My Lords, my declaration is simple: I am not a vice-chancellor, a chancellor or a master of a college but I join in the paean of praise for much of what is done in our universities today and I share many of the concerns.
If one seeks to define the open society, surely the role and status of a university in that society would be an essential part of it. Having lived for some years in a totalitarian society when I served behind the Iron Curtain in the 1960s, I saw the pressures on those universities, and I think there is a great danger that we take for granted the freedoms which we enjoy in our own university system.
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It is surely sad if there is a perceived need by so many Members of your Lordships’ House to have a definition of what a university should be. Clearly, we can argue about whether there should be “musts” or “shoulds” everywhere; it will not be actionable in any event. It has surely been taken for granted until now that there is no need to have such a definition, but now some of the principles are being challenged in the Bill. They are also challenged by some activities within universities. I worked with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on tackling the anti-Semitism which permeates a number of our universities and is not clamped down on by overweak vice-chancellors, but that is perhaps a by-way in this. In my judgment, this is an admirable summary of the core principles of what a university should be about.
My only reservation, which has already been mentioned, is that by including one excludes, and that by defining there is a danger of excluding. All the principles are admirable. It may well be that the Government will have many ways of saying that they accept that there are broad principles here and that they wish to consider them and reflect on them but will reject the amendment because it is not perfect. I am sure that all Members of your Lordships’ House would be happy if the Government were to say today that they agree that there should be an honest attempt at a definition and that they are prepared to return, after due reflection, with a reformulation. Let that be.