Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

My Lords, it is not for me to argue with the learned Clerks who allowed this amendment to be tabled as they did in the other place. I am satisfied that, if there were any question about whether the amendment fell within the Long Title, your Lordships could deal with that at Third Reading or perhaps when the Bill goes back to the Commons. Secondly, the law protects the Christian faith and arguably only the Church of England, which your Lordships will agree is intolerable in a society that believes in equality before the law, and is contrary to Article 14 of the ECHR on the prohibition of discrimination. As long as this law exists, other faiths may well continue to argue for equal treatment. As your Lordships may know, many Muslims originally believed that the main proposal in this Bill was designed as a substitute for a universal blasphemy offence. Conversely, repealing the offence of blasphemy would make it clear that Parliament does not intend to shield any religion from robust or even offensive criticism. Thirdly, because of the Human Rights Act, any prosecution for blasphemy today would be likely to fail either on the grounds of discrimination or through the operation of Article 10.2 of the ECHR which allows restrictions on freedom of expression only to the extent that it is necessary in a democratic society for public order reasons. The court would have to consider, first, whether any speech or publication subject to the prosecution was intrinsically blasphemous and then whether restricting the freedom to use those words was proportionate to the aim being pursued. In outlining the case for repeal—which I hasten to add was only one possible course of action that it discussed—the Select Committee concluded that, even if a prosecution were successful, it is likely that it would eventually be overturned on appeal either by the higher courts in the United Kingdom or by the European Court of Human Rights on one or more of the grounds that it is discriminatory, uncertain and a law of strict liability. On that argument, repeal would save the considerable expense of proceedings that might well go to Strasbourg. Finally, the law is objectionable because, as I said, it imposes a strict liability on a person who wants to publish a document or make a verbal statement about a Christian belief or sacred entity but who has no way of knowing whether he will be committing an offence. Some of the witnesses who testified before the Select Committee would have none of those arguments, believing as they did that the prohibition of blasphemy in the Ten Commandments should be part of our domestic law. One cannot have a sensible conversation about any law with people who think that our conduct in the England of the 21st century should be regulated according to instructions supposedly given by God or Allah to individuals living in the deserts of the Middle East in the distant past. We are now living in a multi-religious society where no religious group has the right to impose its rules on the rest of us. Although it is usually best to exercise restraint in speaking about things that are considered sacred, there must be freedom to criticise or attack customs and practices that are said to be sanctioned by religion. Scotland and Northern Ireland have survived without blasphemy laws since the middle of the 19th century. Belgium and Spain have no such laws. In Australia, a common law jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of Victoria could not decide whether blasphemous libel was an offence known to the law and, in 1998, threw out the only such case known to have been prosecuted in the whole of the previous century. In Pakistan, on the other hand, blasphemy law is alive and well. As the Foreign and Commonwealth Office states in its human rights report this year, that has fostered an atmosphere of religious intolerance and eroded the social and legal status of religious minorities. The Bill deals with the real evil of stirring up hatred against people because of what they believe or practise. Our ancestors hated each other, sticking labels on Lollards, Catholics, Protestants and Jews. That led to the burning of heretics, religious wars that cost thousands of lives and to the Holocaust. Hatred was never brought to an end by hatred, so let the rivalry between faiths, including secularism, be conducted by means of argument or even by mockery and derision. Let poets, novelists, comedians, playwrights and broadcasters say what they please. If God exists, He does not need the protection of this or any other law. I beg to move.