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

John Hayes Excerpts
Monday 13th September 2021

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Public Bill Committees
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Charlotte Nichols Portrait Charlotte Nichols
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q Hillary, is there anything you would like to add?

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: It is important, especially in reference to your first question and whether we think about discrimination and what the Bill could allow for. First and foremost, the Bill needs to give stronger reassurances that will not allow for free rein on discrimination, especially of vulnerable groups. However, it is also really important that we recognise that there are students who are made much more vulnerable by different types of speech than others, and unless the Bill recognises that they need protections and unless it can work alongside existing Acts and duties, it is going to make a lot of those students feel unsafe on campus—even more so than they do now with just their general experiences. I think that many elements of the Bill need to be looked at closely to ensure that that is embedded in there.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
- Hansard - -

Q Further to the last point, speaking from a personal point of view and a NUS point of view, presumably you believe in freedom of speech in the sense that you believe in the freedom to disturb, to alarm, or even to shock or outrage.

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: Yes. As the NUS, we believe in freedom of speech.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Even if that makes people feel very uncomfortable?

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: What I would say is that to focus on freedom of speech as just being about making people uncomfortable is quite restrictive. If we are going to speak about freedom of speech in that regard, we also have to speak about the freedom of people to have opposing views and the right of people to protest when they do have opposing views. Even more so, I think it is important that when we think about freedom of speech, we acknowledge the fact that freedom of speech is important to have, to champion and to promote, but we also have to be mindful of where it might encroach into places where people feel harmed, and are harmed, especially if they come from a vulnerable or marginalised group with protected characteristics under the Equality Act.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Of course, you are right that freedom of speech is unqualified in the sense that both views need to be put and many opinions need to be shared. There should be no prohibition on that within the law, and the law does prohibit incitement to hatred, incitement to terrorism and various other things, as you know. However, within those lawful constraints, is the freedom to offend important to you?

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: I would say to that that we could speak about the freedom to offend, but I think it is important that if we are so focused on offending rather than promoting an environment of debate in which people are able to voice opposing views, rather than just allow people to have the freedom to offend, I think we are not speaking about freedom of speech in the way that it should look like—in a balanced way, you know. If people should have the freedom to offend, people should also have the freedom to express opposing views, and to express that as freely as people would offend. Again, going back to the Bill, we cannot talk about this until there are proper reassurances that the Bill will not allow that freedom of offence to flirt with where it might encroach on hate speech or harmful speech, especially when people are from marginalised communities.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Hang on, I want to be clear about this. I totally agree with you that there need to be plural opportunities for people to express their views. I may find those views entirely unacceptable, possibly shocking and maybe offensive, but I would defend people’s right to be able to express them. We have laws that protect against hatred, incitement to violence, incitement to terrorism and so on, so are we clear that what the Bill does is to allow pretty pervasive freedom of speech within the law, allowing all kinds of views to be articulated on campus? That is a good thing, surely.

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: Again, I would just reiterate that we believe in and champion freedom of speech on campus. It is not a secret that the NUS and the student movement have been facilitating this happening for years and years, so that is what I would say to that.

I think, though, that what the Bill proposes, and some of its elements, come across as finding ways to promote free speech by introducing a body to bring in punitive measures where that is inhibited. I think that does not give enough acknowledgement to the fact that there are already existing processes to ensure that, when free speech is inhibited, that is dealt with. There is already promotion of free speech by student unions, by universities and by the NUS, even, and we need to think about whether the Bill will have the effect of promoting free speech, or whether it will have an opposite effect that causes people to be very risk-averse.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Very briefly, Chair—I know others want to speak—let me be clear. I am relieved and delighted by what you said about the NUS’s position. So, the NUS is against no-platforming, it is against a list of proscribed speakers who can lawfully make their views known elsewhere, and it is basically in favour of a pretty permissive free speech policy across universities.

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: If I may, that is not what I said exactly, especially in reference to the no-platforming policy. We have a no-platforming policy that includes six organisations, most of which the Government would also see as racist and fascist organisations. To say that we do not agree with no-platforming is simply not true.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Are these lawful organisations? Are you saying that you are in favour, then, of prohibiting lawful free speech in certain circumstances?

