The new Conservative government should legislate to create a ¡°national academic freedom champion¡±, while restrictions on ¡°low-quality courses¡± in universities could rebalance funding towards further education in a shift tailored to the Conservatives¡¯ new electorate, according to a former Tory adviser and senior civil servant.

With the UK¡¯s general election having brought to power a Conservative government with a significant Commons majority, sector attention will focus on the party¡¯s manifesto commitments, which notably include pledges to ¡°strengthen academic freedom and free speech in universities¡± and to ¡°tackle the problem of¡­low-quality courses¡± in England.

A paper published by Policy Exchange,?titled , says that ministers should move quickly to ¡°introduce an academic freedom and free speech on campus bill¡± and thus adopt a plan advocated in a?.

Universities are a potential target if the Conservatives seek to bolster their increased support from working-class, largely non-graduate voters in towns across the Midlands and North by waging ¡°culture wars¡± against institutions they perceive as hostile to Tory values.

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Iain Mansfield, head of education, skills and science at Policy Exchange, formerly special adviser to Jo Johnson in his brief return as universities minister, said key recommendations in the thinktank¡¯s free speech report included ¡°extending the statutory duty on freedom of speech to include students and student unions as well as HEIs¡±.

The report also recommended ¡°that the Office for Students should appoint a national academic freedom champion who would have the power to investigate allegations of academic freedom or free speech violations and then lead on sanctions where appropriate¡±, he said.

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¡°Those would be two things which could be done¡± by the new government, he told Times Higher Education.

Mr Mansfield, a former senior civil servant in the Department for Education, said a recent report by the Policy Institute at King¡¯s College London had found that ¡°at least a third of Conservative or Leave-supporting students don¡¯t feel comfortable sharing their views¡± at university.

The?Policy Institute research also found?that ¡°only a minority¡± of UK students have heard about incidents where freedom of expression has been restricted in their own university.

Universities are already subject to requirements to protect freedom of expression under existing legislation.

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Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute and a former Tory special adviser, said: ¡°Because the Tories did even better in the election than anybody expected, to then use that [campus free speech] as a way of stoking a new culture war, I¡¯m not sure who will benefit from that.

¡°It¡¯s not clear to me that either the politicians or the universities benefit from pretending there¡¯s a bigger free speech problem in our universities than there really is.¡±

And ¡°hurried legislation tends to be legislation that doesn¡¯t stand the test of time¡±, he warned.

On the manifesto¡¯s reference to ¡°low-quality courses¡±, Mr Mansfield said this should be understood ¡°in conjunction with where the Conservatives have won seats.

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¡°I think that steers them very much towards a genuine wholesale rebalancing between HE and FE in terms of funding, numbers, esteem and so forth. I think that will have to be part of the solution [in] looking at low-quality courses.¡±

There were ¡°a range of mechanisms¡± for establishing which courses ¡°aren¡¯t delivering¡±, such as the teaching excellence framework, dropout rates and data on progression to employment, he said. Mr Mansfield added that he would ¡°favour the reintroduction of number caps for at least some institutions or courses¡±.

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john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com

: John Morgan and Simon Baker discuss what the election results mean for HE