Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Tenth sitting)
Richard Holden Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Matt Western
Labour cannot support this clause in its entirety. There are many points that could be highlighted. New section 69B(9) states::
“If a students’ union fails to comply with a requirement under subsection (8) and does not satisfy the OfS that it is unable to provide the information, the OfS may enforce the duty to comply with the requirement in civil proceedings for an injunction.”
God, the heavy hand of Government! It is like the opening credits of Monty Python with that hand coming down from the clouds and stamping on the little person, and that is the case for student unions across the country.
Matt Western
I stand corrected. The hon. Member obviously misspent more of his time than I did watching that. Whatever part of the anatomy it was, it was coming down rather heavily on the small person. That is what the Government are seeking to do. It is quite clear that the intention in No. 10 and its policy unit is to drive out student unions in this case and change the representation on how bodies may be affiliated on our campuses.
Too much of the clause is down to guidance and none of it has been done in collaboration with student unions. Student unions are not professionally organised with huge resources behind them to counter this and take the Government on. I would have thought the Government would be much more willing to work with student unions and with the National Union of Students and say, “We want to collaborate with you. We do understand there is this issue, and you perhaps appreciate there is a bit of an issue in certain places. How is it that we go about best addressing this issue across certain campuses?”, realising that it is not the case across 98.9% of events. We cannot support this. The obligations and duties on student unions are far too onerous, and we will be voting against the clause.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
My argument does not necessarily only deal with fining; I am talking about regulation as opposed to fining, and we have had a debate on that. The point on fining is that we are worried that we will end up seeing a chilling effect and people coming forward vexatiously. That is a real concern—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for North West Durham groans, but he should stand up and say why he groans—give a speech or make an intervention supporting the Bill. He has said very little.
Mr Holden
I think that is a bit unfair. I do not quite understand where the hon. Gentleman thinks all of these vexatious claims will come from, and why they are about to happen. Why, in this instance, with student unions specifically, does he think that there will be millions of vexatious claims trying to close them down at the drop of a hat?
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
We have heard that “where there’s a blame, there’s a claim”. We have seen it in road traffic, and we have actually seen an increase in litigation in the higher education sector, which is deeply worrying. Government witnesses talked about the commercialisation of the HE sector and students demanding that they get the results that they want.Those demands have actually led to universities being more restrictive in what people can say. This will increase that.
Mr Holden
The evidence that the hon. Member is pointing to is on students and their universities, and I can quite understand that. This point, however, is all about student unions, so I would like to understand why he thinks that student unions will be targeted, rather than education providers.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Because, so far, student unions have not had that contractual relationship, with the ability of students to take them to court for failing to fulfil a service. That is my point about where the money comes from. At the moment, the student gives the money to the university. The contract for a basic service is between the student and the university. This extends that, so the student then has a direct contractual relationship with the student union.
If the hon. Member thinks that every single student will agree with what their student union is doing, and that no student will try it on, then I am afraid that his university experience was far too bland. My experience was of debate and contestation, and of people arguing and wanting to push the boundaries—quite rightly. This will not help that, because it will regulate student unions in a way that means they cannot then defend themselves properly. The reason for that is the financial point, which I was trying to come on to.
The university gets money from the student. They then give a grant—usually a small one—to the student union, which then spends, effectively, the university’s money. My understanding is that, according to the Education Act 1994, the university has an oversight role for how that money is spent. Yes, the student union can spend it how the students want, but within a framework that the university sets out and lays down. If the student union is liable, whose money are they liable with? That is what I am trying to get at.
If the OfS puts forward financial sanctions, whose money are they sanctioning at the student union? The student union’s money is just the university’s money, held in trust and spent on behalf of the university. Would student unions need to raise unrestricted monies, somehow? We know that most student unions do not raise unrestricted monies any more, because gone are the days of the bars. Or would student unions, if they were fined by the OfS, need to use their restricted university grants on this? If so, that clashes with the concept that that university grant is restricted to only the educational activities of the student—not for liability claims against the union. It seems strange that they would face this double regulation, and money able to be drawn from all different quarters, when they have no money themselves.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Ninth sitting)
Richard Holden Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
I am a trustee at the University of Bradford union. I have received payment from the University of Sussex to provide educational opportunities, and I have received money from the University and College Union.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I am vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for friends of Durham University
Clause 3
Civil claims
Amendment made: 4, in clause 3, page 5, line 21, at end insert—
“(aa) a constituent institution of a registered higher education provider, in respect of a breach by the governing body of the institution of any of its duties under section A1, or”. —(Michelle Donelan.)
This amendment is consequential on NC1.
Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
The Minister for Universities (Michelle Donelan)
Clauses 1 and 2 strengthen freedom of speech duties on registered higher education providers and extend them to students unions at approved fee cap providers. Clause 3 plugs an identifiable and substantive gap in the current legislative framework by providing individuals with a route of redress for loss suffered as a result of a breach of these freedom of speech duties. Clause 3 therefore creates a new statutory tort. This enables civil proceedings to be brought against a higher education provider in respect of a breach of the new duties under section A1 of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, or against a student union in respect of a breach of the section A4 duty.
