My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister, but I am afraid that I shall be even less complimentary than my co-signatory to the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. I believe that my noble friend gave us no new facts at all.
We have had extraordinarily little by way of evidence or factual backing for this. For example, his letter, which he put in the Library yesterday, refers to two students—one, I seem to remember, a Swedish student and the other an American student—who had been influenced at their universities. There was nothing about English students. We have had nothing about the cost to universities, direct and indirect. He has not attempted to deny, because it is undeniable, that it will be a heavy bureaucratic burden, as my noble friend Lord Hanworth said. If we are acting responsibly, we really need to know these things before we plunge in. It is no good saying that there will be a report next year. It will then be too late to reverse the compulsory legislative nature of this measure, destroying the hugely valuable voluntary basis upon which the Prevent strategy currently takes place.