Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Lord Grabiner Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Etherton (CB)]

I declare my interest as a visiting professor at Birkbeck, University of London. My amendment is not directed at anything other than technical—but important—deficiencies in Clause 4. I am concerned about the appropriateness of this provision as it stands. I am sure that many here will say that it is neither appropriate nor necessary for Clause 4 to be there at all, but that is not my purpose: my purpose is to make it work if it stays. The Minister will be aware of my concerns about this provision.

There are two critical deficiencies at the moment. The Explanatory Notes state:

“Clause 4 … creates a new statutory tort”.


My first question is whether damage or loss is necessary to make the statutory tort enforceable. Briefly, some torts, such as negligence or nuisance, require loss or damage to give rise to an enforceable legal right, but others, such as trespass, are actionable without proof of loss or damage. The clause, as it stands, does not indicate whether loss or damage is required for anybody to enforce this new right. The Explanatory Notes indicate in two paragraphs that the intention is that there should be “compensation for loss”. If that is the intention, that must be included somewhere in the definition of the tort itself to make it viable. I should add that, if loss or damage are not critical—if it is actionable, as it were, without loss or damage—it is extremely difficult to see what kind of order a court could make in practice that would deal with the situation that has arisen in relation to the non-securing of freedom of speech.

The second deficiency is that there is no description of the category of persons entitled to enforce this civil wrong. It is not limited in any way to any particular group of people, but I assume that the intention is that the category of people entitled to enforce the proposed new statutory tort are those to whom the providers of higher of education owe

“a duty to secure freedom of speech”.

Therefore, that point is also included in my amendment.

I finish simply by saying that if the clause and the new tort are to remain, it is critical that the latter becomes a recognisable and legally enforceable tort with those additions.

[Lord Grabiner (CB)]

My Lords, the premise of the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, is a presupposition that the clause remains. I will be a little more ambitious by arguing that the provision is in fact otiose and we would do well to get rid of it.

I support the view that the clause should be deleted—as I think the Minister is aware—because three points seem to militate against the introduction of this brand new civil cause of action. First, it should not be assumed that the ability to invoke the civil court process will operate as some sort of universal panacea which will resolve this problem at a stroke. Often, the legal process, especially a new-fangled one, confuses and undermines well-intentioned purposes. It is also often the case that the introduction of lawyers and the courts merely fuels increased tension. Speaking from my narrow professional perspective, the only guaranteed positive outcome is that the financial condition of both sides of the legal profession will be enhanced if Clause 4 is enacted.

Secondly, in this case, the Office for Students, and the OIA—as regulators with suitable powers and, as should be the case, an in-depth understanding of the higher education world—would be far better placed than a judge of the High Court to deal with the matters dealt with by the Bill. In principle, it should not be necessary to have a regulatory structure concurrently in place with a specially devised civil court process. The scope for confusion, and what I call trouble-making, is obvious.

Against that, I believe it is suggested that Clause 4 is necessary as some sort of backstop to the regulatory regime. The unsatisfactory implication from the backstop argument is that the regulators may not be up to snuff—for example, because they lack funding, expertise or the necessary powers.

The backstop argument is unprincipled and illogical. If, for whatever reason, the regulators are not good enough, that should be the focus of repair and improvement. We should not be in the business of bolstering the deficiencies of the regulatory structure with the court process contemplated by Clause 4.

In this connection, the Bill wholly fails to address the relationship between the regulatory regime and the new proposed civil action. Should one be exhausted before the other? If the complainant fails before one, should he, she or it be entitled to have a second bite of the cherry? Suppose the complainant succeeds before one, should the loser be entitled to seek declaratory relief from the other, to the effect that the first decision was wrong? The scope for confusion and what I call mischief-making is significant. My sense is that these potential complications have not been thought through or, if they have been, they have not been addressed in the drafting of the Bill.

