Trevor Phillips:

Good morning. Thank you very much for the invitation to join this conversation. I am, of course, a great respecter of English PEN and in my role—I guess I am principally appearing here as chair of Index on Censorship, which is the global freedom of expression advocate, 50 years old—we work rather closely with English PEN. Today we publish censored work in our quarterly magazine, build our “Banned by Beijing” campaign and fight for freedom of journalists, for example, in places such as Belarus.

The reason I make that point is that Index broadly supports the intention of the Bill, but coming to the specific question you asked me, from our point of view we look at this from the international perspective. Many of those who face censorship regard Britain as an exemplar and use us as a standard to aspire to. However, so do authoritarians of all political stripes. Any extension of the state’s power over speech at home can be used by those who want to as a means of, as an example, limiting freedom of expression. Your point about the regulator is an important one. To be honest, unless the regulator is actually a regulator of behaviour, there seems little point. Universities do not lack for advice of various kinds.

The important point about this post is that he or she should be a protector of the freedom of expression of students and academics—and indeed, by the way, those who are not academics. For example, there was a case in Cambridge where a porter essentially lost his job because of a view he expressed. In my view, if we are going to go down this road, that individual role has to be the role of a regulator and a protector of freedom of expression.

A very good example at the moment that is not much talked about is the position of international students. I welcome the presence of international students: I was one myself many moons ago. But we have concerns that certain countries—I am specifically thinking of China—covertly monitor and try to control the behaviour of their students. That has been exacerbated by the introduction of security laws in Hong Kong. It seems to me that a regulator should have the will, the power and the capability to ensure that those students and their right to express their opinions are protected.