Originally hailed as one of the central mechanisms intended to make the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act enforceable on the ground, the statutory complaints scheme for staff and students at English higher education providers who believe their free speech or academic freedom has been infringed may not arrive until the 2030s.
Speaking to Times Higher Education (THE), Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, said the absence of the scheme undermines the law’s practical effect. “A significant element of the Act is still missing and will be for some time yet,” he said.
Under the original legislation, introduced and passed by the previous Conservative government, the Office for Students (OfS) would have been legally required to consider every complaint and could impose sanctions, including fines, on universities that violated lawful free expression. The scheme would have allowed past or present students, members of staff, applicants for academic posts and visiting speakers to make complaints to the OfS about free-speech issues involving their university or college, a constituent institution (such as a college within a university) or a students’ union.
However, in July 2024 the newly elected Labour government paused commencement of the Act, citing concerns that the new rules might lead to an increase in so-called ‘hate speech’ on campus and expose universities to costly legal action. The pause meant that the complaints scheme, which could see institutions fined for free-speech violations, was reopened for revision. In January 2025 the Department for Education confirmed that, under its proposed changes, student complaints relating to freedom of speech would be redirected to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) for Higher Education rather than the OfS.
A month later, in a parliamentary question on 18 February 2025, Education Minister Janet Daby confirmed that while the complaints scheme would be free at the point of use, any amendment to the 2023 Act requires primary legislation, which the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, would seek to bring forward “at the earliest opportunity”.
Toby Young said that “provided Bridget Phillipson makes good on her promise to bring forward the legislation – and attach it to the next suitable legislative vehicle – then we will have a complaints system. The problem is there is nothing in the next parliamentary session that looks suitable.”
“Maybe Phillipson will find something, but it is now looking like this element will get Royal Assent in 2028–29 at the earliest, and then it will probably take another two years to come into effect,” he added.
According to Smita Jamdar, head of education at Shakespeare Martineau, the lack of clarity over whether someone has an automatic right to an investigation is “creating an uncertainty that isn’t helpful for anyone”. She does not, however, agree that the law is ineffective until the complaints scheme comes in. “I have never seen as much activity in the sector to get on top of a legal change as I am seeing in relation to this,” she said, adding: “It is on the agenda of boards and senior leadership teams as never before.”
For many academics the Committee for Academic Freedom has spoken to, the absence of a complaints-handling element with timebound investigations to ensure speedy resolutions remains a major obstacle for holding institutions to account.
Steven Greer, emeritus professor of law at the University of Bristol, is urging the Office for Students (OfS) to investigate a harassment campaign against him that followed a 2020 complaint by the university’s Islamic Society. The society alleged that Professor Greer’s teaching in the degree unit Human Rights in Law, Politics and Society (HRLPS), and other related public output, was ‘Islamophobic’, demanding that he apologise “to all Muslim students”, undertake not to re-offend, be suspended from his post pending possible dismissal, and that the module be scrapped.
Despite being wholly exonerated by a university inquiry in July 2021 after a five-month investigation, his long-running human-rights module Islam, China and the Far East was subsequently removed from the syllabus.
Professor Greer told THE: “In June 2025, a consortium of a dozen free-speech and religious organisations referred my case to the OfS on the grounds that it was indistinguishable from Kathleen Stock’s. But, as yet, there is no indication of how it might proceed,” he said, noting similarities to the OfS’s only free-speech investigation so far, in which Sussex University was fined £585,000 after a three-and-a-half-year inquiry into its treatment of Stock.
For Smita Jamdar, however, the very length of that investigation highlights the contentious decision to adjudicate on such matters, particularly given that Sussex has now been granted permission by the High Court to pursue a judicial review of the regulator’s decision.
“I don’t really understand how they are qualified to make decisions about whether speech is lawful or not – they are not a court or tribunal – and if the Sussex challenge is anything to go by, their interpretation of the law is sometimes debatable, so I suspect there would be challenges to their complaints outcomes too,” she said.
For his part, the OfS’s Director for Freedom of Speech, Arif Ahmed, insists the regulator is listening to the sector’s concerns, though it will take a more strategic approach to investigations. Any “notifications” received by the OfS would “add to our intelligence or picture of a university or college,” he told THE, explaining how investigations might proceed.
In the meantime, Ahmed said, the OfS is engaging with universities on their new duties and is keen to promote good practice on free speech – though for now, the central enforcement mechanism of the new law remains on hold.
This article forms part of the Committee for Academic Freedom’s monitoring of developments in UK higher education. To receive monthly updates and analysis on cases affecting academic freedom, click the link and subscribe to our newsletter.