Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, for ever for his pithy wind-up speech. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. This has been a very good discussion in the best traditions of your Lordships' House. Whatever views we bring to this debate, it has been an extremely important and useful rehearsal of a number of important issues which your Lordships have discussed in a number of Bills over the past few years. Freedom of speech is critical to all of us. We would not be here in your Lordships’ House if that were not so. In responding in a reasoned way, as the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, has suggested, let me say that many of the fears and concerns that have been expressed by Members of the Committee are unfounded. First, I want to say why we have brought forward this proposal in the first place. The Government have seen evidence, and the committee in the other place took oral evidence, that gay people are a target for threatening words and behaviour which stir up hatred. Noble Lords will have seen some of the evidence presented. As we have heard, it shows extreme political parties trying to whip up hatred against the gay community by associating homosexuality with child abuse or with the spread of disease. Recent BNP campaign literature distributed to voters in north Wales featured photographs of child murder victims and claimed that a majority vote by mainstream parties to equalise the age of consent indicated that MPs were trying to legalise child sex step by step. Violently homophobic lyrics in some reggae and rap songs urge the torture and murder of lesbians and gay men. Stonewall has commented that while some artists and their record producers have said that the songs in question will not be performed in the future, other artists have refused to make such a commitment, and no legal action as yet been taken to prevent the sale or distribution of such material in Britain. The lyrics in some of these reggae and rap songs suggest taking a ““bazooka”” to kill gay men, hang lesbians with a ““long piece of rope””, and: "““If a man comes near me then his skin must peel. Burn up him bad like an old tyre wheel””." From what the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, said earlier, I am sure that he does not disagree that these are serious matters.