My Lords, I apologise for not taking part at Second Reading, but your Lordships will remember that 6 December was the day after we had the long debate on the composition of this House on 5 December, and I thought it would be trying your Lordships’ patience too much.
I shall speak very briefly. I want to make one point only, and it is this: we have before us a Bill that is riddled with imperfections and an amendment which is far from perfect. We have the great good fortune of having a Minister of State in charge of this Bill—to
whom tribute has rightly been paid on a number of occasions, including by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson—who is following our proceedings assiduously and in person. I think it is impossible to conceive that he will not take note of what is said today when he discusses it with the Minister in this House. It is important that this crucial point—the spirit of this amendment—is taken on board and considered.
However, we have not a convention but a general habit in your Lordships’ House not to amend in Committee but rather to give Ministers the opportunity to reflect and consider, and then to press, and to press with vigour, on Report. Many is the time when I have found it necessary to vote against the Government on Report. It may well be that that will occur many times during Report on this Bill, but I do not think that on the very first day that this Bill is before us we should tie anyone’s hands by inserting an amendment which it has been admitted even by its advocates needs improvement. Let us try in the conversations that take place both within and without this House to get it right.
There is a great deal to get right. This is an imperfect Bill that threatens some of our cherished academic freedoms, even if inadvertently. There has never been a time when we needed vigorous universities more than we need them now defending freedom of speech. That is necessary, and we are reminded even this very day by some of the comments on how philosophy should be taught and on which philosophers should be exalted and which put down to accept that much is rotten in this state and we need to get it right.