Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

: In common with many Members, I think that if the Bill was about threatening behaviour, actions or words it is unlikely that there would be any requirement for a Division. But, again in common with many Members, I think that the scope of recklessness and the subjectivity of abuse and insulting behaviour mean that almost anyone could be charged with this offence. We have heard several examples—there will be many more—that could fall foul of this. Hon. Members have made the case that it is likely to lead to a large number of spurious cases being brought on the basis of a handful of complainants in any given circumstance. I am concerned about the impact that the Bill will have on Scotland. As the Minister said, it extends only to England and Wales. New paragraph 29H(2) in the Lords amendments would allow for a sheriff to have a warrant to search a premises in Scotland, presumably after a suspect had been charged on a warrant for his or her arrest issued in England. The Government amendment removes the possibility of such a search warrant being applied for. That may leave us in the ludicrous situation whereby a warrant is issued in England for the arrest of somebody in Scotland, the warrant is exercised and the person is arrested and charged, but no search can be performed on his premises to produce evidence in court. That is a contradiction, irrespective of whether one supports the Bill. We know that it will be possible for an English warrant to be exercised for someone furth of England for a crime committed in England. The excellent counsel’s opinion cited by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) makes it clear that the cases of the Crown v. Harden in 1963 and the Crown v. Manning in 1998 will allow that to happen. We could end up with a situation in which someone who is subject to an arrest warrant issued in England is living in Scotland, having committed a crime in England but not in Scotland. That is deeply troubling. In the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, Scotland has already passed legislation to tackle religious hatred based on a joint cross-party report on such matters and after public consultation. The relevant section states that an offence is aggravated by religious prejudice if immediately before, during or after the offence the offender evinces malice and ill will based on the victim’s membership or presumed membership of a religious group or of a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation. Equally, an offence is aggravated by religious prejudice if it is motivated wholly or partly by malice towards the same group. In such circumstances, the court must take action on the aggravation and the sentence must be different from the sentence that would have been passed if no religious aggravation had occurred. It is therefore peculiar that someone acting wholly innocently in Scotland could be the subject of an arrest warrant in England for a crime that exists here but would not be deemed a crime under similar legislation in Scotland. The cases that legal counsel cited as especially worrying relate to broadcasting, journalism and so on. According to legal counsel, newspapers would have to obey both current Scottish law and the English religious hatred law for any editions that were sold in England and Wales. For example, The Scotsman could publish a report that was legal in Scotland but could be censored in England. An English distributor could also be found guilty under the Bill while a distributor in Scotland would not be prosecuted. The same logic would apply to a Scottish publisher selling books to bookshops in England or to English customers ordering books via mail order or the internet. Once publication or distribution occurred, people could be arrested and prosecuted under the Bill. There are several similar examples and concerns are widespread. Broadcasting, publishing, entertainment and so on that is perfectly innocent and legitimate under Scottish legislation could be prosecuted under English law. The Under-Secretary can intervene if he wants to tell me that none of that could happen and that a warrant could not be issued, under any circumstances, for the arrest of someone in the circumstances that I outlined. All the examples that have been given, from the mild-mannered Christians, to whom a spokesman on the Tory Benches referred, to Polly Toynbee in The Guardian today, suggest that the Bill goes too far and satisfies almost no one.