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: No. I am not saying that I am not in favour of lawful free speech. I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that the NUS supports, champions and cares deeply that free speech is championed, enabled and supported. To say that we do not agree with no-platforming where there are organisation like those I referenced with NUS’s no-platform policy that share and promote hate speech that hurts people from marginalised groups––to say that we do not support that is not true.

Emma Hardy Portrait Emma Hardy
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q This is not just about free speech within the law. Conservative Members may not recall that the Minister wrote to universities asking them to adopt the definition of antisemitism. The Chair of the Education Committee has promoted, and asked universities to adopt, the definition of antisemitism. That definition is not law, so there are times when we want to restrict what people say that are not necessarily within the law. Do you want to comment on why adopting that definition is important, despite it not being law?

Danny Stone: There are two different issues here. Sir John, I found the your exchange earlier with Sunder Katwala really interesting because there are points in society where we turn round and say, “Sorry, this isn’t acceptable. There are societal standards here.” We do that with Ofcom. We do it with the British Board of Film Classification in our film regulation. We do it in other areas of public life where we say there are some kind of limits. That does not mean that the speech cannot happen, but Parliament sets a standard and it allows regulators, for example, to have a say on those standards. That is why I think that the complexities I spoke to should be on the face of the Bill.

I am pleased to have the chance to talk about International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, so thank you. The IHRA definition is excellent and it was created––people may not know this––to try to bring uniformity for practitioners who were trying to understand why Jews were fleeing antisemitism and antisemitic terrorism in Europe. It helps to bring a standard of understanding to people. What it does not do––I disagree with Sunder’s evidence earlier––is to block people from saying anything. It is an advisory tool. It helps people to understand what antisemitism may be in a particular context. That is a very useful thing for universities, and the Secretary of State and the Minister have been very good in supporting the IHRA definition. But, as you say, it does help to guide what our expectations are around antisemitism, and presumably, if something is found to be antisemitic, we do not really want that. There is a societal standard that we aspire to. Sorry for a long answer but, yes, I do think that these complexities need to be addressed in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---
None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allocated for the Committee to ask questions of this panel. I thank the witnesses on behalf of the Committee for their evidence. I invite any member of the Committee who wishes to register an interest to do so now.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

As I did previously, I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests relating to my role at the University of Bolton.

Richard Holden Portrait Mr Holden
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I declare an interest as the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Durham University.

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

John Hayes Excerpts
Monday 13th September 2021

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Public Bill Committees
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John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
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Q You do not work at a university and you are a journalist by background, are you not?

Sunder Katwala: I have worked in think-tanks, journalism and so on.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
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Q The previous witness said that no one who had not worked in a university could quite understand both the climate of fear and the culture of silence that prevails in many universities. Do you think you are better placed to make a judgment about that than someone who works in a university or not?

Sunder Katwala: No, I am not. I am not trying to bring you evidence on that. At the level of public policy, we are trying to decide on the principles we should be legislating for in our country, about where is the expanse of free speech we want to protect and where are there dangerous misuses by people who are claiming to use free speech to do something to undermine liberal democracy. That is my work. I am not telling you what is going on in universities.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
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Q In common with my colleagues, I have to declare my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am an academic at Bolton University.

The point you are making is that some speech should be prohibited that is legally lawful. Who would arbitrate that? Would it be university authorities, Governments or the mass of students? Once you get into the territory that you are describing, which could lead to a liberal tyranny, as I am sure you appreciate, who is going to decide what is acceptable or unacceptable, if it is not the law?

Sunder Katwala: All sorts of institutions make these decisions. The Labour party, the Conservative party and the Democratic Unionist party make these decisions. They prohibit people from saying things that are lawful and reprehensible. Newspapers make these decisions about lawful speech. As I say, social media companies are coming under more pressure. What should happen in the universities? Let me give you the three case versions that I think you should examine.

One is where the content is directly discriminatory: this would be the clash with the Equality Act. If somebody said, “Let’s have a lecture on how women are not fit to study maths and sciences,” and they brought the Taliban over to advocate their view on that, you could say, “Let’s just stand up and tell them that’s wrong.” Fine, we could do that, but, as with the Government’s position on antisemitism, there might be some kinds of versions of that—like no gays, Jews or blacks on campus, or whatever—where the responsibilities to treat students equally might be undermined.

