Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. So much of the legislation that goes through this place is the nuts and bolts for things that the Government must do to ensure good government and the delivery of all the things that we wish to see. However, we must not be blind to the fact that this place is also about principle, and the principle of free speech needs to be defended. There are unfortunately too many instances where people feel as if they cannot speak as freely as they wish.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State believe in evidence-based policy making? If so, can he cite the evidence for the problem that he is seeking to address? It appears that he is manufacturing a problem in order to have today’s debate.

[Gavin Williamson]

We are talking about principles. We are talking about the fact that what we want to do is give people the opportunity to have that freedom. Do you know what was so saddening, Madam Deputy Speaker? When we first announced the intention that we would take this action if it was necessary—

[Lilian Greenwood]

If it was necessary. Why is it necessary?

[Gavin Williamson]

What we hoped we would see is universities across the country taking further action, but what was so saddening was that so many people contacted me directly to express their concerns about being able to speak freely on campus at the universities where they worked. They were not able to put down their name and address, because they were concerned about the repercussions.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) rightly said that it would be a tragedy if Darwin had not felt that he had the freedom and ability to challenge established thinking. We have to remember that there are Darwins out there who will be challenging the consensus, and we always need to ensure that all our great institutions deliver the freedoms that we expect them to deliver. We are a free and democratic society, and we should never be in a position where we are not doing everything we can to deliver freedom of speech. Does it not seem odd—in Parliament, of all places, where freedom of speech is there to be protected, relished and enjoyed—that the Labour party is not necessarily challenging and trying to amend the Bill, but wants to actively vote it down? It seems perverse that the Labour party is not supporting the principles of freedom of speech and is not doing everything we can to ensure that students and academics have as much freedom as possible to explore ideas.

As we look at how we protect free speech, we should all be appalled that a report by King’s College London only two years ago found that a quarter of students believed that violence was an acceptable response to inflammatory speech. The same report showed that a similar proportion of students were beginning to keep their beliefs and opinions to themselves because they were too scared to disagree with their peers.

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[Gavin Williamson]

It absolutely is. I am sure the hon. Lady was about to come on to the amazing work that the Office for Students has commissioned to ensure that all universities take the action required, including looking at whether that is a condition of registration for universities, which, as she will understand, is absolutely fundamental for universities to be able to operate.

The Bill will protect lawful freedom of speech and academic freedom on campus. We are strengthening the legal duties that exist and ensuring that robust action, including imposing fines, will be taken if they are breached. The central core of the Bill is clause 1, which amends the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 to extend the duties of higher education providers relating to freedom of speech and academic freedom. That will ensure that those freedoms are protected and promoted within higher education in England.

As we actively protect students from racism, antisemitism and other forms of discrimination, higher education providers will have to take responsibility and reasonably practicable steps to secure lawful freedom of speech for their staff, members, students and visiting speakers. That includes a duty to secure the academic freedom of academic staff. It will mean a change in ethos as well as culture. Providers will be under a duty to promote those fundamental values, as well as to maintain a code of practice setting out how students and staff should act so as to ensure compliance with that duty.

Freedom of speech does not begin and end with providers. As a matter of principle, every student at every university in every corner of the country should have the same freedom and the same rights. Students unions must not be allowed to silence or intimidate other students within a university. That is why clause 2 requires students unions and providers to take “reasonably practicable” steps to secure lawful freedom of speech for their members, students, staff and visiting speakers.

As now, the right to lawful free speech will remain balanced by the important safeguards against harassment, abuse and threats of violence as set out in the Equality Act 2010, the Prevent duty and other legislation, none of which we are changing. This is not an ideological effort; it is about fundamental fairness and common sense. These legal duties are key to ensuring that the higher education sector in England continues to be an environment in which students, staff and visiting speakers are not just able but welcome to freely express their views, as long as those views are lawful. The reason we need this effort is because the existing legislation provides no clear means of enforcement, nor does it give a specific right to individuals to seek compensation for breach of freedom of speech duties, leading to concerns that it does not offer serious, sufficient or significant protection.

