Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

My Lords, we have had an interesting Second Reading debate. I congratulate the two noble Lords who made their maiden speeches. They will find that, unlike the other place, your Lordships’ House has a mind of its own. If I were the Lord Chancellor, I would be desperately worried, as I can count only about nine speeches of support among the 47 that are likely to be made by the end of the debate. I need to clarify at the outset that the new Joint Committee on Human Rights has not yet decided whether, in the current circumstances, the Bill is compatible. I raise that at this stage because I was deeply impressed by the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Plant of Highfield, who is a member of the JCHR. I look forward to seeing the deliberations of that committee during the passage of the Bill. When we last debated the racial and religious hatred provision before the general election, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, made some play that I was in support of legislative measures to deal with racial and religious hatred. Let me confirm that I have not changed my position. It is right that the Government have recognised an issue of serious concern to religious minorities, and I agree with them. We must be able to deal with extremists and preachers of group hatred in our multi-religious society. That is an aim that we on these Benches support. But the question is whether the Bill in its present form provides the necessary protection while at the same time ensuring that there are no damaging or disproportionate effects on freedom of expression. My noble friend Lord Lester is right to complain that a promise was made that there would be consultation before the Bill was introduced and that has not happened. The political point scoring was ably demonstrated by the Home Secretary in his letter to all mosques just prior to the general election. That point was well made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Cox and Lady O’Cathain. Suffice it to say that it did not help the Government because public opinion, including the views of religious minorities, is sharply divided, a point very ably made by my noble friend Lady Falkner. We will bring the law into disrepute if a government Bill is the only basis on which we are asked to agree. There are vulnerable minorities who need protection. There is a fundamental difference between the Home Secretary and those who disagree with him. We believe that hate speeches may be religiously expressed but they are almost always racially motivated. So far no noble Lord has disputed that. It is right that there should be no complacency about tackling the issue. It hampers the effort to promote harmonious relations. The difference between the Government and those who disagree with them is fairly narrow. The Government insist that their way of proceeding as explained in the Bill is the only way. I am afraid that it is not simply a choice of doing nothing or doing what the Bill proposes. There are other ways to proceed. My noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill has pointed the way forward. It requires serious consideration and a knee-jerk reaction will not help. It would be plain mischief if the message were to go from here about who supports and who opposes our diverse religious communities on the matter of racial and religious hatred. We can all produce a list of those who support and those who oppose, but that would miss the point. None of us can dispute that communities are sharply divided, which is not a good start for such controversial legislation. If the law fails to provide the protection that is required, or if the legislation is ridiculed in the courts, we shall further damage the confidence of vulnerable religious groups. The reason for my pleading is simply that past experiences in enacting legislation about incitement to racial hatred has been ridiculed in our courts, particularly by the British National Party. I recall my early days in Brighton where my political involvement was so resented by the then National Front that an organisation aptly named Sussex Racial Preservation Society was formed by some of the extremists. We then had Section 6 of the Race Relations Act 1965 which stated that a person was guilty of an offence if with intent to stir up hatred against any section of the public in Great Britain distinguished by colour, race, ethnic or national origins, he published or distributed written matter that was threatening, abusive or insulting; and, used in any public place or at any public meeting words that were threatening, abusive or insulting or brought matters or words that were likely to stir up hatred against that section on grounds of colour, race or ethnic or national origins. The Home Secretary at the time explained that Section 6 was designed to deal with more dangerous, persistent and insidious forms of propaganda campaigns—the campaigns which, over a period, engender the hate that begets violence. He was also at pains to point out that Section 6 made only a marginal change to the existing law, and that it did not encroach on freedom of speech. There is no doubt that that was so. The Act provided that no prosecution could be brought except by the Attorney-General or with his consent. Why do I cite that legislation? I do so because the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, started with the history of the legislation. We should recall that in March 1968 a significant prosecution was brought under Section 6, which is considered the most disastrous failure of the Government or the prosecutors at the time. In Regina v Hancock four members of the Racial Preservation Society were tried at Lewes Assizes for incitement to racial hatred in having distributed copies of the society’s Southern