Trevor Phillips:

No more so than in any other Administration. By the way, there may be a sound problem, but I think you called me “Sir Trevor”. Her Majesty has not made that mistake; that would be a major error. The creeping edge of censoriousness is, to be honest, rather little to do with Government. There is often confusion about the word “independent”, particularly in higher education. People tend to use the word “independent” when they actually mean opposition to Government.

I do not think there is any danger of the higher education sector as a whole developing a culture of deference to the existing Government. My reference to the creeping edge of censoriousness was far more in relation to peer pressure and the emergence of self-censorship. We have noticed something at Index. Over the past couple of years we have run a campaign to try to increase the resilience of students in being able to express their opinions. We have run some training courses and so on. We do not think that the real big problem here is that everybody is looking over their shoulder and saying to themselves, “What does the Secretary of State for Education or Secretary of State for Culture think about what I am about to say in a seminar?” They are more concerned, if they are students, about whether an unfashionable or “unorthodox” view may get them marked down in exams. If they are junior academics, I think they are more concerned about whether their professors, who have no qualms about expressing their political views, may decide that the next time there is an opportunity for preferment, their views make them less likely to be favoured than someone else. My view about the issue of censoriousness is that it is far more a question of self-censorship. What we are concerned about, I guess, in relation to the legislation is that you can do quite a lot with law, but you need to support it with a clear cultural programme that supports, advocates and promotes diversity of opinion within the institutions.