Individuals can still complain in the first instance—for free—to their higher education provider or student union if they consider that there has been such a breach. They can subsequently complain for free to the new complaints scheme that will be operated by the Office for Students, and students will still be able to complain for free about their provider to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education. However, the statutory tort will also be available, although we are clear that it is intended to be a route of last resort.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Eighth sitting)
Richard Holden Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Matt Western
That is the issue, perhaps in part, with the Bill. The Government are trying impose, top down, a series of responsibilities and duties on universities to oversee and implement this legislation. The points we are making are about how many loopholes there are and how groups, particularly well-funded groups and private societies, will disaffiliate from the union and seek other premises in which to practise this sort of speech.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Quite clearly, some parts of an institution come through a university—its student union, properly affiliated to it; student bodies; its faculty—but this provision also includes individual students, and when those individuals come together, they are not representing the university. It is not top down. All the Government are trying to do is to ensure that anything that comes down through the institution is covered, whereas things that essentially come from groups of students getting together in a non-formal setting are different. I can see the difference, and I am sure that the shadow team could also reflect on the clear difference between those two things.
Matt Western
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. My colleague wants to make a short related point, and I will respond to both together.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Fourth sitting)
Richard Holden Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Q The problem with the Bill as it is written is that there is no stipulation that, per your very sensible suggestion, people would have to go through the internal complaints process first, which is the usual thing for ombudsmen and anything else. If we are not careful, we could end up with people resorting straight to law if they want to make a political point. That is going to cost the universities a lot. In some cases, they will settle just to get rid of them.
Professor Layzell: That is why you would want the full internal and existing apparatus to be fully utilised before we go into that final stage.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Q Professor Grant, I agree with your analysis that the bigger concern seems to be self-censorship, but we are a little unclear on the levels of evidence around this. Could you outline some of the evidence of self-censorship that you have seen? Is this something that affects you in your department at King’s?
Professor Grant: This is one of those things that is really hard to get good evidence on. In the survey we did of 2,000 students, about a quarter said that they felt unable to express views in their university because they were nervous about disagreeing with their peers. That is a big number; if a quarter of the students in a class are nervous about expressing their views, that worries me. We then followed up that survey data through focus groups. In those groups, this was the issue that the students landed on. Focus groups are by definition small numbers so we need to treat some of this evidence carefully, but they were saying that they felt that reading lists in certain topics were biased to one view or another and were not balanced, and that lecturers quite often had some political view that they would express in the classroom, and if the students disagreed with that, they were nervous about expressing contrarian views in that context.
We followed that up with a focus group with a mix of vice-chancellors from the UK, Australia and the US. What was interesting for me was that when we put that evidence on the table, the response from the vice-chancellors was “We cannot tell our lecturers what to put on their reading list because that would breach academic freedom.” What I find interesting in the Bill is that tension between the desire to promote free speech––and cool the chilling effect––and the concept of academic freedom, and how it is actually the academic who decides what to teach in the classroom. That is why I am not convinced that regulation or legislation is going to solve this. I think it is deeper: it is cultural, it is values-driven.
Mr Holden
Q But you do accept that legislation can help to lead that values change? Many academics have told us already today that the fact that this is being talked about in an open session in Parliament is helping lead to some of those conversations on campus.
Professor Grant: I entirely accept that. I am glad we are having the conversation and maybe the legislation has sparked us to have that conversation. What I wait to see—I cannot answer this; I am speculating––is whether the legislation will have an impact on that 25% of people who feel that they cannot say what they want to and whether it will change the behaviours of lecturers in the classroom to get more balanced reading lists. I hope that is the case, but we do not know at this stage. If this legislation leads to that, then it has been successful.
Mr Holden
Q So at the moment your view on the legislation is a wait-and-see approach—perhaps slightly moved from being opposed to it?
Professor Grant: Yes. As I said at the outset, I would distinguish two elements. The legislation around the so-called cancel culture piece is, to me, redundant. It is broadly a non-issue. I am much more interested in the issue I have just been talking about. It is a wait-and-see approach. I will be delighted if it works. I look forward to seeing that.
Mr Holden
Q Your emphasis has been on the student and their feeling of academic freedom, which is something that we have not discussed in as much depth as we have for the academics themselves. Do you get the feeling that some of the academics you work with also feel that they have to self-censor in what they are doing, or is that more on the student side in your experience?
Professor Grant: I am going to be very dull and say that we do not know, because I like to look at the research and evidence. I have looked to see how you would survey academics to ask the same questions that we ask the students, and from a purely methodological point of view, it is really difficult to do that, so I will sit on the fence for that question.
The Minister for Universities (Michelle Donelan)
Q The Committee has heard evidence from a number of people who have said that their individual academic freedom, or that of their colleagues and, potentially, their students, has been restricted. Do you both acknowledge that that demonstrates that restrictions on freedom of speech in our universities are actually happening and are not a rare phenomenon?
Professor Layzell: Universities have a range of processes and procedures in place that protect and provide some protection against that. In my own institution, for example, promotions and reward procedures are anonymised—we focus on the CVs and the evidence in front of us—so existing mechanisms provide a degree of protection. I cannot comment on individual cases. I can guess some of the individuals you are referring to, and they may well have had some experiences where they felt disadvantaged or adversely affected; we recognise that.
In addition, the wording in the Bill varies in different places. In some places it talks about “likelihood” and in others it talks about being “adversely affected”. In our submission, we have suggested that “adversely affected” is a better term and should be used consistently throughout the Bill.
