Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson spends £500,000 of taxpayers' cash in bid to scrap university free speech laws

Published: 23:06, 18 July 2026 | Updated: 23:11, 18 July 2026 Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has spent more than £500,000 of taxpayers' money trying to water down laws which protect free speech in universities, it was revealed last night. Ms Phillipson embarked on the legal battle after trying to dilute Tory legislation which put a duty on universities and student unions to actively promote, as well as protect, free speech on campuses, describing it as a 'Tory hate speech charter'. A free speech watchdog allows universities to be fined up to 2 per cent of their income for censoring academics. The laws came after university staff were hounded out of their jobs for expressing their opinions. They included Professor Kathleen Stock, who resigned from Sussex University in 2021 after harassment and protests by trans activists, saying she felt pressure to 'self-censor' her work. The philosophy lecturer, who believes single-sex spaces are necessary in places such as prisons and public toilets, was accused by students of making trans people feel 'unsafe'. Ms Phillipson's move to block the laws was successfully opposed by the Free Speech Union (FSU), run by Tory peer Toby Young.  Now the High Court has ruled that the Government should pay the FSU's costs of £353,748, which takes the total bill to more than £500,000 when its own legal costs are included. Within weeks of Labour entering office in July 2024, Ms Phillipson declared that she would revoke the planned introduction of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which had been passed in 2023. Internal documents, disclosed during the litigation, revealed that officials had been instructed before the election to have a statutory instrument ready to pause the Act 'on 'day one', and that the Secretary of State did 'not wish to implement the Act, at least in full'. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has spent more than £500,000 of taxpayers' money trying to water down laws which protect free speech in universities Professor Kathleen Stock resigned from Sussex University in 2021 after harassment and protests by trans activists, saying she felt pressure to 'self-censor' her work But in January 2025, nine days before the case was due to be heard, Ms Phillipson capitulated and told Parliament that the majority of the Act's provisions would be enacted after all. At that point, the FSU 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, having won in substance, would recover nothing. Since then, the costs have spiralled as expensive KCs wrangled over the details. Lord Young of Acton, general secretary of the FSU, said: 'The significance of this judicial decision is that it confirms our view and the view of our lawyers that we won this case and the Education Secretary lost – costs are awarded to the winners, with the losers having to pay. 'Judicial reviews are expensive, but thanks to this award of costs we'll have enough money in our bank account.' Last night, the Department for Education insisted that 'our commitment to free speech is clear' and branded the FSU's legal action 'a complete waste of taxpayers' money' for pre-empting the conclusion of the DfE's review of the legislation to make it workable. Sources close to Ms Phillipson said: 'The Tories spent more time policing free speech than dealing with the financial problems in our universities, and yet still delivered an unworkable mess of a Bill, which we've now fixed.'