My third point is that there will inevitably be pressure groups and mischief-makers who will wish to use the court process publicly to embarrass universities, colleges and student unions to advance their own branded ideology or view of the world. The potential for this sort of behaviour, particularly in this context, is boundless, I am afraid.

On Second Reading, in the Minister’s very clear explanation of the structure and content of the Bill and, in particular, in closing, he made three points in support of, or by way of justification for, Clause 4, and I should like to address these points. I would not and could not put words into the Minister’s mouth, but his position can fairly be summarised as acknowledging the objections to Clause 4 as seriously held opinions but that, in his view, the concerns expressed were, on analysis, and for the three reasons he gave, more imagined than real. I cite Hansard of 28 June, col. 633.

The Minister said, first, that it would be very difficult for a claimant, especially a vexatious one, to establish the requisite duty of care without which the statutory duty could not be said to be breached and the claim would swiftly be dismissed. Secondly, he said that it would be necessary for the claimant to prove what he called “genuine and material loss”, by which I assume he meant financial loss. The Minister said that this would be a tough hurdle, which few claimants could clear. Thirdly, he said the claimant would find civil proceedings expensive, especially if he lost and ended up having to pay his own and a significant element of the fees incurred by the university, college or student union, as the case may be.

I should like to deal with each of those points because, in my view, none of them withstands detailed analysis. First, the persons to whom the proposed duties would be owed are identified in the Bill, in new Section A1(2) in Clause 1, as staff, members, students and visiting speakers, and in new Section A5(2) in Clause 3, as

“members of the students’ union … students … staff of the students’ union … staff and members of the provider and … visiting speakers”.

Potentially that includes a lot of people, as well as organisations with which they may be associated. It is also the case that, as has often been said by judges at the highest level, the categories of duty are never closed. The common law develops piecemeal through changing circumstances; it is a living thing, and there is every reason to suppose that, ultimately, these duties will be held to be owed to persons or organisations whose behaviours and beliefs will or may be regarded as lawful but nevertheless deeply offensive to many listeners or observers. If the claimant presents an arguable case that he, she or it is owed a duty of care, the claim will be permitted to proceed; it will not be struck out at the preliminary stage.

The second point, to the effect that the claimant would have to show “genuine and material loss” needs careful scrutiny. The impression given by those words is that it means significant financial loss—that is, in order to succeed, the Clause 4 claimant would have to prove that he had suffered a real level of financial loss as a consequence of the breach of duty. I would be most grateful if the Minister would explain to us what they mean, if not that type of loss.

Before getting into the meaning of genuine and material loss, there is an important anterior question. Most torts in our law are not made out without proof of some damage but some, such as nuisance, trespass to land and libel, are actionable per se. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, made some reference to this a few moments ago, which is to say: without the need to allege or prove any damage. Clause 4 is interesting because it specifically makes no mention of damages or financial compensation for the claimant. I think that is what the noble and learned Lord’s amendment, or part of it, is directed at.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, as noble Lords have indicated, today and at Second Reading, the issue of the proposed new tort is one that has given rise to a number of doubts, questions and worries, which I shall do my best to address. Whether I can entirely assuage those concerns remains to be seen, but I hope that noble Lords find what I say to be helpful at this stage.

Amendment 48 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, seeks to make it clear in the Bill that a claim under the tort against a higher education provider or college can be brought only by the individuals specified under new Section A1(2), namely those whose freedom of speech is protected under the Bill. The amendment would also make it clear that such a person must have suffered loss in order to bring a claim. I can confirm without hesitation—and I hope that it is helpful for me to place on the record—that we intend for the new statutory tort to operate as the amendment suggests, which is the usual approach under tort law. This is reflected in the Explanatory Notes.

For someone to make a successful claim via the tort against a provider, the claimant would need to be able to show that the provider owed them a duty of care. Only the class of individuals specified in new Section A1(2) would be able to demonstrate that the provider owed them a duty of care. This is not a question of demonstrating standing to bring a claim, rather a question of demonstrating that they were owed a duty of care—a more limited group that would not, incidentally, include pressure groups.