Professor Grant: I am going to be boringly analytical again. There is no issue when it comes to the cancelling events. The numbers are small, as the OfS demonstrates. There is potentially an issue when it comes to this idea of self-censorship in the classroom, and I think that is a legitimate concern. As I just said, when it comes to academics, we do not know. It is inevitable that people who feel that they have had their freedom of speech inhibited will talk about that, but we do not know about all the other people who are not talking about it. We need to get the data. At this stage, I will say that you cannot answer that question on academics.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Q Hillary, you always get—and it is fantastic—some contrary students in student unions, who want to rock the boat. That is basically the point of a student union, under the Education Act 1994 and case law—v. Brady and others, for example. But is there a difficulty with this, particularly, that there might be a reverse chilling effect, and that rather than allowing students to invite whomever they want and then doing as Danny says and seeing whether there can be a process to ensure that things are followed, some student unions just go down the course of saying, “You can’t invite in anyone, because we don’t want to breach”—
Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: That is an important concern to raise: the inadvertent or indirect—well, I do not even know whether it is indirect. I think a direct unintended consequence of this Bill could be that student unions would become more risk averse to inviting speakers, because they just cannot handle the bureaucracy; they just cannot handle the prospect of having to pay lots of money in the case of litigation. They are having to worry about doing what they already do well and facilitate very well, in a way that is much more complicated and adds so many more layers of process to what they already do very well, in order not to face the consequences of this Bill. If we are going to think about bringing student unions into this duty, we have to think about the fact that they already have regulators, regulations and provisions to make sure that freedom of speech is facilitated well and strongly on campus. I think that is a legitimate direct consequence that this Bill could create for student unions—not least the £800,000 a year in printing and signing off the code of practice.
Mr Holden
Q My first question is to Mr Stone. I just wanted to pick up on something that we got evidence on earlier, which was that about 20% of students are apparently feeling unable to express their views in the classroom. I just wondered whether there were any specifics around Jewish students, given what you had said about the UJS having difficulty with people coming on campus.
Danny Stone: As I say, there have been various Israeli speakers that they have sought to have on campus, including a professor of international law at City University in 2015—cancelled. In 2018 it was the Israeli ambassador; the event was initially cancelled and then held after a legal threat. There is a suggestion by a law lecturer at City University that they had been refused a sabbatical for attending a law conference in Israel. For Israeli minorities that I spoke to, events were cancelled at short notice and held off campus, because the SU imposed charges. This is actually something fairly important; it has happened a number of times—student societies being asked to pay a fee to cover the security costs of an event going ahead.
Mr Holden
Q He raised a particular concern around academic freedom and the lack of voices from certain points of the political establishment. Do you find that that is also an issue that Jewish academics face?
Danny Stone: There are anecdotal examples of Jewish academics who have felt that they have been passed over for a promotion, or that they have not necessarily had the support that they thought they should have for speaking about antisemitism. On the flip side, as I pointed to before, I know that there are academics who have expressed antisemitic views, and we have significant concerns about that. One that I spotted today—this points to the earlier discussion about conspiracy theories—had a conspiracy theory on their personal website, which is linked to the university website. It is complex. There are issues there. The Jewish community is like the rest of the world, and will experience the same issues that others face.
Mr Holden
Q Miss Gyebi-Ababio, we had evidence from Kathleen Stock, from the University of Sussex, about her concerns around academic freedom. One of the things that you mentioned earlier was that you want to believe in and champion freedom of speech, and that is what the NUS does. Would that extend as far as people like Kathleen Stock, who push gender-critical thinking?
Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: I do not think it is necessarily my place to say who is and is not okay to speak on campus. I would say that there are frameworks in place to facilitate people with views that might be viewed as controversial or unpopular to be able to speak on campus. Those are already in place and already happening. I think it is important that, where freedom of speech is championed, we are trusting in the existing processes that are facilitating that already.
I think that this Bill puts in place undue measures, in an excessive way, to solve something that just has not been proven to be widespread. The data released by the OfS last week shows it. When 0.002% of events were cancelled—that is under 100 of the 43,000 events that were reported for them to look at—free speech is already being facilitated on campus, and universities and student unions are doing it well. Again, as I said at the start, they are learning as they go. They are continuing to learn and continuing to improve their procedures, and doing that really well.
Mr Holden
Q One of the issues that has been raised, rather than this direct cancelling of events, which Mr Stone has spoken to, is also the self-censorship: people not inviting people, and that sort of thing. I believe you are here on behalf of the NUS, at least in some part. I just wanted to raise something—a term called TERFs, or trans-exclusionary radical feminists. I am just looking at the NUS website now, from June this year, and it says, basically, that “the gender-critical perspective” is essentially “trying to rebrand” people who are “just…hateful bigots”. Do you agree with that?
Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: It is important that NUS is able to express its views and opinions, just as we champion the right for people to be able to express their own. That is us exercising our freedom of speech in challenging a view that we do not agree with. I do not know how that necessarily speaks to the Bill, but again, I want to reiterate that this Bill does some really important stuff in promoting free speech, but it does not offer enough—
The Chair
I am sorry to interrupt, but I am afraid we are running out of time, and we have one more question to take. It will have to be the last question of the day.
Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: I was just finishing the sentence.
Sir John Hayes
As I did previously, I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests relating to my role at the University of Bolton.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Third sitting)
Richard Holden Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Jones
Q
I mentioned earlier the issue of the operation in our universities of the United Front of China. They will be able to take cases and argue them and no doubt they will be well financed. There is a danger that they will use it to get their own way through their very deep pockets.
