My Lords, I struggle on, looking for the prospect of meaningful change. In this case, unlike the previous groups—in one I was seeking to amend an existing statute, while in the last one I was merely seeking to amend the wording of the current Bill—I am motivated by a sense of a lacuna on reading the Bill, particularly at Second Reading, and I made mention of this at the time.
It is a well-known fact that what makes the world go round is money. Money is a very sensitive subject when it comes to universities. It used not to be—it used to be that anyone in a university who mentioned anything as vulgar as money would not be invited back to high table—but now money is an important consideration. The Bill is not silent on money, of course; it has a section on overseas funding. It is not to that section that I am turning my attention. The lacuna that I referred to is that it appears to say nothing whatever about funding coming from domestic sources.
This series of probing amendments—if the Committee wishes me to refer to them, Amendments 34, 45 and 46—try to box the compass, so to speak, of the various sources of money and how they can be used to prohibit free speech. Amendment 34 discusses grants made by universities to academics working for them or within their ambit. Amendment 45 refers to grants made downwards, so to speak, by UK Research and Innovation. Amendment 46 relates to donations that are made to universities. All of these could be used in a manner that was intended to influence, limit or shape freedom of expression within a university.
Sometimes we actually welcome that. I notice that it is a normal condition of cancer research charities that recipients do not have anything to do with tobacco companies. Many noble Lords would welcome that; they would say it was a good interference with freedom of speech and freedom of action attached to a flow of money as a condition. However, once one grants that, one ends up asking where to draw the line. These amendments are intended to test the role of money in doing that.
It has been suggested that Amendment 45 could trip over the Haldane principle, which dates from nearly 100 years ago but is still very properly entrenched in our constitutional process—that decisions on grants for research purposes should not be made by Ministers but must be made independently, and therefore to legislate on the matter at all is to offend the Haldane principle. But it is not, of course, because nothing in my amendment gives Ministers any power at all. There is nothing in the amendment that even relates to Ministers. Rather, it says that we as Parliament would be creating conditions, which we already do, for the operation and manner of operation of UKRI. I do not believe that Amendment 45 conflicts with the Haldane principle at all. I would very much like to hear my noble friend the Minister respond, so I shall not go into further detail.
6.45 pm
I now wish to move on briefly to Amendment 53. Reference was made earlier to an unlikely alliance between the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle and Lady Fox of Buckley. I find myself here in perhaps an unlikely alliance with the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, for whom I have a very high regard, especially when it comes to anything concerning money—and with universities, given his long academic career as a professor of accountancy.
I resiled from boxing the compass totally; I thought that what this really needs is a further amendment that deals with the relations between corporations—businesses—and universities. I simply thought that if I tried to draft that, with all the various exemptions that may be necessary, I would fall over and make a fool of myself. Hence I rather welcome the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, as opening up, at least on a probing basis, the fourth side of the compass, so to speak. We have donations; we have corporate relations; we have grants going downwards within universities, from the university body to its own; and we have grants coming down from higher above, from the research councils and UKRI, towards the universities.
It is intended to cover all flows there might be, probably unsuccessfully, as some may escape, but it is at least a chance to hear from my noble friend what the role of money is. Are we going to blink and just ignore this absolutely huge means of influencing free speech and expression of opinion?