Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, putting this in its context, we are concerned with an amendment to the Public Order Act 1986. Using threatening words and behaviour is an offence, per se. But it has been determined that we have particular problems in our society which need to be addressed. For example, it is a more serious offence to use threatening words and behaviour with intent to stir up hatred on the grounds of race. Similarly, it has been recognised that there are problems of religious bigotry towards various religions, so it is thought to be right to have a more serious offence than the basic offence of a person using threatening words and behaviour with intent to stir up hatred against someone because of their religion. Now we come to a third category. No one in this Chamber can deny that homophobia exists and is a serious problem. If they do deny that, they can talk to me about professional experiences of murder cases where that has been the only reason why people have been killed. Homophobia exists and the purpose of this provision—just as with race and with religion—is to make it a more serious offence, which is punishable by a more serious penalty because of that intent to stir up hatred on the grounds of—