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Lord Young of Acton (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 9 February 2026

Debate

Jimmy Lai: Prison Sentence

Contribution

My Lords, I declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union. In light of this outrageous sentence, will the Government get on with activating Section 9 of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act? I remind the Minister that that section requires English universities to declare their dependency on foreign funding, and was included in the Act to enable the Office for Students to monitor foreign funding in light of free speech concerns. This section, which was not activated by the Education Secretary when she entered office—she revoked the commencement order—seems particularly urgent in light of not only this outrageous sentence but the recent remarks by the head of MI6 about the extent of Chinese influence in British universities.

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