Universities’ responsibilities in regard to outside speakers were addressed in the guidance we issued on 17 November about tackling violent extremism in the name of Islam. This built on guidance issued by Universities UK last year on dealing with hate crimes and intolerance, which I supported. I do not believe that further guidance is needed at present.
The Minister will be aware that section 43 of the Education Act 1986 provides that our education institutions must take reasonable steps to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured. Will he therefore agree that it is vital that lawful speech is not banned from universities and that ad hoc, home-made, no-platform policies, often drawn up by student unions, which are aimed at a group of people, regardless of their speech content, are not an acceptable and lawful way to deal with the problem?
I know that the hon. Gentleman takes an interest in this issue and I am conscious of the provisions of the 1986 Act. The guidance that we issued last Friday is consistent with that Act. Most certainly the guidance is not an attack on free speech. It makes it abundantly clear that all sorts of views that people may regard as being extreme or radical are nevertheless perfectly legitimate and acceptable. What is not acceptable is the advocacy of violence and terrorism, and the guidance was targeted at that. It needs to be made clear that a blanket no-platform policy is not consistent with the 1986 Act.
May I ask the Minister why he felt it necessary to publish guidelines relating to extremism specifically in relation to Islam?
We published those guidelines after long discussion with many people throughout the higher education sector and based on a recognition of a serious and real threat of violent extremism in the name of Islam within that sector. It is not widespread and university campuses are not hotbeds of violent extremism, but, nevertheless, that threat is the most serious one that we face and we are right to work with the universities to ensure that it is properly handled.
I agree with the Minister that we cannot get into old-style, no-platform policies. Does he agree that there is a serious problem of banned Islamic extremist organisations trying to recruit at universities? How many cases have there been of banned Islamic extremist groups trying to recruit? What progress is he making in banning Hizb ut-Tahrir from recruiting on university campuses? Does he agree that vice-chancellors are entitled to call on police support if banned groups with nothing to do with universities try to recruit on campus?
With specific reference to Hizb ut-Tahrir, my colleagues in the Home Office have made it clear that the assessment of whether to proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir has been under review since the summer. As for specific incidents on campus at the moment, we made it clear in the guidance that any university would need to consider the individual speaker, their previous statements and the risk of an offence being committed under the terrorism Acts and other legal provisions. Last Friday’s guidance is about helping universities to get through that process. Individual university institutions have already taken such decisions on a number of occasions and I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman the exact figure in correspondence.