As for the need to demonstrate that they have suffered loss, the claimant would need to point to a genuine loss that they had suffered as a result of the breach of the freedom of speech duties in new Section A1 in order to claim damages. If we bear in mind that only a person specified in new Section A1(2) could bring a claim, we consider that they would do so only if they have suffered because of a breach of the duties—even if, for example, that loss is injury to feelings and not a monetary loss. I come back to the point I have made before, which may be helpful to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox: we intend the tort to be a backstop, particularly for those situations where an individual disagrees with a recommendation that has been made.

I understand the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Grabiner, that Clause 4 should specify that compensation can be awarded by the courts. There are, as he rightly said, some statutory torts where it specifies this but also torts that do not: for example, Section 138D(2) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. The principal remedy for tort is damages, although, as the noble Lord will know, an injunction and other remedies may also be available. An injunction, for example, could require that a student is readmitted on the course which a provider has removed them from, so we would certainly want a court to be able to order that, if appropriate.

The remedies available for the tort of breach of statutory duty are the same as for tort generally, subject to the intention of the relevant statute. Where the legislation itself provides a remedy, the question may arise whether it is tended to be additional to the general remedies available under the law or instead of them. Where the legislation provides a remedy but there is no express or implied indication as to whether other remedies are also available, there is a prima facie presumption that it is intended to be the only one available. This presumption will not always exist and the question depends in each case on the construction of the enactment concerned. Given this, we think that it is not necessary to specify that compensation is available; it could, in fact, unintentionally limit the court’s powers.

Amendments 49 and 52, tabled by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst, seek to allow the employment tribunal to determine claims brought by academic staff members under the new statutory tort and to make dismissal for exercise of academic freedom automatically unfair. The consequential amendment removes the qualifying period for unfairly dismissed academics and the cap on the compensatory award, and it allows the tribunal to order interim relief. The Bill does not prevent academic staff bringing claims before the employment tribunal, which may take into account a breach of the freedom of speech and academic freedom duties, if it is relevant to a claim before it. Under the current employment law framework, the two-year qualifying period for unfair dismissal is intended to strike the right balance between fairness for employees and flexibility for employers, to ensure that employers are not discouraged from taking on new staff. Where an employee does not have two years’ service, it is still possible to bring a claim for wrongful dismissal in the civil courts.

In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, in particular, the Bill in fact broadens the range of people covered by the existing freedom of speech duties to ensure that all staff within a provider, college or students’ union have protections and can seek redress where duties are breached. The new duties give particular protection to academic staff, including those who may not have employee status or have been employed for less than two years. It therefore broadens the scope of the current provision to ensure that visiting fellows, for example, have the freedom to research and teach on issues that may be controversial or challenging without the risk of losing their post, privileges or prospects.

The Bill gives specific jurisdiction to the courts to consider claims for breach of a statutory duty, as well as setting up a new complaints scheme. I say to my noble friend Lord Willetts that we think that this is a proportionate approach. Academic and non-academic staff will have sufficient routes for redress, without the need to amend employment law as proposed.

Amendment 50, also tabled by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst seeks to make clear in the Bill that the tort should be only a remedy of last resort and that individuals should first exhaust the free route of redress of the Office for Students complaints scheme. Under the amendment, the court would be able to stay the claim on the application of the defendant. We expect that most complainants will choose to use the complaint scheme of the OfS—or students may wish to go to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education—before considering going to court, as no costs are involved in lodging a complaint.

The noble Lord, Lord Grabiner, spoke of mischief-makers. We consider that the tort is unlikely to lead to higher education providers, colleges and student unions having to deal with a large number of unmeritorious claims. A claimant would need to be able to show that the defendant owed them a duty of care, and they would need to point to a genuine loss that they had suffered as a result of a breach of the freedom of speech duties, as I described. In the case of an unmeritorious claim, the claimant would struggle to make their case. In addition, an unmeritorious claimant would risk having to pay substantial legal costs as a result, not only their own but potentially also the legal costs of the defendant. This, together with the availability of free routes for seeking redress, means that we expect the tort will likely be used only as a backstop.

