Education Secretary wasted £500,000 of taxpayers' money attempting to axe university free speech laws

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

20 July 2026

The Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, has spent more than half a million pounds of taxpayer money in a bid to water down free speech laws passed by the last government to protect free speech in universities.

As one of her first acts as Education Secretary, Ms Phillipson paused the implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act (HEFSA), passed in 2023 under the last government. Phillipson embarked on this legal battle in an attempt to dilute the measures within the Act designed to better protect free speech on university campuses across the country.

HEFSA placed universities and student unions under a strict statutory duty to actively promote and protect free speech on campus. Ms Phillipson described the law as a "Tory hate speech charter."

The Act was introduced after countless staff and students were hounded out of their jobs or ostracised by their peers for expressing their lawfully held views, particularly gender-critical beliefs and pro-Israel views, on campus. The Free Speech Union has proudly supported many of those affected by egregious censorship across university campuses across the country.

One of a number of truly appalling cases was that of Professor Kathleen Stock, who said she was forced into resigning after being subjected to harassment and protests by militant trans activists and that she felt pressure to "self-censor" her work.

Another case was that of Professor Alice Sullivan, who was subjected to vile abuse and harassment which she described as akin to a "zombie apocalypse" when she delivered a lecture on sex and gender at the University of Bristol. Professor Sullivan is now taking legal action against the University, accusing it of failing to uphold her right to free speech.

Thankfully, the Free Speech Union threatened the Education Secretary with a judicial review, which led to Bridget Phillipson U-turning on her plans to pause the implementation of key provisions in HEFSA, one of which included a complaints scheme.

The High Court has now ruled that the Government should pay the Free Speech Union's legal costs of £353,748, taking the total bill to more than £500,000 once the Government's own legal costs are included.

When Bridget Phillipson announced this in January 2025, the Free Speech Union offered to withdraw its claim in return for a fixed costs payment of £84,000. The Government refused, offering instead a "drop hands" settlement under which the FSU, despite having won in substance, would recover nothing. Since then, costs have continued to spiral as costly KCs have argued over the remaining issues.

Internal documents disclosed during the litigation showed that officials had been instructed to have a statutory instrument ready to pause the Act "on day one" and that the Secretary of State did not intend to implement the Act in full.

In April, Ms Phillipson finally announced plans to implement a complaints scheme for academics, university staff, and visiting speakers at the start of the new academic year in September. This complaints scheme is long overdue and will allow academics to complain directly to the regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), should they feel that their speech-rights have been infringed upon.

Universities will face fines of at least £500,000 or 2 per cent of their income — whichever is higher — should they fail to protect free speech on campuses.

While the introduction of a complaints scheme for academics is a major victory, the war is not yet won. Students are not entitled to complain via this route, and they are the real victims of the free speech crisis on university campuses. So the next battle will be to get them included. The regulator, after all, is called the Office for Students, not the Office for Everyone Connected with Universities... Apart From Students.

The UK is in the midst of a free speech crisis, and nowhere is that felt more acutely than on university campuses. For too long, universities have ignored their statutory duty to protect and promote free speech on campus and instead paid lip service to their responsibilities.

The fact that the Education Secretary spent more than £500,000 in an attempt to dilute free speech protections at universities is a disgrace.

Read more in the Daily Mail.