Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I shall not weary the Committee by using all the arguments that have been so well advanced by noble Lords on all sides. They have been much more eloquent than I could possibly be. I support the amendments proposed by my noble friend Lord Pannick and Amendment 104 because I do not think that the Government have made a very convincing case for moving from a voluntary to a statutory basis. They are quite right in wishing to see all higher education institutions taking the Prevent strategy seriously and co-operating with it but they have not given any evidence that this voluntary approach—reinforced perhaps by a bit of naming and shaming—cannot bring everyone voluntarily within this framework. They have said little about the efforts they have made to do that, except to admit, which I very much welcome, that the majority of universities are actually doing this already. Therefore, I do not think that the case has been made for moving from a voluntary to a statutory basis.

There is a bit of a mixture in this grouping, ranging from a carve-out for universities and other proposals that fall short of that, which would leave universities within the Bill but would mitigate the problems from it. I hope that the Minister will address some of the other amendments—Amendments 105, 112 and so on—which would achieve that mitigation. It is extremely important that that should appear in the Bill.

Finally, I have a point to make about the guidance. The consultation on the guidance with universities, if I understand it rightly, concludes at the end of this week. Frankly, that guidance is pretty horrifying. It has caused a great deal of the concern that has been expressed around this Committee by the nature of its prescriptive detail, its intrusiveness and the absolute impossibility for most universities to carry out these provisions. Next week, on Report, the Minister could make clear in the most formal way the changes to the guidance that will be introduced before it is promulgated. I hope that the Minister will take that seriously. If he cannot agree to remove universities from this Bill, which would be my preference, he should accept some of the amendments that would mitigate the effects of it, make quite clear that the guidance will be radically altered and explain how it will be altered. He should explain, above all, some of the points that he put in his letter about the positive things that the Government are happy to continue to see happening in universities and not just give a long list of the negative things that they are going to try to clamp down on. I hope that can be taken to heart before we come back on Report.

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

The amendments here fall into two distinct categories. There is the root-and-branch objection to the whole idea that higher education institutions should be brought into Part 5 of the Bill and the proposal that they should be carved out, to use the expression of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. Then there are the amendments that seem to massage various provisions within Part 5 as it presently exists so that it becomes, apparently, compatible with the explicit statutory duties already placed on those institutions to promote free speech, freedom of expression, academic freedom and so on. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, I very strongly support the first category, the root-and-branch objection. It seems to be a matter of the first importance that, for universities and higher institutions, nothing short of the express provisions of the criminal law—or, no doubt, the long-established principles of defamation—should operate as an inhibition on the freedoms that are here in question, which really are core values that go to the very heart of effective university life in a liberal democracy. It is small wonder that so little enthusiasm has been voiced in the Committee today in support of anything approaching Part 5 in its present form.