Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab) [V]]

I have to confess that I have some sympathy with the Universities Minister, recognising that she will soon be winding up this debate. She is a decent Minister who knows the real issues facing our universities and their students, and I am sure that she knows that this Bill is nonsense. She has certainly struggled to explain its impact. She knows and she has admitted that it will protect some hate speech, but she is having to defend it to play her part in stoking up the culture wars that are at the heart of this Conservative party’s electoral strategy.

Let us be clear: free speech is at the heart of our values. We on the Labour Benches have a long record of protecting it, but it has too often been used by the Conservative party as a political football. I remember 35 years ago, with unemployment at a post-war high of 14% amid the deep gloom of that Tory decade, when Margaret Thatcher produced the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, requiring universities to uphold freedom of speech. I played my part then in drafting the code of practice for the University of Sheffield to ensure our compliance with the legislation. The Act was followed by a series of speaker meetings orchestrated by Conservative students to provoke a reaction and fuel division.

Then, almost 10 years later, with John Major’s Government struggling, out came the free speech dead cat again with the 1994 Education Act, which this time decided that too much free speech of the wrong sort was a bad thing and tried to limit the activities of student unions.

Now, with the mismanagement of covid leaving the UK with one of the worst recessions and worst death rates in Europe, the Government’s flawed Brexit deal hitting businesses in every sector, people at work facing insecurity and rising inequality across society, free speech is again rolled out as a diversion, a “look over there” tactic. With no irony, they are introducing this Bill the week after Ministers were cracking down on free speech with the anti-protest provisions of the policing Bill.

As the Universities Minister acknowledged on Radio 4, this is a Bill that empowers holocaust deniers and other purveyors of hate speech by giving them the powers to make vexatious complaints against universities. As if that did not do enough to fuel the culture war, it also creates a new director for freedom of speech at the Office for Students with a full-time responsibility to keep the issue alive. No doubt it will be another job for another Conservative crony with undue influence over academic debate. Does the Minister really believe that this is the most important addition to the IFS team? Is it more important, for example, than a director of learning remediation to deal with the lost learning experiences for both new and current students as a result of covid? Does she not recognise that the financial and legal liability in the Bill could be a chill factor on open debate, requiring universities to spend more on lawyers and less on students, but, of course, the Bill is not about the real priorities. I represent both of Sheffield’s universities and more students than any other Member of this House. Over the last year, I have received hundreds of emails from students, from parents with children at university, from staff working hard to provide the best possible learning during the pandemic against a backdrop of confusion and late decisions from the Government; I have received none on free speech.

We could have spent our time better today looking at the issues that are being raised. We could have discussed the recommendations of the report by the all-party parliamentary group for students, which involved two of the Minister’s Conservative predecessors and argued for a learning remediation fund to assist universities to provide access to experiences, specialist facilities and equipment for skills development and more—those things that students have missed during the pandemic. We could have discussed our case for proper hardship funding in respect of rents paid for unused accommodation by students who have lost out from part-time jobs that dried up in hospitality and retail sector. We could have considered why students in England have been treated far worse than those in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, with an average of only £43.70 allocated per student in England for hardship support while those in Wales received an average of £400 per head, Northern Ireland £500 per head and Scotland £80 per head plus other support packages.

We could have talked about the issues for staff who have faced enormous pressure and made huge efforts to move entire courses online, delivering the best possible teaching but knowing that some of the learning experiences would inevitably be lost. We might have asked why the latest guidance for teaching in the autumn has been issued too late, after timetabling has been done, making things more difficult than needed. We could have been considering the quarantine arrangements for the new session, as those of us on the all-party parliamentary group for international students have been arguing. We could have discussed the vital role that our universities will play as we rebuild our economy after covid. Instead, we are faced with this sorry Bill. The Government really need to deal with the priorities that we face. I hope that they will drop this unnecessary Bill.

Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

We must return to ideas and policies based on evidence and reality, which means protecting free speech and academic freedom in our universities so that ideas can be properly tested before they make their way into society. This Bill, with the inclusion of clause 4, will bolster those freedoms and perhaps nudge us back in the direction of truth and reality.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I rise to oppose the motion to disagree with Lords amendment 10.

There ought to be a basis for cross-party agreement, as there was in the Lords. I sense from many of the contributions so far that there will not be cross-party agreement, and that wiser heads are not prevailing on the Conservative Benches—those wiser heads are being kept below the parapet.

I read the letter that the Minister circulated yesterday, in which she acknowledged that creating a statutory tort

“has been a contentious measure throughout the passage of the Bill”.

That is something of an understatement. She went on to acknowledge that, in what she must recognise was a thoughtful and serious debate in the other place, many peers had

“raised concerns that the measure would subject higher education providers, colleges and students’ unions to costly, time consuming and unmeritorious or vexatious claims”.

But in her letter she just brushed that aside, on the basis that she had spoken to many academics who agreed with her, which is a rather interesting example of cancel culture at work, as she casually disregarded views that do not fit with her own.

