My Lords, again I am moving an amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Wallace. It might appear that he has been in a particularly frivolous mode in deleting the odd word. In this case, three of the amendments in the name of my noble friend, Amendments 4, 37 and 57, all suggest that we delete “member”. This is because the concept of “members of the provider” seems somewhat unclear.
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I suspect I am not alone in being linked to Oxford or Cambridge colleges; we have heard from other noble Lords who are or have been. When people arrive at their Oxford or Cambridge college, they are often
welcomed and told, “This is your college for life; you will always be a member”. Is this legislation really supposed to extend as far as people who have been undergraduates at certain institutions? One assumes not, but it is not entirely clear. Although it may not be necessary to delete “members of the provider” in new Section A1(2), it is highly important that we understand what it really means. It surely cannot mean anyone who has ever matriculated at an Oxbridge college, or perhaps attended other universities.
Two of the other amendments in this group go into much more detail looking at how we might understand to whom the Bill applies. In particular, Amendment 22 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, picks up on a point that is clearly very important and was highlighted in the debate on the previous group by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, and the noble Lord, Lord Collins: if we are looking at academic staff, it should not be only people who have tenure, permanent contracts or full-time jobs. It ought to apply to people who are part-time and those who have short-term contracts, and not even short-term contracts but ad hoc teaching. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, is extremely important and very welcome, because if this legislation is to have value it absolutely should support people whose jobs may be somewhat precarious. People who feel that their jobs might be more on the line if they speak out of turn need to have their academic freedoms supported.
Amendment 26, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and others, perhaps goes too far. Here my noble friend Lord Wallace left me a message saying that people like him, as an emeritus academic, could cause really quite a lot of nuisance to their previous employers. I wonder how far the Government have explored what they really mean by “academic staff”. Clearly, people who have contracts of employment would fit within the Bill’s purview. To what extent might honorary or emeritus staff have a role?
I would be very interested to hear the views of the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, and others when they speak to Amendment 26. It will leave a large number of people within the Bill’s scope if we are really talking about all emeritus staff. There are cases in which people officially retire from their university jobs and then take on other contracts that mean they still have a role in their higher education institution. Those people rightly appear to fall within the Bill’s purview, but should people who have retired? This is not to say that their rights of freedom of speech or academic freedoms, if they are working within a higher education institution, should not be met, but how far are we going to go with the Bill and how far do the Government really intend it to go?
Please can we have some definitions of “member”? I beg to move.