Protection of Freedoms Bill

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, this country desperately depends on the quality of research in universities. Our future depends on its quality in economic but also in social terms. I am concerned about the chilling effect of the present situation. Young researchers beginning to flex their muscles in applying their originality of thought and their intellectual excellence feel that they have to be very careful about how they do that, lest something is taken out of context and used by people for purposes which have nothing to do with objectively trying to assist good research.

I have seen a circular used in a university sent from people in the administrative department not only to younger members of staff but quite widely to staff reminding them of the hazards of the Freedom of Information Act and the need for them to take great care in the way they approach their contribution to research. That made a huge impact on me when I saw it. I thought it was the beginning of the end. It had a cooling effect, a chilling effect. What should have gone out, if anything, was a robust letter saying, “We are determined as a university to support our researchers in every way possible, whatever the implications under the Freedom of Information Act”. I am fully in favour of the principles of the Freedom of Information Act, but to pretend that there is not a tension here, with dire consequences if it is not properly handled, is stupid. It would be wise of the Government to listen carefully to what was said in moving the amendment and to take seriously the experience and concern of Universities UK.

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I support Amendments 55A and 56. I must confess the interest of being a working professor in one of our universities. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who has spent much time with those of us who have been concerned about these matters. I am very grateful to him for that.

The Government’s view is that the exemptions already present mean that many of the fears held in this Chamber are unjustified. I want to make one brutal, simple and crude point, which partly picks up on the points already made by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. We must think about multinational concerns and how the country is viewed from outside. For example, let us take the case of our libel law. Our senior judiciary genuinely believes that it is wrong to believe that London is the libel capital of the universe. Genuinely, it says, “If you look more closely at the facts of the case, it is not quite so”. Perhaps that is right; perhaps it is wrong. The world has made up its mind that London is the libel capital of the universe. That clearly affects the way that the world behaves. It may be unfair, but the world has made up its mind. Similarly, in this case, it is not worth taking the risk of the world making up its mind that there might be this or that exemption in existing law but somehow universities in the United Kingdom are not as secure places to invest in research as universities in France or the Republic of Ireland—or even in Scotland—where there are higher barriers. I wish to underline that brutal point about international perception.

Unfortunately, my noble friend Lady O'Neill has had to go. I want to make one point which I know was on her mind in moving her amendment. Her concern relates to public authorities—here, meaning universities and other publicly funded institutes—being required to release research data sets on which they hold copyright in a reusable form without any conditions on their subsequent dissemination. A research data set that is released without conditions on its further use is, in effect, made available to the entire world and so will be fully available in jurisdictions where respect for intellectual property is poor and remedies for its violation are non-existent. In other words, we are talking about something entirely different from the case involving Cambridge, King’s College London and Professor Crick, which we talked about earlier. It is an entirely different utilisation of another person’s data set.

I was discussing this with a distinguished researcher at our university at the weekend. She said to me, “Actually, I’m sitting on a very sophisticated data set and it is just about possible that I am not asking the right questions of it. There might be somebody in another United Kingdom university who would ask different questions and could do something with it. It is just about possible that that might be so”. However, the danger—and it is the concern that the amendment of my noble friend Lady O’Neill addresses—is: if we do not control the reusable aspects of such an exchange, we will leave ourselves open in a way which is not sensible from a national point of view. I am sure it is the view of my noble friend Lady O’Neill that we cannot ignore the reality that science is both international and competitive and that sophisticated science is now done in some places where there is scant respect for intellectual property. An unreciprocated requirement for United Kingdom university researchers to provide any data sets that they create and hold without any conditions on their republication or dissemination will damage the competitive position of UK researchers and so of UK science.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I am one of those who want to speak in the next debate, and I can see the Minister glaring at me. However, it is particularly important, numerically, that we support what the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and indeed my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss, have said. It is crucial that we get this right. I am not going to spend hours adding my thoughts to it but do just want to make one point. Not only is the number who have slipped through the net shameful—and it is really shameful—but we are facing a rather more difficult and dangerous period. There is a lot of money to be made in this area, as noble Lords have said, and we are just about to enter the Olympic period. I want to make that one point. I hope everybody who wants to speak is going to be heard, because this is a crucially important matter that we must get right. I have great confidence that the Minister will take note of what is being said. The amendment is not perfect, as everybody has said, but what is behind it is crucial.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, I welcome this amendment and commend it most strongly to the Government. I am also glad to hear the Minister’s indication that the Government are going to look sympathetically and positively at what the amendment says and what lies behind it. I will make a couple of points. First, it is particularly significant that the amendment stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. The noble Lord is not a man who indulges just in rhetoric—his humanitarian commitment is demonstrated in his own direct work, for example in west Africa. When somebody with practical demonstration of human concern speaks out, it is always doubly important to listen. The noble Lord and the other supporters of this amendment have of course spoken up for civilised values and are trying to give some substance to what we like to say this society is about—what we believe the England, or the United Kingdom, we want to live in is about, when it comes to a pressing social issue. By putting the amendment forward so well, it seems to me that they have also endeavoured to give substance to the commitment that we gave before the world when the conventions were being drawn up. It is not just about what the conventions demand—we were speaking up positively in favour of the conventions. It is therefore particularly disgraceful when we have situations that contradict what those conventions say.

