I am grateful to my noble and learned friend for that intervention. He hit upon a real issue, and we are going to have to write on that point. When exploring how to indicate that the commitment to free speech is to be taken seriously and nothing should take away from that, we did not want effectively to phrase the amendment in such a way as to say, a bit like Universities UK, “You can now just disregard it because you can claim everything is free speech and therefore do not need all the rest of it”. This is a serious thing that the Government are saying. We believe that there is a particular risk and that universities ought to have due regard to it. We would like that to be done consistently. That was the reason that we landed upon to,
“have particular regard to it”.
This answers the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and with this I will sit down. You cannot have a debate of this quality, with such incredibly perceptive points being raised, and not be open to it. As I hope I have demonstrated throughout this process since we began our journey at Second Reading, I have tried to listen and have due regard to the views expressed in your Lordships’ House—and nothing will change on that. We will reflect very carefully on the particular points raised. Of course, if there are ways in which we can tighten the language that we use and points to take on board, we still have time to do that, but we feel that in putting forward Amendment 15D, we have something that can give real reassurance to universities in this regard.