Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

My Lords, at the risk of boring your Lordships, I would like to clear up the question that has been raised by several noble Lords on the offences (b) and (c). The noble Lord, Lord Renton, the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, in an intervention and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in winding up all mentioned these two common law offences which have fallen into disuse for centuries. I referred to the Law Commission’s report of 1985 and I remind your Lordships that it refers to statements in Hawkins’Pleas of the Crown to the effect that,"““‘all irreverent behaviour’ in churches and churchyards has been regarded as criminal. More specifically there is authority, by no means strong, for the proposition that it is an offence at common law . . . to disturb a priest of the established Church in the performance of divine worship and also, it seems to disturb Methodists and Dissenters when engaged in their ‘decent and quiet devotions’””." The cases referred to are R. v Parry of 1686 and R v Wroughton of 1765. The report goes on to mention that it is an offence,"““to strike any person in a church or churchyard””," The cases referred to there are Wilson v Greaves of 1757 and Penhallo’s case of 1590. The offences in (b) and (c) fell into disuse centuries ago and have been replaced in modern times by statutory offences such as common assault, for example, in the case of striking a minister in the churchyard. I hope that that will dispose of the point raised by several of your Lordships. I could also refer to the Select Committee’s report, at paragraph 21, but I will not bother to quote that in detail because the point has been sufficiently made. However, your Lordships should allow that it was reasonable to put these other common law offences up for abolition at the same time as blasphemy. I am most grateful to all those who have taken part in this debate. It is right for me to observe that only the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, and possibly the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, opposed the proposition that blasphemy should be abolished outright. Every other speaker, including the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, speaking from the Conservative Front Bench, has said that it is ridiculous still to have this offence, but this is not the right place to abolish it. The Minister repeated what the Home Secretary has said elsewhere: that he does not want to move to legislate on the matter until there has been proper consultation. I do not know what we were doing for a year in the Select Committee: We took evidence from everyone: the Church of England, the Catholics, the Methodists, the Muslims, the Sikhs, the Hindus—you name it, they all came. We spent a whole year examining just this question. Now the Minister wants us to start on another round of consultation. That is an excuse for procrastination. As St Augustine said in The City of God,"““da mihi castitatem . . . sed nomi modo””—" ““give me chastity, but not yet””. The Minister says, ““This is a wonderful idea, but we are not going to do it now””. She invited me not to test the opinion of the House, but there has been sufficient interest in this debate for me to do so now. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 2) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 113; Not-Contents, 153