The Westminster government has won a vote on including the right to sue English universities and students’ unions in its campus free speech bill – with ministers calling the statutory tort an essential step to “cultural transformation”, but making conciliatory noises about it being a “backstop”.
The passage of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill through the House of Lords had seen peers – including Conservative former universities minister Lord Willetts – vote to remove the statutory tort from the legislation, amid fears universities would be subjected to “endless” or vexatious litigation.
But MPs voted to reinstate it when the bill returned to the House of Commons on 7 February.
Claire Coutinho, minister for children, families and well-being in the Department for Education, the department sponsoring the legislation, told MPs that the tort would be “critical to stimulating the cultural transformation that we need”.