Sunder Katwala: You are going to have to have a transparent policy on which cases are decided. That is where my principles are about “What can you say about gays, women or Jews?” and “What can you or can’t you say about the lurid conspiracies that don’t seem to have any value to academic freedom?” How do you deal with those tensions?
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Q
In light of that, do you not think that any Government in a liberal democracy such as ours would find that those three specific issues––clashes with the Equality Act, those advocating against academic freedom and those with very extreme views that they try to cover with academic freedom––could easily be contained within that direction of free speech, thereby ensuring what we all want: the extension of free speech by the academics who tell us that they are mass self-censoring now, so that the professors who just appeared before us can be allowed their academic freedom? We are actually protecting the freedom of perfectly reasonable people, not people who are doing the things that you suggested. Do you see where I am coming from?
Sunder Katwala: In principle, I think the approach you have is very good. We have been having this debate about free speech on campus in society more broadly for several years and we never really get to the difficult issues.
What I would like is for people on both sides of the debate––there should not be sides––to look through the other end of the telescope. If you are someone who is very worried about racism and hate crime, you have got to be clear about the robust, tough stuff that you are going to allow so that you can be clear about where you draw the line.
The liberal or left side of the debate has a reputational point. The people worried about the incursion of free speech have not yet gone to these hard cases and said, “That is what we would do on this boundary, this boundary and this boundary.” If, instead of always just using their overall slogan, the two sides engaged with the value of the point on the other side, we would actually get to the hard cases.
Mr Holden
Q
Sunder Katwala: I do not have a very strong view on that. I think the Government want to symbolically commit to things that are already the case. It is creating new mechanisms and I do not know whether the new mechanisms will create a worse or a better culture.
The mechanisms are clearly the new thing: the responsibility is already there. Amplifying the responsibility is good, but we will do it by creating spaces in which we show that you have robust, difficult, democratic conversations but with boundaries.
Mr Holden
Q
Sunder Katwala: I am not an expert on that question, but I can see why you would ask it. The thing to worry about with campus culture is that, having made the very positive decision to welcome Hong Kongers to the UK, many of whom will be students, and having a very large number of Chinese students in the UK, which is a positive thing I am sure for universities, there will be more of a challenge to be proactive on the culture of student debate and so on, so that we do not have tensions on campus between those groups.
Mr Holden
Q
Sunder Katwala: I think that is about the culture of campus, the safety on campus, as well as the principles. It is the chilling effects. There will be more of an issue there about the potential Hong Kong-China political views that different people have for different reasons.
The Chair
I am sorry, but we have now reached the end of the time allocated for this session. Thank you very much, Mr Katwala, for your evidence and for the help you have given the Committee. We now move on to the next panel, please.
Examination of Witness
Nicola Dandridge gave evidence.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Fourth sitting)
Richard Holden Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Q
Professor Layzell: That is why you would want the full internal and existing apparatus to be fully utilised before we go into that final stage.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Q
Professor Grant: This is one of those things that is really hard to get good evidence on. In the survey we did of 2,000 students, about a quarter said that they felt unable to express views in their university because they were nervous about disagreeing with their peers. That is a big number; if a quarter of the students in a class are nervous about expressing their views, that worries me. We then followed up that survey data through focus groups. In those groups, this was the issue that the students landed on. Focus groups are by definition small numbers so we need to treat some of this evidence carefully, but they were saying that they felt that reading lists in certain topics were biased to one view or another and were not balanced, and that lecturers quite often had some political view that they would express in the classroom, and if the students disagreed with that, they were nervous about expressing contrarian views in that context.
We followed that up with a focus group with a mix of vice-chancellors from the UK, Australia and the US. What was interesting for me was that when we put that evidence on the table, the response from the vice-chancellors was “We cannot tell our lecturers what to put on their reading list because that would breach academic freedom.” What I find interesting in the Bill is that tension between the desire to promote free speech––and cool the chilling effect––and the concept of academic freedom, and how it is actually the academic who decides what to teach in the classroom. That is why I am not convinced that regulation or legislation is going to solve this. I think it is deeper: it is cultural, it is values-driven.
Mr Holden
Q
Professor Grant: I entirely accept that. I am glad we are having the conversation and maybe the legislation has sparked us to have that conversation. What I wait to see—I cannot answer this; I am speculating––is whether the legislation will have an impact on that 25% of people who feel that they cannot say what they want to and whether it will change the behaviours of lecturers in the classroom to get more balanced reading lists. I hope that is the case, but we do not know at this stage. If this legislation leads to that, then it has been successful.
Mr Holden
Q
Professor Grant: Yes. As I said at the outset, I would distinguish two elements. The legislation around the so-called cancel culture piece is, to me, redundant. It is broadly a non-issue. I am much more interested in the issue I have just been talking about. It is a wait-and-see approach. I will be delighted if it works. I look forward to seeing that.
Mr Holden
Q
Professor Grant: I am going to be very dull and say that we do not know, because I like to look at the research and evidence. I have looked to see how you would survey academics to ask the same questions that we ask the students, and from a purely methodological point of view, it is really difficult to do that, so I will sit on the fence for that question.
The Minister for Universities (Michelle Donelan)
Q
Professor Layzell: Universities have a range of processes and procedures in place that protect and provide some protection against that. In my own institution, for example, promotions and reward procedures are anonymised—we focus on the CVs and the evidence in front of us—so existing mechanisms provide a degree of protection. I cannot comment on individual cases. I can guess some of the individuals you are referring to, and they may well have had some experiences where they felt disadvantaged or adversely affected; we recognise that.
