Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 13 June 2025 to Question 57348 on Universities: Freedom of Expression, what steps she has taken to ensure enforcement of those regulations.

The Office for Students (OfS) published regulatory advice on 19 June 2025, providing guidance to the higher education (HE) sector on how they should fulfil their free speech duties under the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 (the Act) and examples of how providers should fulfil their duties.

In addition, on 26 June 2025, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education published a policy paper on the future of the Act, setting out further details following the announcement on 15 January 2025. This paper sets in detail the duties and powers the OfS will be granted, when a legislative vehicle is secured, in order to regulate HE providers in relation to fulfilment of their free speech duties, and to put in place a complaints scheme to decide on free speech complaints from staff, external speakers and members of registered HE providers.

The OfS will be able to take regulatory action where HE providers breach their duties under the Act, including monetary penalties.

The OfS also has existing registration conditions in place requiring HE providers to uphold both freedom of speech and academic freedom as part of its management and governance conditions. The OfS’s investigation of the University of Sussex found that it was in breach of these conditions. This investigation, and the monetary penalty that the OfS subsequently issued to the university, demonstrates that the OfS can and will take robust action on free speech and similar issues.