of their predecessors would have been very quick to criticise in other countries. A commissar for free speech? Come on! But actually, this is not the Conservative party, is it, because its boss expelled those who dared to dissent, and that is where all this leads.

Those who have looked at the Bill can see the problems. I am sure the Government will not have much interest in hearing from those who actually run our universities, but it is worth repeating what they say. Universities UK has warned that those promoting conspiracy theories could easily take the opportunity to sue universities or student unions. It has also pointed out that with existing routes of redress available, the same complaint could lead to very different outcomes depending on whether an individual went to the Office for Students, which will now have a so-called director of free speech, or whether they went down the Office of the Independent Adjudicator route. As have others have said, the likely consequence of all this is that universities and student unions will err on the side of caution and steer away from anything risky. That will lead not to more free speech but to less free speech, and for those with really outlandish views, there will be a legal stick with which to beat institutions. So, good times for the crazies everywhere—

--- Later in debate ---

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I do not wish to comment on the speeches of Labour Members other than to highlight one particular speech that I did find moving, which was from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). I did agree with her comments in a substantive way and I suspect a number of Conservative Members also do, so I hope the Minister is aware of that.

Ask Labour Members if they champion free speech, and no doubt they would all queue up to say, “Yes, of course”, but is there not a spectacular contradiction in this stance and their intention to vote against this Bill? The hon. Labour Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) tweeted today:

“The biggest threat to free speech on university campuses is not student societies’ no-platform policies. It’s the Tory Hate Speech Bill, back in Parliament today, which threatens student societies’ freedom to choose who speaks at their events & their ability to protect students.”

Forgive me, but is not no-platforming exactly a form of censure? Is not describing the ability—the free ability—to choose a speaker simply an Orwellian turn of phrase, no doubt because some speakers must be more equal than others?

If we want universities to be centres of discussion, debate, expression, challenge and places to develop our young brilliant minds, must we not hear both sides of a debate? A young constituent of mine recently invited me to speak at his university’s Conservative Society event. Before I was allowed to speak, the students’ union insisted on assessing me, regardless of the fact that I am, like everyone else in this House, a democratically elected Member of Parliament. How can that be right?

Freedom of speech has allowed our society to evolve, to advance and to protect the vulnerable. It is freedom of speech that gave women the vote and it is freedom of speech that decriminalised homosexuality, but an unacceptable culture of censorship—a wokery, a heckler’s veto—has been allowed to develop on our campuses and to brainwash our young minds. The parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights released a report on freedom of speech in universities in 2018, and it found that one in four students do not share their true opinions because they clash with those promoted by their university, and a staggering 40% of students stated that views held by speakers had led more frequently to cancellation of events.

This very place is seen as a bastion of democracy and free speech underpins any liberal democracy, so I will be supporting the Bill.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), whom I respect very greatly, said this has always been a challenge and a problem, and indeed he is right—there have always been challenges to freedom in universities and elsewhere—but the point is that the circumstances have changed both quantitatively and qualitatively. It is to do with the wider problem of the brutalisation of debate, but it finds form in universities in a particularly arch form, and if we do not recognise that and do not respond to it through legislation, we will be failing in our duty to universities and the students who study at them.

[Marco Longhi]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the intervention, which was most welcome. I wholeheartedly agree with it, and how can censorship be something that we cannot take action against?

It would be nice to know how many Labour Members agree with the Voltairean principle that has now been quoted a couple of times in speeches prior to mine—

“I wholly disapprove of what you say—and I will defend to the death your right to say it”—

or perhaps hypocrisy is the order of the day again.

Higher Technical Education Reform

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I know that he has been a passionate advocate for technical qualifications for many years, since before my time in this place. I served under him when he was Chairman of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, and he advocated a similar view then. He is right to talk about the aspirational value of technical qualifications. Part of the reason for the move towards degree apprenticeships was to begin to deliver that aspirational value to not only potential students but their parents. I take on board everything he says. He is right that, if we look at the take-up, something like one in 10 adults in this country holds these qualifications, versus one in five in countries such as Germany. Some will say that Germany has a very different economic model, but the evidence suggests that employers in our country have a real appetite for these qualifications and, therefore, it is only right that we do this, and do it well.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. John Ruskin said that the value of learning is not in what one gains from it, but what one becomes by it. People, through the acquisition of practical accomplishments and skills, grow and add to the nation’s productivity. I simply say to the Minister these two things. First, the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) is right about the pathway from entry-level practical skills through to higher-level qualifications. Secondly, good existing qualifications such as the HND and BTEC must be valued, because they are well understood by employers, learners and providers alike. I hope that, in this review, we will not end up throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and we will take account of all the good work that is done in our FE sector.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s comments. He is right to warn the House that we do not want to lose excellent qualifications that are clearly recognised. I hope that my comments in response to the hon. Member for Blackpool South reassured him.

