Jimmy Lai: Prison Sentence

Lord Young of Acton Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I think that is right. My noble friend has a great deal of experience. I think he was a Minister at the department previously and at the MoD as well. He knows what he is talking about, and I take his contribution in the manner that he gives it.

[Lord Young of Acton (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union. In light of this outrageous sentence, will the Government get on with activating Section 9 of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act? I remind the Minister that that section requires English universities to declare their dependency on foreign funding, and was included in the Act to enable the Office for Students to monitor foreign funding in light of free speech concerns. This section, which was not activated by the Education Secretary when she entered office—she revoked the commencement order—seems particularly urgent in light of not only this outrageous sentence but the recent remarks by the head of MI6 about the extent of Chinese influence in British universities.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We have recently introduced many measures around higher education that would be relevant to that which the noble Lord outlined to us. I do not know whether we need to activate that particular section in the Act, but we are alive to the concerns that he raises and the Department for Education is working with the higher education sector to address them.