Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I still believe that a protection that states, as the Public Order Act does, that"““A person who is not shown to have intended to stir up racial hatred is not guilty of an offence under this section if he did not intend his words or behaviour, or the written material, to be, and was not aware that it might be, threatening, abusive or insulting””" does not address the second issue, which relates to the stirring up of hatred. Clearly, if people are prevented from using threatening, abusive or insulting words, or have a let-out that they did not realise that they were threatening, abusive or insulting, that is one thing. However, I felt that the Minister made it clear in Committee that there might be circumstances in which someone could use insulting behaviour. Many people regard certain comedy turns as insulting, for example. If a comedy were to be put on that was deeply insulting to the religion being parodied, it would lose the person involved the protection of that particular limb of the Act.