Trevor Phillips:

Very briefly, most members of the Committee will not know this, but many moons ago— 40 years-plus—I was president of the National Union of Students. On the executive that I led, there was a broad range of opinion, including Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and people who were, believe it or not, way to the left of me. Never a day went by without some ideological dispute or argument breaking out in public. One of the things that strikes me very forcibly is that when I go to campuses and when I read about student politics, there does not seem to be that range of opinion and argument going on on campuses and in student politics. It is not my business any more, but I find that disappointing. I can only read it as the sense, not so much that people are intimidated, but that they just do not think it is worth having the argument. That is very disappointing, because that is where some of our cleverest and smartest people, some of whom are sitting in this room, and some of whom share the Benches on both sides of the Commons, have come from—from that culture of disputation and argument, with a lot of robustness, but a level of respect. That does not seem quite to be the case today.