Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate has said that we are not in the position we would like to be, and I would say only that if the Bill had not gone into a secret cabal and we had had the discussion on the Floor of the House, we would probably have reached a much better position. I object to the way this matter has been handled. As the noble Baroness is aware, I have not been privy to the discussions that have taken place between the Home Secretary, my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. Over many years I was involved in trying to secure legislation on similar lines to those we are now discussing. In their wisdom, noble Lords sent a Bill that I introduced to a Select Committee where it was considered for a whole year. It came back to the Floor of the House and was there further discussed. On those occasions we had every opportunity to talk about the matters that have preoccupied us during the proceedings on this Bill, particularly the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and others for separating incitement to religious hatred from incitement to racial hatred. I persist in the view that that is a mistake. Aside from anything else, when the courts come to deal with offences of this kind, they will have to say that Parliament intended something completely different from what is already set out in the Public Order Act 1986. If we had continued on the original lines, we would have prevented that confusion arising. This is not a matter which has come up recently, as implied by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. It was considered by the Law Commission as long ago as 1985. At the time the commission said that although incitement to religious hatred was not a proximate matter for Parliament to consider, if it ever became so, it would be a simple matter to legislate by adding religion to Part III of the Public Order Act 1986. That was the genesis of the proposal. It was picked up by the Government in the NIA Act and further developed in the Select Committee. I remain convinced that it would have been preferable to continue along those lines. However, since we decided not to do that, it was incumbent on the Government to introduce their proposals in the light of day, not to discuss them with Front Benchers behind the scenes. That is not a way to legislate. I am very disappointed that we do not have proposals before us showing how the Government intend to handle this matter when it is sent to the other place.