I apologise to the Committee because I was unable to be here for Second Reading, so I come a little late to it. Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, because I share his views on Amendments 15 and 16, but I will also speak in opposition to Amendment 17. He is quite right to say that they would diminish academic freedom. I refer particularly to the humanities and social sciences, although I think he was referring to “the sciences”. It is frequently the case that over a 45 or 50-year academic career someone will follow a particular discipline for, let us say, a decade or two, and then find themselves, as science and research continue, to have something to say about something else and to shift.
For example, somebody mentioned an international relations scholar—I am married to one—moving into historical research. It would dampen and diminish academic freedom, rather than enhancing it, so I certainly oppose Amendment 15 on those grounds. There is one other ground. I think that this year we are coming out of the 50th anniversary of Thomas Kuhn’s work on paradigm shifts, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. That provides all the evidence we need that discovery does not move in a linear fashion. It does not have an end goal that you can arrive at. Ideas
change, shift and adapt, and that is how new paradigms come about. I do not want the Minister to give way on those grounds.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, also wanted to know from the Government about beliefs and opinions and where the boundary lies. I suggest that the boundary lies in a tribunal in interpreting whether beliefs or opinions can be deemed to be protected characteristics. Because I have touched on protected characteristics, perhaps I need to declare that I chair the Equality and Human Rights Commission—to get that on the record—although I am speaking to the amendments in a personal capacity.
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I have sat here for several hours. Much has been discussed about academic freedom and the definitions of it. Perhaps I could help the noble Earl by pointing out that, if I am correct, academic freedom is already defined in Section 202 of the Education Reform Act 1988. It states that in exercising functions, university commissioners must have regard to the need to:
“ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions”.
If that already stands, I urge the Committee not to go there on Amendment 16.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 17, which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, explained, seeks to protect an academic’s freedom to criticise the institutions at which they work. I feel deeply uncomfortable about this. Universities are employers like other employers. Employers have terms and conditions of employment, and it would be quite extraordinary if they were to continue to pay good money to staff who sought to undermine them. Academics within faculties at the same institution disagree with each other all the time. You only have to pick up the thinnest peer review journal article to see that there is vigorous disagreement between academics.
On the idea that we need to put into legislation that they should be allowed to criticise an institution, again, this could be tested by the courts. If a university was minded to dismiss someone because they were bringing the institution into disrepute at such a level that it thought it would be better not to have the services of that person in the institution, that person could test that through current employment law.