In January 2021, English PEN made submissions to two parliamentary inquiries into freedom of expression.

In November 2020, the Joint Committee on Human Rights launched a project on Freedom of Expression. English PEN made a submission to the committee, which was published by the committee in April 2021. Our submission asked the Committee to consider the ‘chilling effect’ of proposed laws to regulate hate speech and online communications.

Freedom of expression online is also the subject of a separate inquiry by the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee. Our short submission to that Committee, warning that measures introduced to regulate online communications in the UK could have knock-on effects worldwide that could significantly curb the rights of the authors and activists at the centre of our international campaigning work. We also noted that online anonymity can be crucial to freedom of expression, and recommended that the law should not enforce ‘real name’ policies for social media platforms.

Through our years of work campaigning to protect and expand the space for freedom of expression in the UK, English PEN is acutely aware of the value in responding to consultations run by government departments and its expert commissions. They represent a meaningful opportunity to steer policy in its earliest stages.

A good, recent illustration of the influence of our consultation responses may be found in the final report of the Law Commission’s Protection of Official Data project.  The Commission repeatedly cited a detailed joint submission from English PEN, Index on Censorship, and Reporters Without Borders, which had critiqued the Commission’s initial proposals.

The final recommendation in the Law Commission report was that a ‘public interest defence’ should be included in any update to the Official Secrets Act, as advised in our joint submission. This measure had not been part of the initial proposals. If this were recommendation to be adopted by parliament, it would deliver a welcome expansion of free speech rights.