Ministers are to revive legislation that aims to protect free speech on university campuses in England but a contentious clause allowing legal claims over compensation is likely to be removed.
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, paused implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act shortly after last year’s general election, citing concerns that the law passed by the Conservative government potentially protected the use of hate speech while exposing universities and student unions to bureaucratic and legal costs.
Critics feared that the legislation in its original form would allow Holocaust deniers to sue universities if they were barred from speaking on campuses, with one describing the law as an “antisemite charter”. The Union of Jewish Students and other groups publicly opposed it.
A government source confirmed that the legislation would be relaunched, with a statement expected on Wednesday afternoon.
Phillipson said last year the legislation as it stood was “not fit for purpose” and that it “could expose students to harm and appalling hate speech on campuses”.
The act, passed in 2023, imposed a duty on universities to “promote” and “secure” freedom of speech and academic expression, to be regulated by the Office for Students (OfS), the higher education watchdog for England.
The OfS was granted new powers by the act to sanction or fine universities or student unions for failing to carry out those duties, while a complaints scheme for students, staff and external speakers offered compensation for breaches through a “statutory tort” included in the legislation.
Jacqui Smith, the higher education minister, recently responded to questions over the provisions in a letter reported by the Daily Telegraph by stating: “There is a real concern within [higher education] that the … act is disproportionate, burdensome and damaging to the welfare of students, and that it would lead to costly legal action.”
Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said she was glad the government had “U-turned” over implementing the law. Trott added: “However, for this bill to have teeth it must have the statutory tort included.”
Government sources suggested that some form of complaints process overseen by the OfS would remain after the regulations were revised, with one noting that “academic freedom mattered more than students not being offended”.
Vivienne Stern, the chief executive of the Universities UK group representing vice-chancellors, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme there was a pressing need to revise the act’s provisions.
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Stern said: “Universities have been working very hard to prepare for the act, to think about how they can strengthen their own approaches. But there are things in this act that are going to gum up the works within universities, and make it very difficult for universities to discharge their legal obligations in relation to freedom of speech and other legal obligations, for example, in relation to harassment and hate speech and radicalisation.”
Profe Shitij Kapur, the president of King’s College London and chair of a Universities UK advisory group on freedom of speech, wrote in the Telegraph that addressing the burdens imposed by the statutory tort was vital.
Kapur said: “Bringing the tort into being would open the door to any number of claims, from the frivolous to those of malicious and hateful intent. Bringing the risk of court action into passionate disagreements on campus would prevent lecturers from covering difficult topics and would cool rather than encourage debate.
“Any student, staff member or citizen could sue the university or its students’ union for perceived violation and the number of claims being made could be enormous. “Our institutions are already struggling financially, and the claims this tort could enable would require additional dedicated teams of legal professionals and admin staff to address.”