This is why clause 3 introduces a new statutory tort that will protect visiting fellows, students and other individuals who may not be able to seek redress through employment tribunal. Though this legal route is an important backstop, we do not want all cases going to court where they could otherwise be resolved by other means. We are therefore providing that the Office for Students, the regulator for higher education in England, will play a more active role in strengthening freedom of speech and academic freedom standards in higher education.

Clause 4 imposes new freedom of speech duties on the OFS, including requiring it to promote the importance of freedom of speech within the law and the academic freedom of academic staff at higher education providers. The OFS will also play an important role in identifying best practice and providing advice in relation to the promotion of these rights.

The OFS will have a more direct route to regulate the freedom of speech duties under clause 5, which requires the OFS to set new registration conditions relating to freedom of speech and academic freedom. This clause will ensure that the registration conditions relating to freedom of speech and academic freedom are aligned with the duties on higher education providers imposed by the Bill. The OfS will be able to ensure that these are complied with by using its usual powers of accountability and enforcement, such as the power to impose fines.

As I have said, it is vital that students unions are also doing their bit to ensure freedom of speech on campus. Clause 6 extends the regulatory functions of the OfS so that it can effectively regulate and enforce the new freedom of speech duties that we are placing on students unions. The OfS will monitor compliance and have the power to impose fines.

[Lilian Greenwood]

When I heard the Universities Minister discussing this matter on the radio some time ago, she suggested that these proposals in the Bill could enable holocaust deniers to seek compensation. Do the Government really want to protect people like that and those sorts of repugnant views? Why is that the Government’s priority?

[Gavin Williamson]

As the hon. Lady will know, it is absolutely clear that this Bill will never create a platform for holocaust deniers. She is probably familiar with the Public Order Act 1986, the Equality Act 2010, which was introduced by the Labour party, and the Prevent duties introduced in 2015. If made an Act, this legislation will never create the space to tolerate holocaust deniers.

There is at the moment no direct way for anyone to complain about freedom of speech matters other than for students against their higher education provider. This scheme will provide a route to individual redress for all students, staff and visiting speakers to back up the new strengthened freedom of speech duties provided in the Bill for providers and students unions.

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[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

Before I turn to the substance of my speech, I want to take on a matter raised by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). She was calling, “Where’s the data in this?” There has already been one set of answers with respect to the chilling effect, which we cannot measure, but the issue here is also quite important in terms of the importance of free speech.

I am a scientist by training. All the transformations in science—every single one—have been a challenge of an existing paradigm. They have often been opposed, often by the Church; we heard about Darwin, but there was Kepler and Copernicus and others at the same time. There have always been challenges to existing science. That has been a thousand times more important than anything we can measure, and we cannot judge it in advance. I just make that point about the importance of free speech. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that free speech is a fundamental principle. That is why it is a fundamental principle and why we cannot simply go on a percentage here and a percentage there.

This country—this Parliament, in fact—has for over 300 years enshrined our right to free speech in law. The 1689 Bill of Rights became a symbol of hope for the rights of people everywhere. It is the most fundamental of freedoms, and it became a symbol everywhere. In 1948— we talk about holocaust deniers; that was the most sensitive time for these sorts of arguments—it was enshrined as article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights, which said:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Today that right is under threat. I am amazed that the Labour party has not recognised that, but let us see how we get on. It is under threat in the very institutions where it should be most treasured—namely, our universities. I will return to some facts on the matter in a minute.

Freedom of speech only matters where it is controversial, when it is challenging. That is why the greatest characterisation of free speech is the one attributed to Voltaire, who said:

“I may detest what you say”—

I think that was the original phrasing—

“but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.”

I generally try not to detest or even dislike my political opponents, although there is one Labour Member who attacked J. K. Rowling in the most disgraceful terms. I would not for a second want to see him cancelled, but I want to see him here, debating the issue, because he would lose the debate. That is our protection in terms of free speech—not obliteration, but challenge.

Voltaire understood that creativity and progress in a society are dependent on acts of intellectual rebellion, dissent, disagreement and controversy, no matter how uncomfortable, but today the cancel culture movement thinks it is reasonable to obliterate the views of people it disagrees with, rather than to challenge them in open debate. The interesting element of the latter part of my career has been watching the change to this.