Relationships and Sex Education

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

I really must make some progress. I am sorry.

Of course, many parents want schools to be involved in teaching RSE, as do many young people. Research done for Ofsted in 2013 showed that many secondary school pupils felt that too much of their education was on the mechanics of reproduction, and that there was not enough about emotions, relationships, dealing with pornography and so on.

Prior to the debate, the Petitions Committee met some young people in Parliament’s education centre. As one of them said to us, “If you’re opted out, you can just google it.” That is the problem we face; that is the reality of life. Nevertheless, it is true that parents have a right to request an opt-out from sex education for their child, which the guidelines say should be automatically granted in primary schools and should be granted except in exceptional circumstances in secondary schools. I was quite concerned about that, but I have actually been convinced by something sent to me by the Catholic Education Service, which supports the opt-out on the ground that it gives heads the opportunity to discuss with parents why the lessons are important and why it is much better for children to be there, rather than getting a garbled version from their friends in the playground. That approach clearly works, because the opt-out rate in Catholic schools is very low, at about 1 in 7,800 children. That is in a faith-based education system.

That opt-out applies to the sex education element, not to personal, social, health and economic education or relationships education, and not to stuff in the science curriculum, which is part of the national curriculum. It is also true—certainly in the draft guidelines and I presume the formal ones—that the Government suggest that children can opt back in three terms before they reach the age of 16. Case law no longer supports an automatic and continuing opt-out, so we need to reach a sensible balance on when young people can decide for themselves.

All parents face this problem, whether in deciding when children can go to the shops on their own or when their children are deciding on a career. It is hard. I remember the first time we allowed my son to walk up the road on his own to post a letter; we were hanging out of the bedroom window, keeping an eye on him for as long as possible. However, as parents, we have to realise that, while our job is to try to set our children on the right path, they will eventually make their own choices, which may not be the same ones that we would make.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Jones]

I will give way once more and then I will have to wind up.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; she has been very generous. Of course she is right to say that good parents take the view that she has just described about their children. Much the best way of growing up to be a well balanced, kind, caring and loving person is to have well balanced, kind and caring parents. It is in the home that people’s ideas are first shaped and formed, notwithstanding the influences to which they are subject later on. For that reason, parents and parental choice are critically important.

[Helen Jones]

Yes. As I have said, parents are vital to all of their child’s education, but particularly to relationships and sex education, and good schools want to work in partnership with parents. However, unless we allow our children to make choices, they will not develop the skills and the emotional resilience that they need in adult life, and I think that what the Government have suggested is a reasonable compromise.

So what is the problem? I think, from the correspondence that I have had, that it centres on the teaching of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Let us be honest, there is nothing new about this. Since 2010, schools have had a duty under the Equality Act of that year to deliver an inclusive and non-discriminatory curriculum, and many schools have gone further than that. I will refer again to a Catholic school, simply because that is the system I know. Cardinal Newman high school in Luton, for instance, has had all its teachers trained in LGBT and gender issues, so that they can tackle bullying and ensure that they give children the right guidance.

In the end, this is actually not about what someone called background indoctrination. We cannot indoctrinate someone to be gay any more than we can indoctrinate someone who is gay to be heterosexual, although practitioners of some very nasty conversion therapies have tried in the past. This is about respect for difference and recognising that we live in a pluralistic free society. If I demand respect for my faith, which is a minority faith in this country, I have to give the same respect to other people’s faith, but also to the choices that other people may make in life. This is about tackling bullying: 45% of LGBT people have been bullied at school. That has to end. Young people have to know that whoever they are, whatever their sexuality, they will be welcomed and cared for.

Most schools and, I think, most parents, whatever their background or religious affiliation, would have no problem whatever with that, but there has been a lot of misinformation going around, so I say to parents who are concerned, “First, talk to your child’s teachers. Go in; don’t let other people tell you what they are doing. Go and have a look at the materials they are using. Go and talk to them about what they are trying to achieve. And you will see that there is very little to worry you there.”

I say to the Minister—this is not a phrase often heard from my lips—that I think the Government have got this about right. There is the right to an opt-out in certain circumstances. There has to be a right for children to opt in at some stage, and I think that the Government have got the age for that about right—in other words, just before they leave school. I also say to parents, “Trust your children. If you have brought them up with the right values and the right perspectives on life, you have nothing to fear from this.” It really is about creating a society in which we can respect one another, respect our differences and work together. At a time when society seems to be becoming more and more polarised and people are shouting at one another on social media all the time, that is a sensible and reasonable thing to do and is good for all of us.

