Additional protection for academic freedom has been added to the government¡¯s counterterrorism bill, but some vice-chancellors and peers still have concerns about the proposed new laws.

At a debate in the House of Lords on 4 February, peers that introduced references to universities¡¯ obligations around freedom of speech, and which require guidance relating to the bill to be put before Parliament.

The debate also heard that ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ Office minister Lord Bates had written to peers highlighting that nearly a third of all people who have been convicted of terrorism-related offences in recent years were university graduates ¨C a statistic that was branded ¡°utterly useless¡± by one peer.

As previously reported, one of the amendments requires universities to ¡°have particular regard¡± to their responsibilities around freedom of speech, enshrined in the Education Act 1986, when carrying out the planned duty to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.

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The ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ Secretary must also have particular regard for freedom of speech in academia when considering whether to issue guidance or to make a direction to a university that was felt to be failing to protect people from being drawn into terrorism, the amendment adds.

³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ understands that, while the amendments have been welcomed by many vice-chancellors, some remain to be convinced. Clarification has been sought that the bill will not require universities to exclude people holding views which, while extremist, are non-violent.

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In the debate, Baron Phillips of Sudbury, the former chancellor of the University of Essex, said it was ¡°utterly useless¡± to state that 31 per cent of convicted terrorists ¡°had been students¡±, when there was ¡°not the very slightest idea¡± whether they had been terrorists before they went to university, or had become terrorists as a result of what happened to them at university.

¡°I would be so bold as to suggest that going to university in this country, far from making terrorists, unmakes them,¡± the peer said. ¡°Universities are engines of moderation, truth, objective inquiry, tolerance and so on. The odds are ¨C if one could ever measure this, and I am quite sure one cannot ¨C that the statistics would show a radical effect on people going to university¡± that stopped them becoming terrorists.

Viscount Hanworth, a professor of econometrics and computational statistics at the University of Leicester, agreed. He stated that the 31 per cent statistic seemed a ¡°strikingly low figure¡± given the higher education participation rate among young people, which ¡°might be interpreted as an indication of the efficacy of higher education institutions in diminishing the threat of terrorism¡±.

¡°The success of British institutions of higher education as effective agents of counterterrorism ought to be widely recognised,¡± he said.

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Lord Bates said it was right to protect students from radicalisation.

¡°Young people accounted for around 31 per cent of terrorist-related convictions between 2001 and June 2014,¡± he told the debate.? ¡°The Prevent duty is designed to apply to sectors that can most effectively protect vulnerable people from radicalisation and from being drawn into terrorism.¡±

The bill will have its third reading in the Lords on 9 February.

chris.havergal@tesglobal.com