In addition, the wording in the Bill varies in different places. In some places it talks about “likelihood” and in others it talks about being “adversely affected”. In our submission, we have suggested that “adversely affected” is a better term and should be used consistently throughout the Bill.
Professor Grant: I am going to be boringly analytical again. There is no issue when it comes to the cancelling events. The numbers are small, as the OfS demonstrates. There is potentially an issue when it comes to this idea of self-censorship in the classroom, and I think that is a legitimate concern. As I just said, when it comes to academics, we do not know. It is inevitable that people who feel that they have had their freedom of speech inhibited will talk about that, but we do not know about all the other people who are not talking about it. We need to get the data. At this stage, I will say that you cannot answer that question on academics.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
Q
Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: That is an important concern to raise: the inadvertent or indirect—well, I do not even know whether it is indirect. I think a direct unintended consequence of this Bill could be that student unions would become more risk averse to inviting speakers, because they just cannot handle the bureaucracy; they just cannot handle the prospect of having to pay lots of money in the case of litigation. They are having to worry about doing what they already do well and facilitate very well, in a way that is much more complicated and adds so many more layers of process to what they already do very well, in order not to face the consequences of this Bill. If we are going to think about bringing student unions into this duty, we have to think about the fact that they already have regulators, regulations and provisions to make sure that freedom of speech is facilitated well and strongly on campus. I think that is a legitimate direct consequence that this Bill could create for student unions—not least the £800,000 a year in printing and signing off the code of practice.
Mr Holden
Q
Danny Stone: As I say, there have been various Israeli speakers that they have sought to have on campus, including a professor of international law at City University in 2015—cancelled. In 2018 it was the Israeli ambassador; the event was initially cancelled and then held after a legal threat. There is a suggestion by a law lecturer at City University that they had been refused a sabbatical for attending a law conference in Israel. For Israeli minorities that I spoke to, events were cancelled at short notice and held off campus, because the SU imposed charges. This is actually something fairly important; it has happened a number of times—student societies being asked to pay a fee to cover the security costs of an event going ahead.
Mr Holden
Q
Danny Stone: There are anecdotal examples of Jewish academics who have felt that they have been passed over for a promotion, or that they have not necessarily had the support that they thought they should have for speaking about antisemitism. On the flip side, as I pointed to before, I know that there are academics who have expressed antisemitic views, and we have significant concerns about that. One that I spotted today—this points to the earlier discussion about conspiracy theories—had a conspiracy theory on their personal website, which is linked to the university website. It is complex. There are issues there. The Jewish community is like the rest of the world, and will experience the same issues that others face.
Mr Holden
Q
Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: I do not think it is necessarily my place to say who is and is not okay to speak on campus. I would say that there are frameworks in place to facilitate people with views that might be viewed as controversial or unpopular to be able to speak on campus. Those are already in place and already happening. I think it is important that, where freedom of speech is championed, we are trusting in the existing processes that are facilitating that already.
I think that this Bill puts in place undue measures, in an excessive way, to solve something that just has not been proven to be widespread. The data released by the OfS last week shows it. When 0.002% of events were cancelled—that is under 100 of the 43,000 events that were reported for them to look at—free speech is already being facilitated on campus, and universities and student unions are doing it well. Again, as I said at the start, they are learning as they go. They are continuing to learn and continuing to improve their procedures, and doing that really well.
Mr Holden
Q
Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: It is important that NUS is able to express its views and opinions, just as we champion the right for people to be able to express their own. That is us exercising our freedom of speech in challenging a view that we do not agree with. I do not know how that necessarily speaks to the Bill, but again, I want to reiterate that this Bill does some really important stuff in promoting free speech, but it does not offer enough—
The Chair
I am sorry to interrupt, but I am afraid we are running out of time, and we have one more question to take. It will have to be the last question of the day.
Hillary Gyebi-Ababio: I was just finishing the sentence.
Sir John Hayes
As I did previously, I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests relating to my role at the University of Bolton.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Third sitting)
Richard Holden Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Jones
Q I agree, but the danger in the legislation as it is written is about those individuals. My concern is more that foreign states that want to change the direction that we argued for on freedom of speech in this country will use this to challenge academic institutions, and will be allowed to.
I mentioned earlier the issue of the operation in our universities of the United Front of China. They will be able to take cases and argue them and no doubt they will be well financed. There is a danger that they will use it to get their own way through their very deep pockets.
Sunder Katwala: You are going to have to have a transparent policy on which cases are decided. That is where my principles are about “What can you say about gays, women or Jews?” and “What can you or can’t you say about the lurid conspiracies that don’t seem to have any value to academic freedom?” How do you deal with those tensions?
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Q You have raised three interesting points at the margins. The entire point of the legislation is that there are things that are not in these extreme examples that are currently being challenged at universities. That is basically the evidence that we have received from the academics who have appeared before us in these evidence sessions.
In light of that, do you not think that any Government in a liberal democracy such as ours would find that those three specific issues––clashes with the Equality Act, those advocating against academic freedom and those with very extreme views that they try to cover with academic freedom––could easily be contained within that direction of free speech, thereby ensuring what we all want: the extension of free speech by the academics who tell us that they are mass self-censoring now, so that the professors who just appeared before us can be allowed their academic freedom? We are actually protecting the freedom of perfectly reasonable people, not people who are doing the things that you suggested. Do you see where I am coming from?
