Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I can reply to it, and could do so at some length. My worry is that I may incur the wrath of other noble Lords who will know that we shall come back to this issue at Report. I am happy to try to give the reassurance that the noble Earl seeks in terms of how the Bill was initially constructed. It is right that individuals should be free robustly to criticise those practices which they find abhorrent, whether or not they are justified by others on the basis of their faith. However, I have argued in the past that amendments to this effect are wholly unnecessary. The thresholds in the Bill are sufficiently high to ensure that the condemnation of gender inequality, human rights and other abuses—when justified on religious grounds—will not be captured by the offences. Under existing legislation, it is an offence to incite hatred of groups, whether at home or abroad, defined by reference to race or nationality. It is therefore an offence to incite hatred against Israelis, Palestinians, Japanese or any other nationality. If the concerns of the Bill’s opponents were correct—and it is impossible to distinguish between robust criticisms of belief, practices and policies on the one hand and inciting hatred of people or communities on the other hand—then we would, by now, have seen a suppression or chilling of free and robust debate about the Middle East, or condemnation of the actions of Japan during the Second World War, and many other circumstances I could mention. Obviously, this simply has not occurred. In relation to racial hatred, in order to ensure that the benchmark is appropriately high, there is the need to have the Attorney-General’s approval before making any such reference. It is right that that was so before the passing of the Human Rights Act , with its strengthened expression of what had, before then, been common law issues. There is no reason whatever to believe that the extension of protection to groups of people defined by their religious belief—or lack of such belief—will work any differently. If it were not for the serious negative effect of the current amendment, we would probably be content to accept it. However, we can be in no doubt that extremists in this country are adept at dodging the law. By creating an exemption for specified activities, we would simply be inviting the extremists to dress up their words and behaviour as legitimate criticisms. We have had evidence of the way in which they have done that in relation to our current legislation. They receive acute advice, and tend to fly as close to the wind as they possibly can without involving the wrath of the criminal justice system. We also believe that the potential harm of this amendment outweighs its potential benefits. The thresholds contained in the Bill are, despite the arguments on the other side, very high. The Bill, and the wider criminal justice system, already includes safeguards which ensure that unmeritorious prosecutions are not to take place. We have the evidential tests applied by the CPS and the Attorney-General’s consent, to which I have already referred. For those reasons, we resist the amendments. However, as I said earlier, the Government are very sensitive to the concerns being expressed around the Committee. I had expressed a willingness to look at these issues before we came back on Report. The Committee decided that I would not be given that advantage and I, of course, accept that.