Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

My Lords, the Minister is right to cite the DPP’s assertion that this offence provided a means of dealing with offences that were not covered by other parts of the criminal law. However, she omitted to add that the DPP, when challenged, also was unable to provide the committee with details of a single case where someone had been prosecuted for the offence. As I have said, when we looked into the matter we found that some of the offences were misclassified because the code number used by the courts began with three digits, which applied to some 50 or 60 other miscellaneous offences, and the clerks entering the details into the computer frequently made mistakes. Also, as I have explained, prosecutions under the ECJA were accompanied by charges brought under some other statute, and the statistics collected by the Home Office do not reveal what the ultimate conviction was for; they reveal only what the charges were. So if a person is charged under two different offences, and the main one happens to be under the ECJA, the figures are not corrected to cover the changes that may have been made during the proceedings. I continue to assert that not only is the offence used very rarely but that, where it is used, it could very well be dealt with by some other provision in the criminal law. I can see, however, that I am not going to persuade the Minister of that today. I shall reflect on what she said and I may well come back to the matter at Third Reading. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.