Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I am pleased to move the abolition of the ancient discriminatory, unnecessary, illiberal and non-human rights compliant offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel. It is the litany of faults with those offences that explains why the new clause has attracted so much support from all parts of the House. I would like to place on record my thanks to my co-sponsors, especially to the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson), the hon. Members for Salisbury (Robert Key) and for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), the hon. Members for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) and for Reading, West (Martin Salter), and my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes). They were all were extremely helpful in ensuring that the House has this opportunity to debate the matter, and that broad support for the abolition of these offences was expressed. As well as being cross-party, support has also crossed lines of religious belief. I note that support has also been previously expressed by the current leader of the Conservative party—and, indeed, by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), who has an excellent reputation in standing up for freedom of expression. Last time the matter was raised, support was also forthcoming from the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) who, along with the hon. Member for Salisbury, represents a religious point of view in these matters. Let me add the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), who also identifies with a religious point of view. I am grateful that 76 Members were willing to sign a potentially controversial new clause—albeit one proposed by a very sensible Liberal Democrat Back-Bench MP who does not really adopt controversial positions, at least most of the time. The degree of support across the rest of society is also noteworthy. A letter in The Daily Telegraph yesterday had a remarkable list of co-signatories calling for the abolition of those offences. They included the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, who has spoken publicly about the need to abolish them; the author—and my constituent—Philip Pullman; my former constituent and former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries; Ricky Gervais, the comedian; Nick Hytner, the director of the National theatre; Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty; Professor Richard Dawkins, who is well known and admired by many of us; Michael Cashman; novelists Hari Kunzru and Hanif Kureishi; Sir Jonathan Miller; Baroness Frances D'Souza, who was a long-standing executive director of Article 19; and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. Interestingly, another is the comedian and writer of ““Jerry Springer: The Opera””, Stewart Lee, who faced a great deal of difficulty in staging his award-winning production because of claims that it was blasphemous. Those were a catalyst for the organising of the sort of demonstrations that, although they should be permitted, should not have the imprimatur of being backed up by any part of common law. I also want to pay special thanks to the National Secular Society and English PEN, which have campaigned for a long time on this issue. Blasphemy is an ancient law going back hundreds of years. I do not have time to provide a full history, but it should be pointed out that the last conviction for the offences in question was in 1977, and that the last successful public prosecution was in 1922. It is an old-fashioned, ancient law that is out of time and not needed any more. One does not have to be an ultra-moderniser to recognise that. Those laws are also unnecessary in two significant ways. First, enough laws dealing with outraging public decency and public order offences are already on the statute book to ensure that the removal of these two offences will not lead to widespread outrageous behaviour in public. We are talking about people being able to see theatre productions, watch television programmes, attend readings, and publish books and documents for specific audiences, without the threat of prosecution under the blasphemy laws. Secondly, as has been pointed out by a number of people more qualified than me to say it, the Almighty does not need the protection of these ridiculous laws, which is why many people with a religious perspective share the view that those offences should be abolished. The offence of blasphemy is illiberal because its scope is uncertain. Its terms do not define—because the offence is not statutory, for one thing—what someone must do or say to be arrested, prosecuted and convicted. It is also an offence of strict liability, so not having intended to blaspheme is no defence to prosecution. One therefore cannot know when one is committing the offence, which was the main reason given by the Law Commission for seeking its abolition as long ago as 1985. Although people do not know whether they have committed the offence, it also commands an unlimited penalty, because no penalty is laid down in statute. The offence is discriminatory, in that it applies only to the Christian religion—and within that, only to the tenets of the Church of England. For both the reasons that I have given—the lack of clarity and its discriminatory nature—the offence does not comply with the European convention on human rights, or, indeed, with our own law now that it incorporates the convention.