College Funding

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. For most of my lifetime—perhaps all of it—a misapprehension has pervaded and affected the application of Government policy. That misapprehension has been that people can only gain esteem and fulfilment through academic accomplishment. As a result, practical learning has been perpetually neglected by Governments of both parties.

It was in that spirit and against that backdrop that, as a shadow Minister in the mid-2000s, I began debating these issues and considering them carefully. Indeed, I worked with the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), who chaired the all-party skills group at the time and is the shadow Education Minister today, to look at how we could elevate practical learning. To do so, it was necessary to challenge many of the assumptions that had permeated previously—assumptions that were given life by the previous Government’s much-vaunted ambition to send 50% of people to university. I always thought the problem with that ambition was what it said about the other 50%, who did not go to university but went into practical subjects, further education and all kinds of other learning. We had some success. We grew apprenticeship numbers to their largest level in modern times—perhaps of all time. We protected the budget for adult learning, working with the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable), who was Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills when I was the Minister for further education, skills and lifelong learning.

However, that success is now in jeopardy. I have to challenge the Minister about the decline in apprenticeship numbers that has resulted, in part, from a misunderstanding of the new levy—I am not against the levy as a matter of principle, but its implementation has been problematic—and the decline in adult learning in particular. I say that for the following reasons: first, there is a strong utilitarian case for further education and training, which is about feeding the economy with the skills it needs for us to prosper. That is a given, and I think all Members in this Chamber would agree with it. Secondly, there is a case for communal health being part of the value of practical learning. When people learn and gain new competencies, they grow and become better citizens, seeing themselves as more useful to those around them.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that one of the most valuable things that further education does is to allow people—whether they be native to this country or a migrant—to improve their language skills, including by learning a foreign language? That was always one of the ways in which FE colleges reached out and gave people opportunities.

[Sir John Hayes]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, FE colleges train 2.2 million young people and adults. The courses they run range from fundamental issues such as the acquisition of good English, as he suggests, to the most advanced skills. They also provide an opportunity for people to learn throughout their lives. FE is the principal vehicle by which people upskill and reskill in the way my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) described, and that is essential if we are to fuel the economy with what it requires. It is simply not enough to train people who are entering the workforce: we have to look at how people who are in the workforce already can adapt what they can do to suit changing economic circumstances.

[Rebecca Pow]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will give way very briefly, as I am conscious of time.

[Rebecca Pow]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that FE colleges, particularly Bridgwater and Taunton College in my constituency, are really important in delivering the apprenticeship programme? That college has just won a Lion award, as it is doing such a good job. Although the Government’s apprenticeship programme must be commended, especially the Minister’s work, does my right hon. Friend agree that for the programme to really be successful, we must address the issue of funding for our FE colleges, because they are so valuable to its delivery?

[Sir John Hayes]

Yes, I agree. When I was the Minister responsible for apprenticeships, we not only boosted their number, but increased their quality. For the first time, we put in place statutory definitions of what an apprenticeship constituted. We moved away from the programme-led apprenticeships that had been a feature of the previous regime. We said that apprenticeships had to last a set amount of time, had to be linked to real employment, and had to confer real skills needed by the economy. My hon. Friend is right that apprenticeships matter, as long as they are of the right quality and are substantial, and that is what we built. However, I have to say that the levy has not been successful in maintaining that number. There are all kinds of questions about the apprenticeship levy, and I am sure that the Minister will want to answer those questions when she sums up.

As I have listed the virtues of further education and practical learning, I will finally say that it leads to personal fulfilment. The case for education can be made in terms of utility, or in terms of communal health and wellbeing, but ultimately it should be made for its own sake. People are more joyful, more contented and better for the learning they gain in FE colleges across this country, and we should be proud of that.

I will end here, Mr Walker, because you have sanctioned me not to speak for too long, which will come as a disappointment to my many admirers in the Chamber—mainly on the Opposition Benches, actually. I will finish by saying this: we plant trees for those born later, and we fund, fuel and furnish skills for them too, for in building those skills we build all of our futures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate the many members of the public who have signed the petition on this extremely important matter. I want to set the scene by talking about what happens in Yeovil. We have an incredibly successful college. It does a fantastic job for its students and it very much wishes to be at the heart of skills development in the south-west, to work with other colleges and the local enterprise partnership, and to make a contribution, which it is well set to do.

