Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I did not intend to intervene. However, I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Elton said. We have to remember that the ordinary person out there does not read Hansard and that the press will certainly not report this debate except in some mischievous and irrelevant way. An enormous number of ordinary Christians, some of whom are rather old like me, feel threatened and vulnerable. It is good that the country will have a Bill covering incitement to hatred, but that must happen before any other signal is sent. If you wait for that and you send this signal now, you are abandoning those people, who already feel pretty threatened. They are often surrounded by unfriendly communities. It is true that they have not thought much about this; they probably do not even get to church. However, that does not alter the fact that they are Christians and that they feel that this is a Christian country in which they have a right to some defence and consideration. The Government now say, ““Forget blasphemy. It is out of date, very difficult to apply and totally irrelevant””. They must also say, ““We will have an incitement to hatred Bill that will protect ordinary people and their faith””. We also have to remember that we are not alone in the world. There are Christians in Africa and all sorts of places who already feel pretty threatened. If we as a Christian country say, ““Actually, it doesn’t matter very much because the blasphemy law is inapplicable and nobody really took it seriously””, that will not help ordinary Christians who are simple and do not say much about their faith, but who care and want to be protected. I beg the Committee to consider that we should not dismiss this lightly unless something positive is said and done to protect people and to make them feel protected and valued. A lot of them feel very undervalued. I hope that the right reverend Prelates will forgive me, but I am sorry to say that those people do not necessarily feel particularly well defended by those who are supposed to be in charge of their flocks.