The Higher Education Act: A Vital Asset for Britain’s National Security

A couple of months ago, I wrote a commentary on political developments that has now been rendered obsolete by decisions taken by the new Labour government. On the 26th of July 2024, only two weeks after the new Labour government’s entry into office, Education Secretary Bridget Philipson announced that she wished to halt the enforcement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which had been proposed by the previous Conservative government, reviewed by both Houses of Parliament, and had received royal assent on the 11th of May, 2023. She stated that this pause in its application would be observed in order to consider “further options”, including its outright abandonment. The Act itself had been defended by successive Conservative governments and politicians, especially by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, as a way to consolidate the enshrinement of free speech in universities within the law (until now outlined by the Education Act of 1986), and give individuals whose right to free speech had been challenged a possibility to take legal action against their university or students’ union. The Labour government’s opposition to this bill was predicated on two cornerstone arguments: that it would place an undue administrative and financial burden on universities and students’ unions, on one hand; and that it would sanction the freedom of extremist agitators to spread hate speech, on the other. 

However, in the most recent progression on this matter, the Labour government has decided to present a modified version of this bill before the Houses of Parliament, preserving the fundamental legal dispositions for the survival of free speech on university campuses. The main element of Gavin Williamson’s bill that Bridget Phillipson has abandoned is the “statutory tort” provision, i.e. the fact that universities and students’ unions may have to provide financial compensation to individuals whose right to free speech they have failed to adequately uphold. Labour continues to champion the idea that this provision would bankrupt such institutions at a devastating pace. While I certainly think there is room for disagreement on this particular matter, I would like to reiterate many of the points I had covered back in November, to encourage a cross-partisan appreciation of the legal protection of free speech, and the importance of this Conservative bill in relation to free speech. In other words, I wish to make sure that both right-wing and left-wing political actors understand how crucial an issue this is.  

In this article’s discussion of the matter, I do not wish to approach the problem of free speech on a philosophical line, in trying to determine which opinions should and shouldn’t be raised on university campuses. The discussion around this topic always raises both epistemological and moral arguments on both sides - the “left” wing of this issue tends to quote from Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance, whereby tolerating the expression of intolerant opinions poses a threat to the survival of tolerance itself. In general, the debates around the topic have become more and more stereotypical, based on the binary assumption that it is conservative to wish to preserve unrestricted free speech at all costs, and that it is progressive to put restrictions on it. On this particular side of the debate, I think an eloquent contribution has been that which Konstantin Kisin drew in his speech at the Oxford Union only two years ago (in a video which since then gathered more than 3 million views) - “Free speech is not some “right-wing reframing” of whatever - it’s the foundation of Western civilization.”

Rather, I wish to address one specific, more practical point regarding this bill – that it provides an invaluable opportunity to defend students and universities against attacks on academic free speech by authoritarian governments, such as that of the People’s Republic of China. We are here referring specifically to the approach taken by the Chinese government in placing assets and investments in foreign universities, which thereafter allows it to censor any academic discourse which could potentially constitute criticism of the way in which it established its power, or the way it is currently treating its citizens. There is already a plethora of evidence that the Chinese government has been doing this in several universities of the English-speaking world. A particularly enlightening article by Freddie Hayward in the New Statesman, published in July 2021, has highlighted the ways in which the Chinese Communist Party and some of its partners held financial sway over several British universities. The case of Professor Peter Nolan, a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, is especially enlightening in this regard: the holder of a professorship allegedly funded by a group under the influence of a former Chinese Prime Minister, as well as a board member of a Chinese state-controlled investment bank, Nolan tried to dissuade his colleagues at the China Center at Jesus from holding too contentious debates on pressing issues such as the persecution of the Uyghur population of Xinjiang and the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong. Until recently, concerns around cases like this one were a nonpartisan issue: figures within both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, especially unsuccessful candidate for the Tory leadership Tom Tugendhat, have tried to raise concerns about the ways in which CCP money can threaten the preservation of free speech in our universities. 

The most dramatic example of this, however, can probably be found in Australian universities, who are among the largest recipients of foreign students from China. I would of course like to immediately clarify that this article in no way attempts to confuse the designs of individuals with the policies of their government. In fact, many of these students from China are believers in democracy and freedom, and are therefore among those whom the suppression of free speech hurts the most. However, the Chinese government has explicitly outlined its desire to use the sheer number of students it sends abroad as a financial asset to put pressure on foreign institutions - therefore, in an atrocious paradox of authoritarianism, students opposed to the policies of the CCP find themselves weaponized by choosing to leave their country to find a freer academic environment elsewhere. In the same year that the New Statesman picked up on the issue, a Human Rights Watch report revealed that potentially thousands of Chinese foreign students in Australia had to live in perpetual fear of their opinions having repercussions on the safety of their families back home, and were also exposed to intimidation and harassment from some of their classmates more sympathetic to the rule of the Party. What, then, have Australian universities been doing to protect their Chinese students? Well, not much, but I suspect there is not that much they can do, when the sheer financial leverage the Chinese government gains from sending more than 150,000 students to Australian universities per year gives it an opportunity to silence academics and faculties there too. The HRW report mentions allegedly regular cases of self-censorship by professors teaching Chinese history and politics, for fear of a loss of funding which would cripple the finances of universities so heavily dependent on fees and investments from China. 

It is, therefore, essential that the Labour government does not disregard what could be a very useful weapon in the fight for the preservation of free speech against the intrusion of authoritarian governments. It is not difficult to imagine practical applications of this bill in this particular context - such as a foreign student from China taking their university to court for failing to deal with harassment and intimidation as a result of their expression of pro-democracy views, or indeed the government making sure that CCP funding does not lead to censorship of whole courses. The whole point of a university, in the modern world, is the presentation of facts (be they scientific, or historical, or of any other kind) and the free expression of academic opinion regarding these facts. Both are at risk in the face of CCP interference, and both could be better preserved were the government legally empowered to do so. 

A final example of the dangers of CCP-sponsored academic investments can be found in Oxford itself. Within the last month, in the latest edition of Cherwell, attention was brought to a scholarship co-managed by our very own University and the Chinese Ministry of Education, whose recipients (all DPhil students from the PRC) are effectively prohibited from criticizing Xi Jinping, the CCP, the People’s Liberation Army, or communist ideology as a whole. Naturally, failure to comply with these political guidelines could result in the termination of financial support for these students, not to mention any further repercussions on the security of themselves and their families. The penetration of a new ideology radically opposed to free speech threatens both our own universities and the students there, home and international alike - and the previous Conservative government attempted to address this, both through this bill and with the help of the Office for Students’ guidelines on foreign scholarships and investments in relation to free speech. The fact that the Labour government would choose, through its repealing of the Higher Education Act, to abdicate the UK’s national security, our right to free speech, and the safety of students coming from authoritarian countries to study here, was a tremendous disappointment to me back in November. Is the government now doing enough to address this issue? The scrapping of the statutory tort from the revised bill is certainly a contentious point in this regard - but while we await the discussion of this issue in Parliament, let us at least rejoice in the fact that the Higher Education’s Act fundamental principles have survived and will live to fight another day.

Elias Bazard (The Treasurer-elect) is a second year undergraduate reading History at St Catherine’s College.