The Minister will be aware that some of her officials have been working with the college to help develop various elements of the apprenticeship scheme, which has been a great success, and to think about what happens with T-levels. One feature of my part of the south-west is that it is a hub for defence industrial manufacturing and for the STEM skills that go with that. The college does incredibly well and is an exemplar of how to involve businesses—they often need skills that do not come out of universities in the same way as colleges—in developing programmes for apprenticeships and T-levels, and thinking about how they might look in the future.

On Thursday, I was at Leonardo, our helicopter manufacturer—the only end-to-end aircraft manufacturer that the UK still has—and I met the team that has been working with Yeovil College to help develop the apprenticeship scheme. They were incredibly enthusiastic about the college and what it can do not only for the company, but for the wider community.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I asked him to do so only because he has spoken so eloquently about Yeovil College, and I should say a word about Boston College in my constituency. I met the students, governors and principal of it last week, but I neglected to mention them in my earlier contribution. They do a superb job.

[Mr Fysh]

I thank my right hon. Friend for, as always, making an eloquent contribution to the debate.

In my visits to Yeovil College over the years, it has become apparent that despite having a great amount to contribute and doing an incredible job, it suffers from having to do so on a shoestring. It has found budgeting difficult. For historic reasons, the fabric of the college could certainly do with improvement, and I have seen evidence of that.

As I am sure Members are well aware, the college system does not have the ability to avail itself of capital grants in the same way that schools and other parts of the education system can. That means that colleges have to make everything out of their basic income, which is a real disadvantage. When we add in the fact, which we heard from other Members, that revenue funding for further education students is a lot less than for university students or secondary school students, colleges are put at a disadvantage in trying to deliver programmes.

Part of the problem with the proposed T-levels system is that there is a lot of extra teaching, but for no more money. Perhaps we can have another look and work together as a group to approach the Treasury and make the case that if we are to get behind T-levels, as I am sure we should for all the other reasons we have heard, there must be adequate funding so that our colleges can do a proper job of delivering for the people who, as we have heard, really depend on them.

I thoroughly approve of thinking about colleges as places where adults’ skills can be developed. We heard about that earlier. As we talk about trade deals around the world, and given the speed at which industry is changing in the current technological age, there will be a great demand—probably an increasing demand—for retraining during people’s working lives. It is essential that our colleges play a central role in that. Maths already gets extra funding. Perhaps T-levels should be treated in the same way, because we could really get behind that. Underfunding our colleges degrades individuals’ choices. In Yeovil, for example, there is a great demand for secondary school-type places in the further education college. It does a great job in its sixth form with A-levels, and that is the only provision in Yeovil. There are no choices, so it is really important to the town that we get this right.

It is great that the petition has raised the issue. It is very important to everybody in my constituency to have a well-functioning Yeovil College that can deliver for the industry of our area and take our local economy from A to B.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I feel as though we can achieve something that is perhaps unachievable at this moment in any other issue or in other areas of the House—that is, a little bit of consensus and cross-party working. Perhaps that will set a good example to other right hon. and hon. Members, because it is achievable.

So far, all the contributions have been supportive of FE. In the grand tradition mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), every argument has been made. We have all heard the powerful and persuasive reasons why FE matters so much, and I will not use every moment I have to repeat them all. There is, however, an argument that has not been made as much. Members have talked powerfully about the skills shortage and the need to address it—I will mention the particular difficulties around implementing the NHS 10-year plan in a moment—but colleges have another role, which has been completely downplayed, and that is to be the heart of the community.

For some people, such as adults with learning difficulties, colleges are a social place. For adults who may be struggling with their mental health, or for people whose lives have not worked out in the way we would all have liked, colleges can offer social interaction, a place to go and a purpose for getting up in the morning. I have heard that from constituents who have struggled with their mental health, but who wanted to go and complete their course. A really nice gentleman, who has some learning difficulties, loves to show me all his certificates, which he carries around in his backpack, because he is very proud of them. I know that the college is often just finding reasons to allow him to keep going, because he has a wonderful time there and it is a social event for him. The argument for skills is pivotal, but I put it to the Minister that we should also have an argument for colleges being part of the community. Is it really so bad for society that for some people, colleges are a social place where they can go and interact with others? Can we look at the funding streams to address that? At the moment, it feels as though there is no funding for a course if there is no qualification at the end of it.

[Sir John Hayes]

What a delight to hear the hon. Lady say that. She is making the case for continuing lifelong and community learning, some of which does not necessarily have an economic purpose. Politicians have become so insecure and emasculated that they are reluctant to make a case for things that cannot be measured in precise terms. She is making a case for joy, and education should be about joy. That is why it is such a tragedy that adult community learning has declined since the days when the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) and I defended its budget.

