Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-28
Topic: Education
Andrew Wyndham Phillips (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, Amendments 115A, 118A and 123 stand in the names of the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, who is a professor at the University of Leicester, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick, who is pro-chancellor of Birmingham University, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, who is a professor at the University of Hull, and has had to go back at this hour in order to meet his students in the morning, and myself—and I was for 11 years chancellor of the University of Essex. It is no surprise, therefore, that this group of amendments addresses what we take to be the severe inadequacies of Part 5 of the Bill in so far as it relates to schools and universities. We have no view to express on, for example, the issue of prisons in relation to Part 5. Part 5 is made up of a strange bag of entities, and we believe that universities and schools deserve particular and different treatment We well understand that the issues the Government are grappling with in the Bill are of extraordinary difficulty—they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The only thing one can say, in the light of the debate today, is that as far as I can recollect not one single person has spoken in favour of Part 5, and nearly everybody has addressed their remarks to its treatment of universities and schools—much more of universities than schools, it has to be said I pay tribute to some of those who have tried to assist us in our work—Universities UK, the National Union of Students and the Association of School and College Leaders. A number of us also had a useful communication from the Muslim Council of Britain, which is particularly concerned about the unintended effects on Muslim communities One thing that has been universally remarked on, although in different language—it is manifestly true of the impact of Part 5 on universities—is the extraordinary complexity, bureaucracy and cost that it will impose on educational establishments. I shall come to those in a little more detail when I go through the amendments The other thing that has come through again and again is the absence of adequate preparation for the Bill, and for this part in particular—an absence of remotely sufficient fact or evidence to justify the huge change in regime that will afflict universities if the Bill goes through unamended. It is also striking that the consultation, too, seems to have been highly inadequate. I think that the Minister referred to 160 responses. I do not know how many universities there are, but there are a lot more than that, let alone higher education authorities and thousands of schools. Indeed, I hope that the whole population is interested in the fate of our universities consequent upon the well intentioned but, we believe, severely misguided measures in this part of the Bill. If it were not for the factor of realpolitiks, I and, I think, other supporters of these three amendments would wish to see universities taken right out of Part 5. However, we are not arguing for that because, as I say, we are trying to be as pragmatic and concessionary—if I can use that word—to the Government as possible, understanding that they would have to bear the brunt of public unrest if, in a week’s time, some terrorist event were to take place in our blessed islands Amendment 115A is headed, "Impact Report", and would require the Secretary of State to, "prepare a Report on the potential direct and indirect impact … of this Part", of the Bill on universities and schools, and the impact, "on those attending the same in whatever capacity, and on society generally" The amendment follows that up by saying that the report must assess the impact in relation particularly to the "cultural and financial consequences". I stress that the cultural consequences are even more important than the financial ones. I noted that in the course of this very revealing debate a great number of noble Lords focused particularly on culture, including the noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord Hennessy, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and Lady O’Neill of Bengarve The third aspect of the impact report that we want to see the Government prepare before universities and schools can be brought under this part of the Bill is a comparable study of legislative arrangements in other member states of the European Union, the United States of America and countries of the Commonwealth. My noble friend Lady Hamwee referred to the regimes in Germany and Denmark, which deal with the issues we are confronting. I think she said that, as far as she was aware, neither of the sets of requirements was statutorily compulsory Amendment 118A deals with Chapter 2 of Part 5 and Amendment 115A deals with Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of Part 5 concerns the local authority panels and the whole edifice of district council and county council panels, with their police reports and panoply of partners, and a whole range of stuff about that. I totted it up and I think that Part 5 covers 12 pages of the Bill and a further 39 pages in the draft guidance, so we are dealing with a huge corpus of new statute law because the guidance will be statutory Amendment 118A states that, "the Secretary of State must prepare a Review of the workings of the existing voluntary ‘Prevent’ strategy" Again, it is striking that there are no adequate facts or evidence on which to base any reliable new regime. I call in aid a Written Answer to my noble friend Lord Scriven in which the good noble Lord, Lord Bates, said, inter alia: "The Government does not hold information about the Prevent policies and processes of all the authorities on which the duty would fall" That is not a basis on which to bring forward legislative impositions—for that is what they are. It would be folly for us to go ahead without requiring the Secretary of State to produce a sufficient review so that Parliament, when it comes to consider Chapter 2, will have at its back enough information, fact and evidence to enable it to reach the right decision. Amendment 118A also talks about the review dealing with the effectiveness and shortcomings of the present Prevent strategy.