Sunder Katwala: In principle, I think the approach you have is very good. We have been having this debate about free speech on campus in society more broadly for several years and we never really get to the difficult issues.
What I would like is for people on both sides of the debate––there should not be sides––to look through the other end of the telescope. If you are someone who is very worried about racism and hate crime, you have got to be clear about the robust, tough stuff that you are going to allow so that you can be clear about where you draw the line.
The liberal or left side of the debate has a reputational point. The people worried about the incursion of free speech have not yet gone to these hard cases and said, “That is what we would do on this boundary, this boundary and this boundary.” If, instead of always just using their overall slogan, the two sides engaged with the value of the point on the other side, we would actually get to the hard cases.
Mr Holden
Q I get where you are coming from. Where do you come down? Do you think this legislation is unnecessary and that we should just trust the academic institutions as they are now or do you think there is a place for the Government to do something in this space?
Sunder Katwala: I do not have a very strong view on that. I think the Government want to symbolically commit to things that are already the case. It is creating new mechanisms and I do not know whether the new mechanisms will create a worse or a better culture.
The mechanisms are clearly the new thing: the responsibility is already there. Amplifying the responsibility is good, but we will do it by creating spaces in which we show that you have robust, difficult, democratic conversations but with boundaries.
Mr Holden
Q Finally, one of the things that Mr Jones and I tend to agree on is the concern around foreign states and foreign state actors. Although you are not an academic yourself, do you accept that there is a danger of academics in UK academic institutions not saying things because of the enormous financial impact that some of these foreign states, particularly the People’s Republic of China, have in the UK?
Sunder Katwala: I am not an expert on that question, but I can see why you would ask it. The thing to worry about with campus culture is that, having made the very positive decision to welcome Hong Kongers to the UK, many of whom will be students, and having a very large number of Chinese students in the UK, which is a positive thing I am sure for universities, there will be more of a challenge to be proactive on the culture of student debate and so on, so that we do not have tensions on campus between those groups.
Mr Holden
Q Perhaps that is a reason, given the extra pressure facing the universities at the moment, to allow the legislation to come forward and for a Government body to help them in that very difficult potential situation.
Sunder Katwala: I think that is about the culture of campus, the safety on campus, as well as the principles. It is the chilling effects. There will be more of an issue there about the potential Hong Kong-China political views that different people have for different reasons.
The Chair
I am sorry, but we have now reached the end of the time allocated for this session. Thank you very much, Mr Katwala, for your evidence and for the help you have given the Committee. We now move on to the next panel, please.
Examination of Witness
Nicola Dandridge gave evidence.
Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill
Richard Holden ExcerptsFriday 10th September 2021
(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Simon Baynes
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for referring to my authorship. I am not sure that the House wants to be detained by significant details of what I have written about, but suffice it to say that it covers the hospitality industry, in the context of Lake Vyrnwy—which resides in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams)—and architectural and social history. The point that I think is implicit in my hon. Friend’s intervention is that one never quite knows where one’s career is going to go, so the more advice one can get earlier on, the better it is.
Let me return to the practical advice given by individuals going into schools. The fieldwork done for the Government studies shows that nearly all face-to-face and telephone customers, and now, I think, virtual customers—96%—experienced some form of positive outcome in the six months following their call or meeting. I think we all know of young people who are nervous about their prospects, and recognise that a helpful conversation with someone who is friendly and experienced can make a significant difference to the choices that they make in life.
The “Skills for Jobs” White Paper aims to improve compliance with the Baker clause, as has been mentioned previously, through the introduction of a three-point plan to create legal requirements and take more action to enforce compliance—something with which I strongly agree.
More broadly, the Government have taken action to address the impact of the pandemic on career opportunities for young people. It includes one of the key policies introduced by the Government, which I think all Members on both sides of the House would strongly support—the kickstart scheme, which provides funds to create new six-month jobs for 16 to 14-year-olds on universal credit—as well the Department for Education’s employment and skills guide. I know from my own constituency, and I have heard other Members say the same about theirs, that the kickstart scheme, which is in many ways closely related to the ambitions of the Bill, has had a massively beneficial effect on young people’s employment prospects.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
One of the great things about the kickstart scheme is that it not only guarantees a job for six months but it guarantees on-the-job training. We are all interested in ensuring that people are not just shoved in somewhere before being booted out the other end but are getting something that will help them later in life, which is great training and opportunities.
Simon Baynes
I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent intervention, with which I strongly agree. It is important that not only do we give advice but that we give training, too. This point was made earlier in the debate. People do not necessarily know what they want to do career-wise and, therefore, the opportunity to take part in a particular career, albeit at a relatively low level, gives them valuable experience.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
Let me start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson). He has put a lot of effort into this Bill, and he has obviously cared about this issue for a very long time. The way that he has approached this Bill has been gratefully appreciated by Labour Members. Not only has it been open-hearted, but he came to see me and briefed the team alongside the Minister, showing that he is dedicated to getting the Bill through, not just at any cost but in a way that takes the House with him, so that it will deliver some of the outcomes that he is after. As I say, it was a very open-hearted speech and a very informative one for everyone in the Chamber.