[Emma Hardy]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that that has declined. I know that because after giving birth, a friend of mine wanted a reason to get out of the house and not have the baby with her for a while, so she managed to sign me and herself up for salsa classes. I was quite disappointed because I was taller and had to be the bloke, so now I can salsa but only if I take the male role in the pair. This was something that my friend did after giving birth, when she wanted to get out of the house and find something else to do. I fear we are losing that role for colleges.

I return to the point about the NHS and the skills shortage. The 10-year plan for the NHS is welcome, but in a report the director of the Royal College of Nursing said:

“This report confirms our greatest fear – that the impressive ambition of the long term plan could be derailed, simply because we do not have the nursing staff to deliver it.”

The Minister might be expecting me to plug the fact that Hull College has set up a nursing apprenticeship, which I think is really exciting. In a different debate at a different time, with pretty much the same Members, I spoke about the need for progression from level 2 to a degree apprenticeship to be clearly defined and mapped out, so that each individual can see how one moves on to another. That is exactly what has been done at Hull College, which has taken people at 16 years old from a level 2 qualification in health and social care and given them a pathway right through to a nursing degree apprenticeship. I have mentioned to the Minister before that we need to have a clear pathway and progression mapped out, from levels 2, 3 and 4 all the way up.

The Education Committee visited Germany to look at lifelong learning. Quite a few people have mentioned the challenges of automation—it is both a challenge and something to be excited about—that present problems around lifelong learning and how to upskill people in this country. In Germany, they are already starting to do that in a programme called Industry 4.0, which is happening across the country. I feel as though we are already quite far behind, and they have moved on with this. We do not want to be a country that is left even further behind, especially after Brexit.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I fear that the hon. Lady is mistaken. Our higher education sector rightly attracts students from around the world, thanks to its great quality, and we want to grow the number of students coming to our universities. There is no limit on the number of students who can come to our universities. I think she is referring to the statistical measurement, which is an international measurement that defines people who come to this country for more than 12 months as being in the immigration statistics, but of course, when they leave again, they count as minus 1 in those statistics.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

T9. I rushed here today from witnessing the publication of a piece of research based on a wide-ranging survey by Policy Exchange. It reveals that low-level disruption in classrooms across Britain affects the learning opportunities of pupils and drives teachers from the profession. Will the Secretary of State issue guidance to school governors and headteachers saying that when headteachers take action to deal with this—for example, by banning mobile telephones from classrooms—they will receive the backing of the schools and of the Government?

[Damian Hinds]

I am very happy to do that; they have my absolute backing.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Compared with the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), I am a mere callow youth in the House, having sat through only 35 Budgets, I think, and spoken in most of them. I sometimes feel I am constantly repeating the same theme, but generally in this place, unless one stays with a personal theme and keeps repeating it, one will probably not get anywhere.

Over those 35 Budgets, I have argued constantly for tax simplification. For instance, the cut in corporation tax is no doubt greatly welcomed by our larger companies, which have been the biggest cheerleaders for our remaining in the UK, but whatever they save from these modest cuts in corporation tax has been clawed back in other parts of the Budget. Unless we can achieve tax simplification and move gradually towards a flatter tax system, instead of having one of the longest tax codes in the developed world—as long as India’s—we will never make progress on tax avoidance.

[The Minister for Security (Mr John Hayes)]

My hon. Friend’s consistency and sagacity are well established in the House, and I take his point about tax simplification, but would he not agree that the best form of simplification is to take people out of the higher tax band and out of tax altogether? Is that not the ultimate simplification and precisely what the Chancellor has done—once again—in this Budget?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Yes, of course I acknowledge that, and I congratulate the Chancellor, the Government and my right hon. Friend the Minister on creating an economy in which more people are in work than ever before and more people are being taken out of tax than ever before. We are returning to the historical position of actually making work pay for people at the bottom of the heap. Helping people at the bottom of the heap and taking them out of tax is what the Government should be doing. So everything he says is absolutely right.

If I make a few suggestions or criticisms in the few minutes allowed to me, I do not want it to take away from the Government’s achievement in their macroeconomic management of the economy, and nor do I want to resile from my criticism of Labour Members, who must learn from history and become a credible Opposition. It is not good enough for the shadow Chancellor to come to the House today and refuse to answer any questions about his borrowing plans. There is no point just repeating a generalised mantra about borrowing to invest. It is fair enough to say that—it is the old golden rule of Gordon Brown, and we know how that was broken—but one must be prepared to provide concrete facts and figures. Would the shadow Chancellor borrow more than the present Government?

I repeat, however, that I am in favour of a much-simplified, flatter tax system, and in that context, I recognise that the Chancellor is at last—I have been campaigning for this for years—indexing the higher 40p tax band.