Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I join other noble Lords in their concern that this part is still in the Bill. It is quite clear from the contributions that have been made just how widely that view is held. As someone who comes, not many years ago, from the background of the Broadcasting Standards Commission, the sort of late-night viewing that we were looking at and having to give some sort of judgment on whether it was going too far, seems mild—to put it mildly—in comparison with the sort of things that, as another noble Lord said, we see late at night regularly on practically every channel. One urges the Minister and the Government to think again. As another noble Lord said, a Joint Committee—a pre-legislative committee of both Houses might be the best way—should look at the implications of what has happened in the past few years. We are having to do that as a result of the Broadcasting Act 2003, which is clearly outdated in a number of respects. It did not take account of just how far the internet was likely to be involved in almost every aspect of our daily lives. It certainly worries me that anyone slotting into the internet, Google or any of these places can almost inadvertently come upon the sort of images that they might feel could result in a charge being made against them. That is an appalling thought, not least because of how easily and quickly these things pop up. Liberty makes that point very clear in its briefing to us. That reinforces my clear belief that a much more detailed study needs to be done. We appreciate why the Government have tabled their amendments—they have seen the concern and have tried to remedy it—but they certainly do not satisfy me. More problems arise from the particular words that have been used. I therefore join other noble Lords in asking the Government to think again. This is too vital an area for us to allow it to be simply an add-on—yet another thing. My noble friend Lord Ramsbotham describes the Bill as a yet-another-thing Bill, which has some justification. When we at the Broadcasting Standards Commission judged whether something was in bad taste, we certainly looked at the context of what was being said. That was all-important; was it a classical work—a work that justified the images that were being used? That must remain a test of what you are looking at, although perhaps not many of us would be able to apply that to some of the things that we see inadvertently in today’s world. In the longer term, we need to look at the possible effect that violent and pornographic images can have on the nation generally, not only on the damaged personalities who have been referred to. I shall give a little example of something that worries me. When I was a very mature student at the LSE, I was assigned to do a little participant observation research. One group of new students in the university, who were studying something like English, were exposed to quite violent, sexual images very early on and all the way through their course. The other group, which was being taught the same course, did the normal course. The moment at which a quite explicit violent and sexual scene was put before these students was interesting, although I do not imagine, because it was quite some time ago, that it was anything like the sort of scenes that we see today on television. It was immediately apparent how horrified the group which had not been exposed to any of these images before had become. That should worry us quite a lot in today’s world. I therefore very much support the call for a rethink of all these clauses.