News in Sussex. The authors had obviously taken care because their views did not imply threat, abuse or insult, and the defendants asserted that their publication sought a humane solution to the problem of black and Asian immigration, and that theirs was essentially an educational enterprise attacking politicians for their inaction. One of the most disturbing aspects of this case was that the court became a forum discussing the purity of races, the impact of immigration control and immigration in schools, the crime rate and the genetic inequality of the races. Suffice to say that all four defendants were acquitted. So much for what we are now being told by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor: that he has no intention of defining hatred because the jury is quite capable of understanding its meaning. If that is the case, I plead with the noble and learned Lord: please read that judgment, because that will tell you the dangers of proceeding in the court, where emotions may be generated that can sometimes be more damaging. All in all, that case was a considerable setback and many of the statements found in some vile publications have escaped since then because of the Attorney-General’s reluctance to prosecute. That is borne out by the figure cited by some other noble Lords: there have been only 44 prosecutions so far on this matter. We need to examine carefully what is already available to prosecuting authorities. Noble Lords have mentioned several powers. Under current law, incitement to violence, harassment and a wide range of other public order offences are at the disposal of prosecutors. I hope that the information mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, will be in the public domain before we consider the Bill further. The trouble that we have at the moment is that existing laws are not being enforced in practice. The Government argue that if incitement to racial hatred on the basis of ethnicity is effective, then by proxy, such a provision for religion will have the same effect. If a prosecution on the basis of the new legislation were to fail, as it did in the case of Regina v Hancock, we will do untold harm to race relations in this country. The precedent that has been set will make it more difficult for the Attorney-General to prosecute similar cases. That is not the way to build the confidence of a vulnerable community. The Bill is very short, but the issues that it raises are contentious. As my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury explained in yesterday’s debate, the law is a limited instrument and perhaps a crude one to bring about change. The heart of the argument I advance is that tolerance and acceptance are the key factors in creating a healthy society. It may take much longer to do so, but, in the end, it will be more effective than promoting contentious legislation. We should seriously explore the ways by which we can extend existing laws against incitement to racial hatred. That would cover the activities of the extreme Right and the BNP when they use religion as a proxy for racial hatred. Look at what is said in all the vile literature and speeches of those groups and it will become clear that they are making racist threats. Surely the extension of existing legislation should be able to deal with such cases. To avoid any misunderstanding, let me make it clear that we recognise the real problems currently faced by our religiously diverse communities. The extreme Right-wing and racist groups, such as the BNP, are inciting hatred against them and often hide behind religious words such as Muslims or Hindus to avoid prosecution under incitement to racial hatred laws if they use words of a racial nature. We have already supported the need for effective equality legislation to make religious discrimination and harassment unlawful and my noble friend Lord Lester has given a lead in his current Equality Bill. Violent and hostile behaviour against other religious communities is unacceptable, but there are serious problems with the Government’s measure. Let me spell these out. First, there is the difficulty of defining both ““religion”” and ““hatred in the context of religion””. The measure is not restricted to an intentional offence; an offence can be committed unintentionally. There is the need to distinguish between race as against religious belief and practice, which is a matter of choice, no matter how you define it. It is hard to justify criminalising incitement to hatred while not doing so in the case of political belief. There are inherent dangers in prosecution; the case that I cited is an example in point. It would be most counterproductive if the main targets were the very communities that we are trying to protect. The Bill does nothing on issues such as desecration of objects such as the Bible and the holy Koran, held sacred by faith communities. My advice is that there is still time to listen to arguments advanced by so many noble Lords in this debate today. I have now before me a Home Office consultation document referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on how best to tackle the issue of places of worship that are being used to foment extremism. The noble Lord is absolutely right that the present Bill seems to be completely ineffective in dealing with the situation of that kind. This hardly helps the Government’s case about religious hatred measures before us. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford has made a useful suggestion: let us have that consultation so that we all can see where we go from here. This is essentially a bad Bill and we need to improve it. We can only do so with the co-operation of this House and at the present time it does not look as if the House is very happy with what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has produced.