Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Zarah Sultana Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Freedom of speech does not include the freedom of hate speech. Given the content of the Bill, I would like to begin with a very brief comment on the hate speech being directed at our England stars. This England team represents the very best of a modern, multicultural nation. On and off the pitch, the players have shown their quality. Last night, they came within a whisker of winning the first men’s trophy in 55 years. They did us so proud. Off the pitch, from Marcus Rashford helping to feed thousands of working-class kids, to Raheem Sterling combating racism in sport, to Jordan Henderson standing up for trans rights, they showcase an inclusive, progressive England.

After last night’s agonising defeat, we have also seen the worst of the country, with disgusting racism targeted at our players. This is not freedom of speech; it is hate speech. But it does not come in a vacuum. It is promoted by those at the very top—right from the Prime Minister, who sanctions racism by describing Muslim women as “letterboxes” and black people as “piccaninnies” and by refusing to condemn so-called fans booing players taking the knee. I will say this, Mr Deputy Speaker: Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho, three lions who represent the best of modern England, have so much more worth than the vile racists trying to drag them down.

As a young Muslim growing up during the war on terror, I was sharply aware of my community being scapegoated and subjected to surveillance. Before arriving at university, I knew that many British Muslims were treated as second-class citizens. As a student, I quickly learned that this treatment extended to the university campus and that basic democratic rights and freedoms were not afforded to everyone equally.

For students and staff who are Muslim, for staff on precarious contracts and even for student activists, freedom of speech and academic freedom are routinely restricted and denied. Those freedoms are not threatened by over-sensitive students or by academics researching the British empire; they are threatened by this Government’s policies, such as the Prevent duty, which the human rights group Liberty has said is the single biggest threat to freedom of speech on campus.

Under Prevent, students have been policed and treated as suspicious and extreme simply for taking part in mainstream debates on topics such as British foreign policy, Palestine and Kurdistan. Research has shown that one third of Muslim students feel negatively affected by Prevent, and I know that many students, including some of my constituents, are afraid to take part in political debates or even to organise events on campus. If the Secretary of State for Education is really concerned by

“the chilling effect…of unacceptable silencing and censoring”,

then he should start by addressing the main sources of that chilling effect in the Home Office and his own Department.

This Government could not care less about the way our marketised higher education system restricts academic freedom. Tens of thousands of academic staff are on precarious contracts, with some living on poverty wages. At the whim of managers, they often feel unable to speak openly or to freely shape their research and their teaching for fear of risking their careers.

Rather than pushing universities to offer permanent, well-paid contracts, the Conservatives are content to sit on the sidelines while launching their own attacks on academic freedom. Whether it is Government Members demanding that the Department for Education sack academics at the University of Warwick in my constituency, or Ministers chasing critics of Britain’s imperial past off the boards of museums and cultural institutions, or Lord Wharton, chair of the Office for Students and previously head of the Prime Minister’s Conservative leadership campaign, telling Oxford academics to

“leave their personal politics at home”,

this Government and their allies are happy to silence those who dissent from their agenda, while giving free rein to fascists and holocaust deniers to spout their hate. That is what this Bill represents.

The Bill is part of this Conservative Government’s growing authoritarian agenda, whether that is the police crackdown Bill and its criminalisation of protests, their voter ID plans and their attempt at voter suppression, their Nationality and Borders Bill and its scapegoating of migrants, or this Bill and its attack on academic freedom, which they claim to protect. Instead of the Government defending the freedom of the super-rich to dominate and exploit, it is time for a Government who advance the freedom of all.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We are now on a six-minute limit.