Social media has had an extraordinary impact. It has accelerated the growth of online lynch mobs, magnified their effect and facilitated their organisation. Today there is a terrible outbreak of intolerance in modern society: the so-called culture wars, which remind me of nothing so much as McCarthyism in the United States. When I first, as it were, came of age politically, this was still in living memory—both McCarthyism and the end of Stalinism. This is like the early stages of a totalitarian repression in other countries.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman wholeheartedly regarding the concerns about what is happening on social media. Is that not precisely why we need an online harms Bill to tackle that sort of abuse rather than the Bill we have before us?

[Mr Davis]

Precisely. The hon. Lady prefaces the argument I am going to make, which is that we do need to use the online harms Bill as well, but this Bill is just a part of that.

As I said, the behaviour that we have seen in the online battles that have taken place reminds me of McCarthyism. If hon. Members think that is an exaggeration, I recommend that they read the account in The Sunday Times three weeks ago by Christie Elan-Cane of her mistreatment, or indeed by Suzanne Moore of hers. The incredible and repressive verbal violence, and threats of actual physical violence, alongside heavily orchestrated attacks on their reputations and work, were frightening in the extreme to people whose reputations were already well-established. It is therefore no wonder that ordinary people are terrified to speak out for fear of losing their jobs, their friends and their reputations. This is the “chilling” issue that we have been talking about.

The Bill is to correct a small—I grant you, it is small—but extraordinarily important symbolic aspect of this modern McCarthyism, namely the attempt to no-platform a number of speakers, including Amber Rudd, Julie Bindel, Peter Hitchens, Peter Tatchell and others. I hope it is just a first step in a programme to bring free speech back to Britain. I name them rather than enumerate them for a reason—because they are all established people. If established people with high reputations can be terrorised, suppressed or put down, how is it going to be for somebody without the defences that they have?

As the Secretary of State said, the Bill replaces section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act—the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston also referred to this—which imposes an obligation to take reasonably practical steps to uphold free speech on campus. The Bill replaces that with a slightly broader duty and extends it to apply to student unions as well. I think that is correct. It creates an enforcement mechanism, which was also missing before, so that students, academics and visiting speakers whose speech rights have been violated can hold higher education providers and student unions to account. Someone whose speech rights are breached by a university can lodge a complaint with the director for freedom of speech, who will have the power to investigate it and, if the complaint is upheld, fine the institution in question and compensate the victim. The students, academics or speakers will also be able to sue for denial of free speech. It is important that these mechanisms work—that is why this is important as an adjunct to the existing legislation—because the suppression of free speech in universities has a chilling effect on free speech in all of society. It is the pinnacle of free speech in our society, so if it is removed there, that facilitates and legitimises removing it everywhere else.

To come back to the point that the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) raised with me, it is important that we follow this up in other areas. In the online harms Bill, we should protect free speech from casual suppression by commercial platforms. We should look hard at the effect of organised online intimidation and seek to make it less easy, perhaps by removing anonymity from perpetrators. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston talked about anti-vaxxers. I am very pro-vaccine, for fairly obvious reasons. However, in the name of suppressing anti-vaxxers’ propaganda, quite a lot of legitimate scientists who had objections to the exact mechanisms of lockdown, raised concerns about blood clots and so on found themselves suppressed online. We have to recognise that this is not an easy dividing line to draw.

Managed free speech is a very hard idea to promote, pursue and make work. Modern communications are a major force for either good or evil. We should make sure that we facilitate the right one, and this Bill is just the first step in that important process.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I feel compelled to speak in today’s debate because higher education is absolutely vital to the success of Nottingham South. In the past, people in my city worked as makers—of textiles, cigarettes and bicycles. Now, the site of the vast Raleigh factory is the University of Nottingham’s Jubilee campus. Nottingham College’s Adams building is a former lace factory, and the old Boots site in the city centre, where ibuprofen was invented, is now BioCity, a business incubator jointly owned by the city’s two universities and using their outstanding research to support the growth of ambitious life science businesses, creating jobs and opportunities for my constituents and ensuring that Nottingham’s economy has a bright future.

I care deeply about the success of higher education and the success of Nottingham’s two world-class universities. They will need to adapt to meet the challenges of a post-pandemic, post-Brexit world and to do much more to ensure that they are accessible to every young person who wants and has the ability to benefit from an academic education, and to ensure that they are welcoming places for young people from all backgrounds that support students to learn and to thrive.

