Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

We have had that conversation in Committee and this evening. I tabled amendment No. 11 for a specific reason to do with the performance of plays. I said earlier that I believed that we should have as great a degree of freedom of speech in this land as is commensurate with others enjoying their rights to express their religion. Therefore, we should have a high hurdle for an offence to be committed in the production and performance of a play. For instance, many people might advance the argument that parts of ““The Merchant of Venice”” are offensive and insulting to Jews or Christians. Indeed, an individual production of that play could be extremely offensive and insulting to one of those religions. The character Barabas, in a play from a similar period, ““The Jew of Malta””—I apologise to members of the Committee who have heard this before—says:"““I have been zealous in the Jewish faith,""Hard-hearted to the poor, a covetous wretch,""That would for lucre’s sake have sold my soul””." Some might believe that putting on a play that portrays Jews as covetous and hard-hearted to the poor would fall foul of this Bill, so it is important that we ensure that no one would do so by putting on a production of ““The Jew of Malta””.