My second category would be where people are advocating against academic freedom. If I held a campus event called “The burning books party” on 5 November, I might be burning the books that Hitler burned or burning “Mein Kampf,” but burning books or advocating the burning of books is against academic freedom. Should we have that debate? Clearly, burning a book is, in a sense, freedom of expression of a particular kind, but I don’t think we would invite people to have bonfires of books on campus. Would that be a public order offence or not? There might be an argument saying, “There are some books we should ban,” or “Women should not be allowed to write books. My vision of society is ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.” That is a stupid view, but it is a lawful view. Are we protecting that as academic freedom?

My third case would be very extreme conspiracy theories. Here we have a real dilemma. We know about Galileo, Darwin and so on, but when it comes to 9/11 “Truthers” and people who have David Icke’s view of covid—that it does not exist anywhere; it is just a plot by Bill Gates—where is the balance between the sunlight on that being right and the expression of that view? These things blend into each other. Why is there a conspiracy theory?

Those are the categories where I think that you need to think about whether there are versions of reprehensible but lawful speech that are inimical to academic freedom rather than needing to be protected as academic freedom. The Government have taken that position on holocaust denial, as I understand it, but they have not outlined a set of principles on what is wrong with holocaust denial. How does that relate to the denial of other genocides? How does that relate to the identical position of other minority groups who are not Jewish?

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q I just want a straightforward answer, really. You are right, of course, that many things are offensive, rude or unsavoury. Indeed, some things are alarming, shocking and disturbing, but some things that are alarming, shocking and disturbing should be said because innovators have done that through the ages. Copernicus was alarming. Darwin was certainly alarming and shocking to many people—pretty shocking to me, actually. Having said all that, you have not really been clear about who determines what is lawful but prohibited. Is it the university?

Sunder Katwala: Is it the vice-chancellor? National Action has now been proscribed, but a very violent, aggressive group such as Britain First has not been, and the Islamist equivalent of such groups. Most people have different views about these different groups, but do you give Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group whose sole existence is to undermine liberal democracy and academic freedom, the floor and argue against it, or are there some versions of the content where you draw the line, either because of—

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Sorry to interrupt you, but I want to get to the bottom of this. The vice-chancellor in a particular university, or the university management, would determine what was unacceptable but lawful.

Sunder Katwala: Or it might be a national policy. In the case of holocaust denial, it will be a national policy that the lawful speech of holocaust denial will not be welcome on our campuses. The Government have taken that view. Do the Government want to protect 9/11 conspiracies as academic freedom or not? Do the Government want to take a view, or does the vice-chancellor take a view? It is up to the Government first—

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q So it is the Government who determine it, not the vice-chancellor.

Sunder Katwala: It would depend. The Government will decide in the case of holocaust denial that it needs to be very clear that it is not welcome on campus. I am saying that there are analogous cases to holocaust denial for other reasons, for other minority groups.

--- Later in debate ---
Lloyd Russell-Moyle Portrait Lloyd Russell-Moyle
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

That is very helpful—thank you very much.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
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Q The witness immediately before you suggested that lawful speech on campus might be mitigated, restrained or even prohibited, and said that that job would perhaps fall to the Government or vice-chancellors. What is your view on that?

Nicola Dandridge: These sorts of decisions about what is lawful and what is not are both hugely complex and very facts-specific, so I think it would be very hard for the Government to anticipate those sorts of decisions. I think it is appropriate for that to fall to someone like the director and the Office for Students, who could take all the facts into account to make the appropriate decision.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Presumably, with lawful free speech on campus assumed to be a given, it is important that its defence is not in the hands of particular vice-chancellors or university management but carried out by an independent third party on the grounds of consistency.

Nicola Dandridge: I think the whole point behind setting up a director is that those will be independent decisions, whether for the university or for anyone else. That is fundamental to the way the role is cast, and I think it is fundamentally important.

Fiona Bruce Portrait Fiona Bruce
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q One students union has submitted to us:

“This bill addresses a non-problem”

—certainly at their student union and university. Do you agree?

Nicola Dandridge: The evidence suggests that there is an issue.

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

John Hayes Excerpts
Monday 13th September 2021

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Public Bill Committees
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Charlotte Nichols Portrait Charlotte Nichols
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q Hillary, is there anything you would like to add?