I want to say one other thing. Very recently, we were celebrating Charles Dickens’s 200th anniversary. I have absolutely no doubt whatever that, had Dickens lived today, he would have been writing powerfully about this story. My noble friend Lady Massey has spelt out the realities. Of course, another reality is the damage that is done to the future lives of children in this predicament—the potential delinquency and all that follows from that; the potential recruitment to ugly causes that could easily arise from experiences of this kind.

Most important of all, we talk about the need for expertise and people with knowledge of the law who will be able to find practical solutions because they are professionally qualified to do so. That is crucial, and we do not want to go down the road of sentimentality; but at the same time, what would Dickens have brought out? Dickens would have brought out that child’s loneliness and isolation when faced with all the awe of the legal system and the immigration administration, however well intentioned the people within it might be. Dickens would have brought out that that child desperately needed a friend—it is not just expertise they need, but friendship to help them build their lives and future. They need love. Why do we, in this House, always hold back from talking about the importance—the muscular importance—of love in our society? Those children need love.

However, for love to be effective, it must be backed by serious work and commitment, from people with serious and relevant qualifications bringing them to bear. We will not find a solution simply by good, decent, administrative intent; we will find it by the quality of the relationships. In speaking out as I do on this point, it should be stressed over and over again that this is not just a matter of the responsibility of the immigration or other authorities, it is our whole society’s responsibility. Dickens would have wanted to wake up the nation, as a community, to the reality of the situation in its midst. There has to be an awakening of social and public responsibility across this land, if we are to find the real and lasting solutions to not just this issue but all the issues of which this is a particularly acute symptom. I, for example, would love for this amendment to have gone a little further. I do not think it would have been practicable in this context but, perhaps at some stage the amendment could be taken forward to include all children in the immigration system who find themselves alone, not just the children who are victims of trafficking.

[Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne]

The Minister’s reply to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and others has been most warmly welcomed. When he examines this, will he put his mind to the further thought that trafficked children are highly likely to be retrafficked? This splendid amendment has an underlying assumption that somehow the children will be safe forever once they are here and there is a legal guardian and a framework around them. Of course, that is not the case. Trafficked children are hugely vulnerable. Naturally, there is a point in this amendment that locates their parents again and very probably, in most cases, an effort will be made to restore them to those parents. However, the volume of children who are retrafficked is dramatic and appalling. When they consider this amendment in such a positive light, I wonder whether the Minister and indeed the department will think about trying to stop the trafficking at source.

I declare an interest as president of a charity registered in Romania, which has been working against traffickers in Romania for 20 years. There is a great deal that we from this country can do for other developed nations, including Romania which is the subject of all sorts of trafficked children from Moldova, Russia and China. They pour through rather large and porous borders, and many of those children end up here. Vast numbers of them are then retrafficked.

I wonder whether the Minister could consider the next step of putting a great deal of focus on how to strengthen at source the anti-trafficking barriers. In fact, a predecessor of the Minister loaned some senior police from Scotland Yard for a short time to work in situ on providing training. That made a huge difference. We may do everything we possibly can for children who arrive here, but they will be rotated again and come back unless we take some measures to stop the trafficking at source.