Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, referred to this as a rag-bag of a Bill, but I want to pick out just Clause 126, which has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and makes it a criminal offence to incite hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation. The clause cries out for amendment to protect the right to free speech, and no doubt such amendments will be debated in Committee. Right now the question is whether there is any need for the clause at all in light of the fact that there are already laws to deal with those who are minded to stir up hatred against gays. The question is whether this is not just another example of the Government’s enthusiasm for creating more and more offences without proper consideration on whether they are really necessary or whether they interfere unnecessarily with personal liberty. Let me make one thing absolutely plain. There is no place in a civilised society for hatred towards gay people. The existing law, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester reminded the House, already bans threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress, with—incidentally—tougher penalties when the conduct is aggravated by hostility towards someone because of his sexual orientation. Far from the existing law being weak, difficult to apply and ineffective, it has been used extensively in recent times, sometimes raising legitimate concerns on whether the police are very expert at analysing people’s utterances to determine whether they have gone beyond comment and criticism and are abusive, threatening or calculated to stir up hatred. Let us be absolutely clear. The police already have power to arrest someone who they think is whipping up homophobic hatred. Really serious cases, and cases when the Public Order Act does not bite because no one present is likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress, can be dealt with under the Serious Crime Act 2007, which, in toughening up the old law on incitement, makes it criminal to encourage or assist the commission of crime—to use, for instance, words that recklessly encourage criminal violence. Contrary to what the chief executive of Stonewall told the Commons Public Bill Committee, there is no gap in the law to allow rap lyrics which, in the example given by Stonewall, encourage the killing of gay people. That is clearly criminal, but in the vast majority of cases the present Public Order Act is potent enough. It allowed the arrest of the evangelist Stephen Green for handing out leaflets containing the notorious passage from Leviticus. It allowed the prosecution to conviction of a Bournemouth man who displayed a placard saying, ““Stop homosexuality, stop lesbianism””. It is an unfortunate fact that the police have not always used the existing law wisely. As the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, said, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester was investigated after he referred in an article to the possibility of some homosexuals being reoriented to heterosexuality. Robin Page, the former presenter of ““One Man and His Dog””, was arrested for making some frivolous and tasteless but certainly not criminal remarks at a country fair, and a retired couple have recently recovered damages for the harassment and intimidation to which they were subjected after complaining about Fleetwood Council’s gay rights policy. There was then, as your Lordships will remember, the absurd arrest and prosecution to conviction of the Oxford student by police who chose to construe a joke about a horse being gay as criminally homophobic. Then there was the interrogation of Lynette Burrows in the circumstances that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, again outlined. None of this means that there should not be strong laws to protect gay people but it makes one wonder what conduct the Government envisage will be caught by this law that is not already covered by existing legislation. It also shows that the police have not been very adept at applying existing hate-crime laws and makes one doubt the case for their spending even more time in this area. With violent crime rampant, which was made very plain by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, I encourage the police to spend more time on men’s actions and less time on their utterances. It is no use the Government saying that the new power can be used only when the offending words are specifically intended to pose a threat and are not merely humorous, mocking and abusive. It is no use the Government going on about the need for the Attorney-General’s consent. A police officer, armed with the power to arrest without warrant, will in the first place be the judge of what has crossed the line from the abusive to the threatening. There is nothing in recent history to persuade me that the police will be sensitive to the difference between robust criticism and incitement to hatred, or that they will behave moderately any more than did the police in Bournemouth who persecuted the unfortunate, and now deceased, Mr Hammond. Freedom and freedom of speech are very precious commodities. Excuses can always be found for their curtailment and plenty of excuses have been advanced for many curtailments of our rights in recent years. The Government even defended the proposition that it was criminal to read out a list of those killed in Iraq from the steps of the Cenotaph. We should not now be creating more criminal offences without being 100 per cent sure that they are necessary and will not be misused. I repeat that to oppose this legislation is not to be anti-gay. One of its chief opponents is that doughty campaigner for gay rights, Peter Tatchell. Quite simply to attack this legislation is to be pro free speech.