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: It is important, especially in reference to your first question and whether we think about discrimination and what the Bill could allow for. First and foremost, the Bill needs to give stronger reassurances that will not allow for free rein on discrimination, especially of vulnerable groups. However, it is also really important that we recognise that there are students who are made much more vulnerable by different types of speech than others, and unless the Bill recognises that they need protections and unless it can work alongside existing Acts and duties, it is going to make a lot of those students feel unsafe on campus—even more so than they do now with just their general experiences. I think that many elements of the Bill need to be looked at closely to ensure that that is embedded in there.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
- Hansard - -

Q Further to the last point, speaking from a personal point of view and a NUS point of view, presumably you believe in freedom of speech in the sense that you believe in the freedom to disturb, to alarm, or even to shock or outrage.

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: Yes. As the NUS, we believe in freedom of speech.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Even if that makes people feel very uncomfortable?

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: What I would say is that to focus on freedom of speech as just being about making people uncomfortable is quite restrictive. If we are going to speak about freedom of speech in that regard, we also have to speak about the freedom of people to have opposing views and the right of people to protest when they do have opposing views. Even more so, I think it is important that when we think about freedom of speech, we acknowledge the fact that freedom of speech is important to have, to champion and to promote, but we also have to be mindful of where it might encroach into places where people feel harmed, and are harmed, especially if they come from a vulnerable or marginalised group with protected characteristics under the Equality Act.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Of course, you are right that freedom of speech is unqualified in the sense that both views need to be put and many opinions need to be shared. There should be no prohibition on that within the law, and the law does prohibit incitement to hatred, incitement to terrorism and various other things, as you know. However, within those lawful constraints, is the freedom to offend important to you?

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: I would say to that that we could speak about the freedom to offend, but I think it is important that if we are so focused on offending rather than promoting an environment of debate in which people are able to voice opposing views, rather than just allow people to have the freedom to offend, I think we are not speaking about freedom of speech in the way that it should look like—in a balanced way, you know. If people should have the freedom to offend, people should also have the freedom to express opposing views, and to express that as freely as people would offend. Again, going back to the Bill, we cannot talk about this until there are proper reassurances that the Bill will not allow that freedom of offence to flirt with where it might encroach on hate speech or harmful speech, especially when people are from marginalised communities.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Hang on, I want to be clear about this. I totally agree with you that there need to be plural opportunities for people to express their views. I may find those views entirely unacceptable, possibly shocking and maybe offensive, but I would defend people’s right to be able to express them. We have laws that protect against hatred, incitement to violence, incitement to terrorism and so on, so are we clear that what the Bill does is to allow pretty pervasive freedom of speech within the law, allowing all kinds of views to be articulated on campus? That is a good thing, surely.

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: Again, I would just reiterate that we believe in and champion freedom of speech on campus. It is not a secret that the NUS and the student movement have been facilitating this happening for years and years, so that is what I would say to that.

I think, though, that what the Bill proposes, and some of its elements, come across as finding ways to promote free speech by introducing a body to bring in punitive measures where that is inhibited. I think that does not give enough acknowledgement to the fact that there are already existing processes to ensure that, when free speech is inhibited, that is dealt with. There is already promotion of free speech by student unions, by universities and by the NUS, even, and we need to think about whether the Bill will have the effect of promoting free speech, or whether it will have an opposite effect that causes people to be very risk-averse.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Very briefly, Chair—I know others want to speak—let me be clear. I am relieved and delighted by what you said about the NUS’s position. So, the NUS is against no-platforming, it is against a list of proscribed speakers who can lawfully make their views known elsewhere, and it is basically in favour of a pretty permissive free speech policy across universities.

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: If I may, that is not what I said exactly, especially in reference to the no-platforming policy. We have a no-platforming policy that includes six organisations, most of which the Government would also see as racist and fascist organisations. To say that we do not agree with no-platforming is simply not true.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

Q Are these lawful organisations? Are you saying that you are in favour, then, of prohibiting lawful free speech in certain circumstances?

Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: No. I am not saying that I am not in favour of lawful free speech. I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that the NUS supports, champions and cares deeply that free speech is championed, enabled and supported. To say that we do not agree with no-platforming where there are organisation like those I referenced with NUS’s no-platform policy that share and promote hate speech that hurts people from marginalised groups––to say that we do not support that is not true.