In the interim conclusion of their review of post-18 education and funding—the Augar review—published in January, the Government said that there would be

“bold investments and reforms to build a high quality, unified system.”

They committed to

“introducing a Lifelong Loan Entitlement from 2025”,

described as a “radical change”. If change is coming to post-18 education, as it clearly is, our universities must be ready to meet it, but instead of clarity on those important issues from Government, we have today’s Bill.

I also care deeply about the students who come to study in our city. I want them to have a great experience living in Nottingham. I want them to stay on in the city after they graduate. I want them to think and speak positively and warmly about Nottingham when they return to their homes across the UK and the world. I also want the young people from my constituency who go to study in other places to have good experiences. Students tell me that they are worried about the cost of living when they are studying, particularly the high cost of rent and transport. They tell me that they are concerned about their safety on the streets and on campus, particularly women students. They tell me that they are worried about their mental health and accessing the support they need while away at university.

My constituents raise other concerns. Being home to more than 50,000 students sometimes puts pressure on our city’s local services or gives rise to tensions in neighbourhoods. Rising student numbers have impacted on the local housing market over a long period. In Nottingham, we are working to address all these issues by bringing together residents, local partners, including the two universities and their student unions, and the city council. It is not easy and, in the last year, there have been particularly difficult periods, but we remain focused on finding solutions.

The pandemic has hit Nottingham hard and it continues to impact on students, long-term residents and the universities. There are real concerns about the future of our hospitality sector and our high streets and about the ability of our health services to cope with a third wave of infections. Our universities, local residents, prospective students, returning students and their parents will all want reassurance about measures to keep them safe ahead of the autumn term. They need to know how Government will support the requirement to quarantine for thousands of overseas students coming to study in our city. They want to know what the covid testing regime will look like. The youngest students want to know how they will be able to access their second vaccinations when they start at university. They want to know when they might be required to self-isolate and how they will be supported if they are. This year, many students have had to pay rent on accommodation that they have been unable to use while the part-time jobs they rely on to support themselves through education have been unavailable. They want to know what the Government are doing to protect them from such unfairness and financial hardship. These are big issues—serious concerns —that demand answers and solutions, none of which are addressed by this Bill.

The issue that this Bill seeks to address is not on anyone’s list of priorities. It is a sledgehammer to crack a very small nut, while other important issues in the sector and outside it are not being addressed. Why do we not have a Bill to address online racist abuse of the sort that we have seen in the last 24 hours? Why are we not debating the Government’s plans for better student support in order to widen participation? Why is the Government’s priority protecting hate speech, rather than the students who face racism or sexual harassment on campus, or students who are struggling with poor mental health?

Freedom of speech, and the free exchange of ideas in pursuit of truth and knowledge, is absolutely central to our universities’ whole purpose, but where is the evidence that there is a problem? The vice-chancellor of Nottingham Trent University confirmed to me yesterday that not a single event at the university has been cancelled due to the content to be debated. The Bill is unnecessary and unclear. It risks opening up our universities to vexatious and frivolous claims, and it may actually make universities more risk-averse and more cautious about whom they invite to speak.

Just a few weeks ago, some Conservative MPs seemed determined to create division among our country’s football fans by criticising the England team for visibly expressing their opposition to racism by taking the knee—freedom of speech. Today, the Government are trying to manufacture a row about free speech on campus. The Government should be working with universities and students to address the real priorities for higher education. It is shameful that they are not doing so, and that is why I oppose the Bill.

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[James Daly]

No, I will not—[Interruption.] Absolutely not; there is no dispute in respect of this issue. It is the specific intent of this legislation to ensure that holocaust denial is not covered by the free speech recommendations.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[James Daly]

No, I will not.

The second type of behaviour that has been mentioned—the only other example that Opposition Members could put forward—is anti-vaxxers. Now, I disagree with anti-vaxxers, but do we seriously believe that anti-vaxxers should be discriminated against through this legislation to the extent of being banned from state premises and educational establishments?

What this Bill does do, which nobody has mentioned, is put universities under a duty to make whatever efforts are “reasonably practicable” to ensure that free speech happens.