Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

To use what most people would find offensive as a central criterion is too subjective. We live in a society where we have a diverse range of tastes; there are lots of things I do not like at all but which are legal in this society. It is interesting that certain noble Lords got a great number of letters and e-mails on certain topics. I got none, and I wonder why; no doubt it was assumed by those concerned that I was a hopeless case. ““What most people find offensive”” cannot be the right principle to operate on; it is too much the law of the crowd. I am with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, here: if a clear link is established between pornography as we would generally describe it and child sex abuse, that is something we should seriously consider, even if that puts restrictions on other individuals. That is an objective criterion. If there is a criterion of ““the common good””, something about society on which we agree just for the good of society, that is also more objective. But to legislate on the basis that this is what most people do not like is a recipe for transient and bad law.