Emma Hardy Portrait Emma Hardy
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q This is not just about free speech within the law. Conservative Members may not recall that the Minister wrote to universities asking them to adopt the definition of antisemitism. The Chair of the Education Committee has promoted, and asked universities to adopt, the definition of antisemitism. That definition is not law, so there are times when we want to restrict what people say that are not necessarily within the law. Do you want to comment on why adopting that definition is important, despite it not being law?

Danny Stone: There are two different issues here. Sir John, I found the your exchange earlier with Sunder Katwala really interesting because there are points in society where we turn round and say, “Sorry, this isn’t acceptable. There are societal standards here.” We do that with Ofcom. We do it with the British Board of Film Classification in our film regulation. We do it in other areas of public life where we say there are some kind of limits. That does not mean that the speech cannot happen, but Parliament sets a standard and it allows regulators, for example, to have a say on those standards. That is why I think that the complexities I spoke to should be on the face of the Bill.

I am pleased to have the chance to talk about International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, so thank you. The IHRA definition is excellent and it was created––people may not know this––to try to bring uniformity for practitioners who were trying to understand why Jews were fleeing antisemitism and antisemitic terrorism in Europe. It helps to bring a standard of understanding to people. What it does not do––I disagree with Sunder’s evidence earlier––is to block people from saying anything. It is an advisory tool. It helps people to understand what antisemitism may be in a particular context. That is a very useful thing for universities, and the Secretary of State and the Minister have been very good in supporting the IHRA definition. But, as you say, it does help to guide what our expectations are around antisemitism, and presumably, if something is found to be antisemitic, we do not really want that. There is a societal standard that we aspire to. Sorry for a long answer but, yes, I do think that these complexities need to be addressed in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---
None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

Order. I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allocated for the Committee to ask questions of this panel. I thank the witnesses on behalf of the Committee for their evidence. I invite any member of the Committee who wishes to register an interest to do so now.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

As I did previously, I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests relating to my role at the University of Bolton.

Richard Holden Portrait Mr Holden
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I declare an interest as the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Durham University.

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

John Hayes Excerpts
Tuesday 7th September 2021

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Public Bill Committees
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None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
- Hansard - -

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

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

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

How long have you got?

None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

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

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

I am a professor at the University of Bolton.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Portrait Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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 (First sitting)

John Hayes Excerpts
Tuesday 7th September 2021

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Public Bill Committees
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None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
- Hansard - -

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

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

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

How long have you got?

None Portrait The Chair
- Hansard -

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

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

I am a professor at the University of Bolton.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Portrait Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Public Bill Committees
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Western Portrait Matt Western
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
- Hansard - -

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.”

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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 Portrait Michelle Donelan
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.”

--- Later in debate ---
Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I beg to differ with you on that.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q Where is the evidence?

Thomas Simpson: I have already given the evidence.

Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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 Portrait Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

--- Later in debate ---
Emma Hardy Portrait Emma Hardy
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

John and I disagree on quite a lot.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

It could be unconscious bias.

Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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 (Second sitting)

John Hayes Excerpts
Tuesday 7th September 2021

(3 years, 10 months ago)

Public Bill Committees
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Western Portrait Matt Western
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
- Hansard - -

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.”

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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 Portrait Michelle Donelan
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.”

--- Later in debate ---
Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I beg to differ with you on that.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Q Where is the evidence?

Thomas Simpson: I have already given the evidence.

Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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 Portrait Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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 Portrait Emma Hardy
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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.

Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
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John and I disagree on quite a lot.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

It could be unconscious bias.

Lord Beamish Portrait Mr Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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

John Hayes Excerpts
Kate Green Portrait Kate Green
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
- Hansard - -

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 Portrait Kate Green
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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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John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
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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 Portrait Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
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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?

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
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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 Portrait Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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 Portrait Danny Kruger
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

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Daniel Zeichner Portrait Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
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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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- Hansard - -

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 Portrait Daniel Zeichner
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

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—

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Marco Longhi Portrait Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
- View Speech - Hansard - -

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 Portrait Marco Longhi
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

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

(6 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Nadhim Zahawi Portrait Nadhim Zahawi
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
- Hansard - -

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 Portrait Nadhim Zahawi
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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

(6 years, 4 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.

Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Helen Jones Portrait Helen Jones
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.

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

John Hayes Portrait Sir John Hayes
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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 Portrait Helen Jones
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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.