[Lord Grabiner (CB)]

Does the Minister think it appropriate that there should be left in place two possible routes for a complainant—a regulatory route and a Clause 4 route—without there being any guidance whatever in the legislation as to who should or should not go first? At the moment, the Minister is saying, by way of assertion without a scrap of evidence to support it, if I may respectfully say so, that the expectation is that people will use the regulatory procedure first if they are going to make a complaint. At the moment, the legislation does not cater for that problem. Is he satisfied with that?

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will accept from me that I am not impervious to the points made by noble Lords from around the Committee on that issue, including the very powerful points that the noble Lord himself made. I will come in a minute to the position I have reached as a result of this debate.

It may be helpful if I just explain first, though, that we should note that, to complain to the OIA, the complainant must generally have first exhausted the provider’s internal complaints process; the same is likely to be the case for the OfS scheme. We anticipate that, in any event, where an alternative dispute resolution procedure is available, the court will be slow to engage with issues arising from the same subject matter, unless and until that procedure has been given reasonable time and opportunity to run to a conclusion. If an individual wishes to bring a tort claim before then, they should provide the court with good reasons for doing so, but that will be a matter for the courts to determine.

However, I have heard the concerns expressed by noble Lords, as well as in the other place, about exhausting other remedies and about the tort generally. We take these concerns seriously and will consider carefully whether anything can be done to address them. I am also happy to discuss the issue of who can bring a claim with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, if he still considers an amendment along the lines of his amendment necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grabiner (CB)]

I apologise: it is probably my fault because I did not convey the point of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, as clearly as I could, and perhaps should, have done, and certainly not as clearly as he inevitably would have. It is not about the earlier 1980s legislation; the fact is that the Bill, if it becomes law, will contain brand-new statutory duties. It is those duties that, if broken, would give rise to the course of action we are talking about.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I shall reflect on that point and write to him, if he will allow me to clarify the Government’s position in that way.

I have already set out how we envisage the tort will operate, so I will not repeat that. Suffice to say that, in the view of the Government, the statutory tort will provide an important legal backstop by giving individuals a specific right to bring a claim before the courts. This could include a number of people in different situations. For example, and purely by way of example, it could include students expelled from their course because of their views; organisers of an event that is cancelled, having incurred costs in the process; and a visiting speaker disinvited at the last minute, with the accompanying media furore and perhaps damage to feelings and reputation. There are other instances I could give. Noble Lords who wish to remove this clause need to be comfortable about removing a backstop provision that could offer a remedial route to certain individuals, such as those I have mentioned.

I hope I have been able to set out why we believe that this clause fulfils a duty that we surely owe to those who believe that their legal rights in this area have been infringed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grabiner (CB)]

My Lords, without wishing to repeat points that I made on earlier amendments, I will refer briefly to the amendments put forward by the noble Lords, Lord Willetts and Lord Stevens of Birmingham, Amendments 58 and 59. Both draw attention to key deficiencies in the current drafting of the Bill.

On moving Amendment 58 at the outset of this group, the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, identified a problem with the priorities or procedure to be adopted. All I respectfully say about that is that we need more of a root and branch exercise on the respective powers of regulators, if Clause 4 unhappily ends up in the legislation. This Bill is currently deficient on the relationship between those two mechanisms. Although I agree with the principle identified, I would like to see a more sophisticated response to the problem.

