MP hits out over courses being run by universities

WELSH MP David Davies has launched a blistering attack on universities after walking out of a Westminster seminar organised by Cardiff University because he “wasn’t going to be lectured on freedom of speech”.

This comes amid controversy after Conservative Whip Chris HeatonHarris wrote to vice-chancellors asking for the names of professors who taught about Brexit and asking to see syllabuses.

The issue is understood to have been raised with Cardiff University Vice-Chancellor Colin Riordan at the breakfast event.

Monmouth MP Mr Davies, who chairs the Welsh Affairs committee, is a strong defender of Mr Heaton-Harris. Turning his guns on universities, Mr Davies attacked the “ludicrous” nature of courses being offered and also claimed that it was now difficult to express concerns about abortion and other subjects on campuses.

He referred to the opposition that feminist author Germaine Greer faced before speaking at Cardiff University; a petition was organised urging the university to cancel her lecture because of her views on transgender issues.

Mr Davies said: “The problem we have here is that universities, which are publicly funded organisations, have campaigned against Brexit in the run-up to the referendum campaign, they are continuing to campaign against Brexit.

“They have forgotten that their main purpose and the reason why they are given a large sum of public money each year is to actually teach students useful things and frankly this is an issue on which I don’t have much confidence they are succeeding because what we’re getting at the moment are vast numbers of people going off to university where some of them are doing ludicrous degrees – to quote a few, surf studies, puppetry, media studies and the rest of it, not coming out being able to find work, wracking up thousands of pounds worth of debt and nobody’s any better off as a result of it.

“Instead of addressing this real problem they are complaining about Brexit, instead of addressing the fact that within universities now it’s very difficult to express a right of centre of opinion or concerns about abortion or various other things. Even Germaine Greer found it difficult to get into Cardiff recently.

“Instead of that, they’re complaining because Chris Heaton-Harris is trying to find out just what exactly is being taught on these courses. These people are not getting it.”

Professor Riordan this week responded to the request for details about staff and syllabuses, saying: “Our academics are free to teach topics including Brexit as they see fit. If Mr Heaton-Harris wants to understand their work he should attend some of our classes or consult our website or directory of experts.”

Mr Heaton-Harris has said that “to be absolutely clear, I believe in free speech in our universities and in having an open and vigorous debate on Brexit”.

Welsh Education Secretary Kirsty Williams said that “freedom of thought and debate in our universities is the essence of what they stand for and it is not the role of politicians to encroach on this”.