The right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) made a very informative speech, and it was good to learn about some of the practical work that she has been doing in schools up and down the country. She sparked a series of interventions and a debate about her work, which focused on how important it is for people, particularly from deprived communities, to have experience of different workplaces, and I absolutely agree with that. It is really important that people from deprived backgrounds have experience not just of university campuses, but of business environments, especially prestige business environments. I say that not so that we channel young people in a certain direction, but so that, should they choose that career pathway in the future, it will not be a leap into the unknown.
We also need to recognise that there is an equal opposite. I hope that students who attend schools in areas of advantage and affluence also take time to experience the modern manufacturing workplace, because they do not often have experiential time in such settings. They need to get that experience, because the modern manufacturing and vocational workplace is extremely exciting and offers incredible careers. We need to make sure that young people from all backgrounds experience all different types of future pathways so that they will not be making a leap into the unknown.
After the huge expansion of the academy programme, thousands of schools across the country now operate independently from local authority control. An increasing proportion of these schools are now part of multi-academy trusts, pooling resources, expertise and governance with similar groups of institutions. There are real questions about the way that some academies—not all academies—operate. The majority, as with every other school, are very dedicated to the future pathways that local young people take. As a former chair of governors of an academy, I know full well the effort that many academies and schools of all status put into ensuring that the pathways for young people are the best ones for their talents. None the less, some academies and multi-academy trusts operate their career development in a way that is not fit for purpose, and it is clear that the requirements placed on many schools in this area must apply to them, too.
Mr Holden
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) has in the past few days introduced a Bill to ensure that MATs are looked at by Ofsted. Will the Official Opposition commit to working with him and with people like me, a former special adviser in the Department for Education, who support my hon. Friend and agree that a small number of MATs need extra oversight, particularly in areas such as careers education, which we should be driving forward for everybody?
Peter Kyle
Only on Wednesday I had a conversation with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) about his Bill, for which he, too, is an enthusiastic salesperson. The Opposition are certainly open-minded to that suggestion. I have already met the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North and will stay in touch with him, and he has met the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), to talk about his Bill. I am happy to meet the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) as well—in fact, I would do so enthusiastically—to talk about not only the issue at hand but others, too, because there are more shared beliefs about the way forward to tackle the core education challenges than is sometimes apparent in the heat of debate, even though we diverge on specific things when it comes to their application in practice.
The Bill before us will go some way towards tackling the challenge of fragmentation and the ways that some schools deliver careers development in different ways. We welcome any moves towards the embedding of high-quality careers education throughout all state schools equally. Such education is a vital way to expose children to options for work that are alternatives to those that surround them as they grow up.
Careers & Enterprise Company research found that 73% of children who receive careers education feel more aware of different careers and 69% have a better understanding of what they need to do to achieve their ambitions. Under this Government, though, far too many children are missing out. According to that research, only 30% of schools and colleges have a stable careers programme, meaning that thousands of kids are missing out.
The expansion of an existing legal duty to cover all schools is welcome—it is common sense—but a more fundamental challenge needs to be addressed. We must ensure that schools have the capacity and expertise to make careers education a true priority. Cuts to school budgets have had a real effect on school leaders’ ability to prioritise careers. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently found that despite Tory promises to level up spending, per-pupil funding will not return to pre-2010 levels by the end of this Parliament.
When spending is squeezed, it is natural that schools prioritise subjects such as English, maths and science, and topics like careers are so often left behind. Indeed, when one speaks to the academies that do not prioritise careers, often the reason cited is that they simply do not have the resources to do everything.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (First sitting)
Richard Holden Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Charlotte Nichols
Q And if you think there should be a limit in the Bill, or are you saying that in an absolutist context there should be absolute freedom of speech?
Professor Stock: I am not saying that, and I do not think the Bill says that, as I understand it. I think this sits within wider sets of laws about speech. I am not a free speech absolutist. The vast majority of the instances that we are talking about are perfectly within the law but are still being censored and having adverse consequences. I acknowledge that there are some kinds of speech that are criminal and should not be allowed in universities. I think the law is quite well set up to deal with things like that. I understand there is already a legal precedent on holocaust denial. I understand your concern—I really do. There is a defensive tendency for universities to leap to the most extreme example. If we adopt entirely or orient our attitude towards those examples, and if we are extra cautious because of these possibilities, we really lose a lot in the middle ground. These things are always difficult. You could not possibly sort it out in 30 minutes.
Dr Ahmed: I agree with almost everything that Kathleen says. There is a distinction between what the Bill says and what I think needs to happen with regard to free speech. With regard to the first point, the Bill as I understand it says free speech within the law, and therefore makes reference explicitly to existing legislation. The Bill therefore does not protect anything that is already illegal.
With regard to my own view, I am close to being a free speech absolutist. Like many people, I think that the law in this country is overly restrictive. Obviously there are some things, for instance to do with court proceedings, confidentiality of applications and so on, where it is proper that there are restrictions. But short of such things, we could be a lot more liberal than in fact we are. That, however, is a separate question from the content of the Bill.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Q Something a lot of people, particularly the Opposition, were asking on Second Reading was whether this is just a total sledgehammer to crack a nut. How big a problem is this self-censorship, really? We have seen the evidence today: that 35% of academics in the UK are self-censoring versus 19% in the EU. Is this something that is actually stopping you doing your work as academics?
Dr Ahmed: Yes, I believe that it is. For instance, I genuinely think that there are things now that I would hesitate to say. Because I am in the position that I am, I am prepared to say them, but I know many people who are not. There are questions that many people would hesitate to explore, so it is now stopping academics from doing their jobs.