On Amendment 59, the distinction in legislation between “may” and “must” is a lawyer’s old chestnut: “may” is discretionary; “must” is compulsory or mandatory. In order for any body to conclude whether a claim is vexatious, frivolous or a waste of time, it needs some understanding of the facts. I do not think whether it is “may” or “must” matters; it is important that a body has the power to dismiss a case if it is satisfied it is vexatious, frivolous or, for some other reason, unmeritorious.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have a couple of brief points. Following that helpful contribution on Amendment 59, I want to clarify that complaints are very often dismissed as vexatious, but it is important that we do not accept at face value that things are vexatious because somebody has accused them of so being. That can be a way of closing down the complaints procedure.

I also want to raise a query. I may have misunderstood something in Amendment 58 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, but it suggests that

“the OfS cannot intervene until a university’s own procedures … are exhausted.”

There is a difficulty there. Often, academics and students to whom I have spoken feel that their dispute is with those very academic authorities, and that even the complaint within the university can get them targeted as free speech troublemakers. It is not straightforward. In some instances, we are talking about a rather toxic atmosphere. Often, the complaint an academic has is precisely because they have been put on some procedure by the university authorities—they may have been suspended or put forward for disciplinary action—which they feel is unjustified. They then get cleared, but all the testimonies from people who have been in this situation make the point that the process is the punishment these days. As I said earlier, the period in which an academic has been labelled as a user of hate speech, suspended from their job or whatever it is can be really discrediting and damaging to their reputation. It is slightly more complicated than has been presented, and this is one of the problems with the state of universities at present, in relation to free speech.

--- Later in debate ---

To my mind, the Office for Students is late on to this from the perspective of institutional and systemic financial sustainability, and I also believe that UKRI is late on to it in terms of assessing the impact on our capabilities in key fields, including telecommunications and applied materials, where a significant portion of our most impactful research is undertaken in collaboration with Chinese partners. That is why I would welcome a broader definition of overseas funding than is currently in the Bill and why I believe it would be sensible to add a duty on the Office for Students to consider whether a registered higher education provider is overly reliant on income from a single country of origin. I beg to move.

[Lord Grabiner (CB)]

My Lords, if I may respectfully say so, I was extremely interested in the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, in support of the two amendments to which his name is attached. But there is another aspect of this discussion that gives me an opportunity to have a personal grouse, based on my own experience of higher education in the UK. Until recently I was the master of Clare College, Cambridge, and before that I was for many years chairman at the London School of Economics. We always took enormous pleasure on those occasions when we were able to recruit under-privileged students from poor postcode districts. At the end of the day, it is a terribly important part of the education process that we are concerned with.

The big problem with the current state of play—it has been going on for many years now—is that the cost of educating an undergraduate student at, say, Russell group universities is significantly more than the £9,250 charge that we make. Accordingly, most universities operate at a working loss in respect of the undergraduate school. It is only when you get to the uncapped overseas funds and the kinds of people we are talking about in these amendments that universities get an opportunity to, in effect, balance the books. I am afraid that for many years now, to balance the books we have had to take unregulated students from abroad—with, I entirely agree, a special emphasis at the moment on China.

Some of these fees are literally enormous, at £20,000, £30,000 or even more for certain specified courses. This is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, not least because, when these students come from somewhere like mainland China, we are not interested in poor postcodes or whether they come from underprivileged families and so on. The answer is that they do not: they come from well-heeled families or state-funded backgrounds, enabling them to be educated here and—invariably, I am afraid, in most cases—to go straight back to their home countries. This is a serious concern, because we need strong cohorts of foreign students to come to our universities, without whom we would not be able to balance the books.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Grabiner, two words in the amendment cause me some concern: “overly reliant”. The problem is that no touchstone is provided in the amendment as to how that phrase is to be applied.

As it stands, subsection (2) gives clear guidance as to what the OfS is to look at. The problem to which the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, has drawn our attention is very widespread. It is not only China that one has to consider; there may be other countries too, and there is the question of balancing the contribution made in proportion to the size of the country, and whether it is so great that it gives rise to particular concerns. However, if I may say so with respect, the clause would be improved if it said a little more about the particular point to which the OfS should direct its attention, so that it knows itself what it should be doing.