The Free Speech Union welcomes the new protections for freedom of speech in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill.

While we wholeheartedly support this Bill and believe it is a significant improvement on the existing protections in law for free speech in English universities, we think it could be even better.

Consequently, we are proposing several amendments that we believe will make these new free speech protections even more robust.

In this briefing document we revisit the original case for the legislation, welcome the fact that the Government has accepted two of the amendments we’ve been campaigning for, reiterate the arguments for those amendments, and make the case for six new amendments that we think will improve the Bill.