We should be clear in this debate that, on both sides of the House, we all strongly believe in freedom of speech within the framework of the law. We should particularly cherish it in our universities, but we should also recognise the difficulties associated with legislating to that end. The right hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), the former universities Minister and, as of today, the new Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, saw those difficulties for herself when she explained the Bill’s operation at the start of its long life.

The hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), who is no longer in his place, said he is concerned that we have reached the point at which this sort of legislation is necessary. How we manage the rights and obligations of free speech has been a live issue of concern for many years, and not simply in relation to universities. That is why Parliament has framed the limits of free speech.

In a previous life, I was responsible for co-drafting the University of Sheffield’s code of practice to ensure compliance with section 43 of the Education (No. 2) Act 1986, and I oversaw its operation in providing a platform for speakers with whom I profoundly disagreed. There is an irony in that, because the Government soon came to regret the way the Act’s provisions were used to secure platforms for those with whom they profoundly disagreed, and they raised those concerns with universities and students’ unions.

Some of the invitations to speakers after the passage of the 1986 Act were made vexatiously by those who were more interested in testing the legislation, or in trying to create embarrassment for a university and its students’ union, than in the issue under discussion. The fact that 36 years on we are debating the same issue is a reflection of the difficulties of making laws in this area, and that is something we should think about carefully when there are good alternatives.

More recently, I served on the Public Bill Committee for the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, and I recall expressing my concerns over aspects of the Government’s proposals for the creation of the Office for Students. I argued with the then Conservative Universities Minister, now Lord Johnson of Marylebone, who made the case for the Office for Students as the way of regulating the sector. So I was interested to read his contribution to the debate in the House of Lords, where he argued that clause 4 was not only unnecessary but would “undermine the regulator”—the regulator that the Conservative Government have put at the centre of the higher education architecture in this country. He powerfully made the case that the OfS can deal with these issues more effectively than civil litigation by imposing

“conditions of registration on any provider that falls short of the enhanced duties created by this Bill.”

He went on to say that those conditions of registration provide a wide range of

regulatory tools…from simply seeking an action plan from a university…through to imposing fines on an institution if it does not deliver”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 November 2022; Vol. 825, c. 716.]

I was also struck by the contribution of another Conservative former Universities Minister, Lord Willetts, who highlighted the role of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, in addition to the OfS, in providing a “clear process” to which any student can turn with a concern about any potential suppression of freedom of speech. But far more importantly—this point has been made and Ministers would do well to pay regard to it—Lord Willetts argued that the provisions of clause 4

“could have exactly the opposite effect to the one intended.”

He set out two ways in which this might be the case. The first was that

“people who are thinking of…inviting speakers or organising events—

would be—

“inhibited from doing so for fear that they could potentially find themselves caught up in complicated and demanding legal action”.

I have to say that in a different way I saw that chill factor in operation as a result of the 1986 Act.

Secondly, Lord Willetts highlighted the costs of litigation and the uneven resources available to those taking and defending action, pointing out that there is a “real risk” for student unions that would not have the resources to defend themselves against litigation. As he said, student unions

“are an important place in which students with a wide range of political views have their first experience of organising debates, exchanging ideas and disputing.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 November 2022; Vol. 825, c. 713.]

He pointed out that the “threat” of potential litigation that could bankrupt a student union would not serve the interests of freedom of speech in our universities.

So two former Conservative Universities Ministers—the two who have arguably had the most impact on our higher education system over the last 13 years—are both saying that the tort provided by clause 4 is wrong and both back Lords amendment 10. It did not stop there. Lord Pannick argued that effective regulation from the OfS is quicker and cheaper than civil litigation. My good friend Lord Blunkett, who has talked about his experience of being no-platformed as a Secretary of State, made the case that the tort will cause “more confusion” and “difficulty”. Lord Grabiner has been mentioned and, as somebody who should know, he said that High Court judges are less well placed than the regulator to deal with these issues. Lord Macdonald, as a former Director of Public Prosecutions, said that the clause, far from encouraging free speech, will have a “chilling effect”.

The case could not be clearer. Creating the tort would cause confusion, slow down redress, open the terrain to vexatious claims, waste resources, undermine the regulator that this Government have put in place and, above all, create a chill factor that would undermine free speech. We should come together tonight to reject clause 4 and support Lords amendment 10.

[Danny Kruger]

I rise in support of the Government and am pleased that they have decided to reinstate the clause that includes the tort. I was taken aback by the shadow Minister’s suggestion that such a provision was otiose. He suggested that there are much larger issues that the House should be debating. I think that this is where we see a real difference between our parties. The fact is that we think that few things are more important than the quality of cultural and academic debate in our country, and the context in which young people are educated and brought up. But a spirit of oppressive cultural conformity has taken root across the institutions of the United Kingdom and, worst of all, it has taken root in our universities, where freedom of speech should be protected.