Professor Stock: It is not stopping me doing my job, but is unreasonable to expect the average academic to have to go through the things that I have gone through and overcome the obstacles that I have had to. I have to do so much in order to be able to teach a class on feminist philosophy where I can say, “Here is what I think, and I can say this because I have all this research that backs it up,” and even then I get complaints, and colleagues will call me a bigot. It is not reasonable to put that as the standard for the average academic saying what they think.
My concern, in talking about my experience, is not, “Oh, feel sorry for me.” It is that people see this, and it sends a message. I just want to point out that, of course, self-censorship is by its nature quite hidden. Universities will say, “Well, nobody’s told us this.” There is a real elision in our culture between saying that something is right and saying that someone should have the right to say that it is right. People confuse those all the time. If somebody says, “I think Kathleen Stock should have the right to say what she thinks,” that can be interpreted as, “She’s right,” and then that person is called a bigot too. It is infectious.
Dr Ahmed: I forgot to mention that, of course, the issue of self-censorship affects students as well as academics. Many students are simply not asking questions. If you have a class about religion, immigration or trans issues, there are students who might want to ask questions that they genuinely want the answers to, philosophical or otherwise, which they are afraid to ask in class because of what will happen if they ask them.
Matt Western
Q We are running out of time; I think we have one minute. Can I just ask a final question to you, Dr Ahmed? In point 12 of your written evidence, you say that the Bill would require
“a credible mechanism for holding to account those that do not”
promote free speech. Do you view the Office for Students, as it is currently organised, as a credible body that is capable of delivering a credible mechanism?
Dr Ahmed: Broadly, yes, I do.
Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill (Second sitting)
Richard Holden Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Emma Hardy
Q
Professor Whittle: Absolutely. What do we count as our field of expertise? As a lawyer, as an activist, as an individual, as a parent, my expertise is widespread, and I bring all of those things into my academic life. If you told me that I could only speak on equalities law, I would say I have just done a big presentation in relation to the European Union and rights across the European Union. Does that not include me? Can I not speak on that? When the economists have a panel on free trade, can I not come and talk about how it impacts on different people’s rights across the world? Of course I can—that is part of our conversation, and I think that most academics would say that we do not sit in little boxes. We read widely; we bring all these ideas together. If we are very lucky, one day we will become Noam Chomsky and produce a great book, but most of us will just retire.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Q
Professor Whittle: Yes, I accept that. If we go back 15 years to people complaining about the noise in the library, I stood up and said, “Why don’t you just ask them to stop? That is what I do.” They said, “It is all very well for you. You feel brave enough to do that.” I do not feel any braver than anybody else, but I am going in the library to work and I can ask the students to be considerate and quiet and, on the whole, I get a certain amount of listening to and respect out of that. If academics do not feel that they are able to speak out, I am very sorry they feel like that, but part of me wants to say, “Pull your socks up and get on and do it, because nothing is that frightening.”
I have spoken across the world, in different places, from Moscow to China and India, in circumstances where many people would go, “Oh my God—what are you doing?” but I have always received, on the whole, respect. There has been some heckling, but I handled it and never felt that my life was in danger in any way, shape or form. I sometimes have felt that my career has ridden a little bit close to the edge, but, as I say, I accepted a long time ago that other universities were not going to interview me, so I might as well make my mark here and I think I have been able to.
Mr Holden
Q
Professor Whittle: I do not think people have not considered me for my appointments because I am outspoken. I think they have not considered me for appointments just simply because I am trans. I have no doubts that it is just because I am a transgender person and I do transgender politics and they do not want to be pigeonholed like that.
Mr Holden
Q
Professor Whittle: I have accepted that some academics feel like that. I think they are wrong to feel like that.
Mr Holden
Q
Professor Whittle: Completely. I do not think it has to be legislated; it should be in university charters almost from the beginning. As universities, we promote freedom of speech. We participate in our local and national communities and we talk about what we are doing. We are completely open and frank about the research, information and teaching that we do, and we make it widely available to the public.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
Q
I want to ask about employment practices. We know that there is an ongoing problem. We heard earlier on today that there is a problem with academics often not being given tenure, and too many people being on short-term contracts. That means they constantly think about promotion and saying the right thing rather than producing the right academic work. Is that an area that you feel could be addressed? Would that help solve some of the issues around confidence in people speaking out, rather than trying to put legal duties here and there?
Professor Whittle: Absolutely. I think there is a great deal of insecurity for younger academics, and even some older ones who have been on the short-term contract system forever and a day. We see those academics constantly losing teaching, gaining teaching, and being asked at the last minute to do stuff without any security of tenure. I think that is really problematic because people try to second-guess what they might need to do to get that security.
Within that system, there is a lot of pressure for people to do often what we might call the teaching, marking and examining duties; not enough emphasis is given to their personal development through an academic career, so they miss out on the opportunities, the time and the support—often financially, say—to go to conferences or to do research because they have not got a tenured position of some sort. That is really problematic, and it has a knock-on effect. Academics often feel disempowered. Again, they try to think, “What do I need to do that will satisfy the system, give me a chance to get some research done and make sure I provide good quality teaching?”
I work in a post-’92 university, so I am not at a university that ever gives sabbatical time, for example. I have done most of my research at weekends, holidays and things like that, so I fully understand the problem that exists within that.