Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill

Debate between Lord Elystan-Morgan and Lord Hannay of Chiswick

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I shall certainly not repeat what has been said—I am sorry; has the noble Lord not finished? I thought that he had.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, I have a little to go.

Perhaps I may end in this way. The motivations of the Government are probably very decent, proper and understandable, but the way in which they are going about them is extremely naive and in many respects barbaric. Let us imagine that, before a person can speak at a university, notice for 14 days has to be given. A sketch of the content of that speech has to be produced. Just imagine how three people, all of them now dead, would react to that were they alive. One would be Bertrand Russell; another would be Bernard Shaw; a third would be a 30 year-old Winston Churchill. Do you think that they would have accepted the invitation? Do you think that they would have felt themselves bound by that stricture? It is a situation which, at best, is ridiculous and, at worst, can be extremely dangerous and counterproductive.

Most Members of the Committee will have heard at some time or another quoted the immortal words of John Philpot Curran, who in 1795 said, if I remember rightly:

“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt”.

We can, by overemphasising vigilance, destroy the very thing that we seek to protect.

[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.