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Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 10 October 2024

Debate

Freedom of Speech in Universities

Contribution

My Lords, I remind the House that the story in today’s Telegraph about the inability of the Cambridge University Conservative Association to have Suella Braverman visit this evening says that it is on advice of the police, due to another MP’s visit to Cambridge, and not that of the university. I remind the House that we on these Benches were deeply doubtful about the Bill and the disproportionate burdens it would impose. Any decent conservative would believe in the autonomy of civil society and of academic institutions. This is not a new problem. The first lecture I ever gave as a university lecturer, in January 1968, had a large demonstration—because they thought the dean was giving it—against Vietnam and the then Labour Government. My wife and I, as undergraduates, had taken part in earlier demonstrations about South Africa, which the Daily Telegraph, of course, denounced at the time. We now have a culture war in the United States, in which Republicans are—

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