My Lords, I declare an interest as a former independent adjudicator for higher education, in which role I received complaints from students from every university. So I have that experience in addition to having spent decades at Oxford.
I take the unusual position that whether or not these amendments are passed it will make absolutely no difference to the law. They are tautologous. They say that one has to have regard to freedom of speech within the law. However, if the Bill is passed, freedom of speech within the law will mean that the law in this Bill is incorporated, so it will not take you any further.
Sadly, over the past 30 years academic freedom, which is one thing, and freedom of speech in the universities, which is another, have been savaged. I wish I could share the rosy view of academic freedom put forward by the noble Lords, Lord Morgan and Lord Elystan-Morgan. Some noble Lords may recall that in 1988 all university statutes were arbitrarily removed and new ones imposed without consent which removed academic tenure. The House must know that the selection of students is controlled, one way and another, by the state to the nth degree, as is the direction of research. I do not have the time to go into it but academic freedom has been greatly undermined.
As to freedom of speech, again, sadly, there are umpteen laws that reduce it in the university. I do not have time to go into all of them but they include protection against harassment and racial and religious hatred. Can your Lordships imagine what would happen if someone turned up as a lecturer or as a visitor to say that one race was inferior to another? They would not get to the end of their lecture, I can assure you. There
are some things that ought not to be said—and, indeed, are not said—but there is no absolute freedom of speech. The Equality Act 2010 put special duties on universities to promote racial harmony between different groups on campus and the Terrorism Acts of 2000 and 2006 likewise curbed freedom of speech. I am sorry to shatter the illusion but it is not there any more, not as we would wish it to be. To say that in promoting the objects of this Act, as it will be, the universities will have to have regard to freedom of speech within the law simply means that they will have to have regard, whatever that means, to freedom of speech as already curtailed as I have described, plus as it will be curtailed, for good or ill, by this Act. So I do not mind whether or not the amendments are accepted because they do not mean much legally.
I remind the House that it is not in the academic arena where the trouble, if any, arises; it is with the visiting speakers and the societies. Under the Education Act 1986 universities already have onerous duties in regard to risk assessment, stopping speeches if necessary and checking on visiting speakers. They have codes of practice on this which, I have to say, are very often ignored. There is nothing new about this. They chafe, but it has been the law for 20 or 30 years that there have to be checks on visiting speakers.
However, this has not stopped some speakers from being howled down. Again, I have not the time to give examples, but I can assure noble Lords that visiting ambassadors sometimes get howled down; that other speakers get hassled and jostled; that there are meetings where cries go up of “Kill the Jews” and that sort of thing, when the Middle East is debated. It is not a happy situation. I wish it were better, but it is not. Basically, I am saying that this will not make much difference. We should also recall that some 30% of those convicted of offence—
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