Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

My Lords, I shall continue or I shall rapidly over-run your Lordships’ patience. Government spokesmen have not entirely abandoned the public order argument. They say that there is an inherent or latent danger to public order in the use of insulting words directed against racial or religious groups and that it is the Government’s duty to guard against that danger. But that would be carrying the precautionary principle too far. It would be similar to President Bush’s doctrine of preventive war. I do not believe that the doctrine of preventing hypothetical harms should have any place in laws governing free speech. The Lord Chancellor says reasonable criticism, ridicule, expressions of antipathy or prejudice will be outside the scope of this Bill. I think that cuts very thin ice. Why then did the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme fade out the voice of a preacher who said,"““you cannot come to (the Way, the Truth, the Light) through Allah; you cannot come through Mohammed; you cannot come through Buddha,””" as any devout believer is bound to believe about a contrary religion? This law will reinforce the self-censorship that is already practised by booksellers, editors and publishers. All the main writers’ organisations—The Royal Society of Literature, The Society of Authors, PEN—have opposed this Bill on these grounds. This Bill will encourage every cowardly, appeasing and politically correct tendency in our national life—except for one group. It will encourage extremist groups to challenge prosecution in order to maximise publicity or seek martyrdom. The effect of the Bill will therefore be the opposite of what it intends. The reasonable people will be discouraged from vigorous controversy and the extremists will be encouraged to be more extreme. There is a Bill which a freedom-loving Government could have introduced and that is one scrapping the blasphemy law. Instead of getting rid of this antiquated and inflammatory piece of legislation which had been dormant for more than 50 years before Mary Whitehouse discovered it, the Government seek in effect to extend it to all religions. I therefore agree with the noble Lord, Lord Peston, that the net effect of this legislation will be further to shrink the area of free speech and vigorous debate for no sufficient reason. Racial and religious groups are already protected to the maximum extent which is tolerable in a free society. For the sake of a dubious and, at best, trivial gap in the law, the Government are prepared to overturn the fabric of our tradition of free speech which has been built up over several hundred years. This is the sign of an authoritarian, not liberty-loving Government and I urge them to think again.