Coroners and Justice Bill

First, may I say how heartened I am that the Leader of the Conservative Party has apologised on behalf of his party for Clause 28 and the symbolic and other damage it did. It is very encouraging that the main Opposition party has taken that position. Secondly, I do not suppose any of us has to make claims about their commitment to anything in particular, but like the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, I can say that I have spent the whole of my professional life fighting for two main values: first, freedom of speech and, secondly, equality, including human dignity. I am in perfect agreement with the right reverend Prelate that whatever we do today will have symbolic significance. Whether it is huge and generates a shudder of fear is perhaps hyperbole, but I agree that symbols matter. I speak as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which has looked at this issue not once, but twice, and is composed of members of all parties as well as none. On each occasion it decided that the free speech protection of the law, as it will be if we pass this clause and reject the Motion, is perfectly adequate. Since no one else has yet done so, perhaps I may try to explain the relevant background and why I believe that we should firmly reject the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. The law we have now distinguishes between incitement to racial hatred on the one hand and incitement to religious or homophobic hatred on the other. Where race is concerned, it is an offence to use insulting, abusive or threatening language—there is no requirement of specific intent to stir up hatred—if, ""having regard to all the circumstances, racial hatred is likely to be stirred up"." That is wrong. I do not like speech offences of any kind. Indeed, my old boss Roy Jenkins and I erred when we allowed the race hate offence to be as wide as that, but it is too late to reverse it these days. So that is incitement to race hate, a broadly drawn criminal offence which does not even require specific intent. The offence is much narrower in relation to religious and homophobic hatred. The language used has to be threatening, not merely insulting or abusive, and there has to be an intention to stir up religious or homophobic hatred. In addition, both religious and homophobic hatred have, at the moment, a savings clause, which I shall come to. The reason why this House and the other place made a distinction between race and religion in the Racial and Religious Hatred Act—with the support of the Bishops, as I recall, for which we were most grateful—is that a verbal attack on members of a racial group is an attack on their common humanity, their inheritance and their birthright, which are fixed and immutable. But a verbal attack on a member of a religious group—not because of their group identity but expressing intemperate criticism of, or hostility to, the beliefs, teachings or practices of their religion—is not an attack on their common humanity unless in reality it involves an attack on their ethnicity, their origin and their biology, as so often happens with British Muslims, who are really being attacked for ethnic reasons in disguise. Religion and belief are concepts that defy precise legal definition. They concern matters of faith and philosophy and are strongly influenced by history and politics and by tradition and culture. The line separating religious beliefs from political beliefs is often blurred, not least because religion is often used and misused for political purposes. The distinction between stirring up hatred of someone because of his religious beliefs and expressing hatred of those beliefs or practices in the abstract is quite subtle. So this House has decided, as has the other House, that the law protects religious believers against deliberate intimidation, threats of violence and intimidation, but it does not protect the actual beliefs and practices from abusive and insulting criticism. The need for writers and artists to be able to criticise and ridicule religious beliefs and practices is the reason why I drafted what is referred to as the "English PEN clause", which prevents thin-skinned people from trying to use the criminal law to stop an attack on religious beliefs and practices which does not amount to the use of threatening language against individuals. I was responsible for that and the House overwhelmingly supported it. The question is: where should homophobic hatred be placed on this scale? Should it be more like race or more like religion? Even though, in my view, sexual orientation, being an immutable characteristic, is more like race, I am pleased that the Government chose to put homophobic hatred in the same place as religion, leaving a large space for free speech. They chose to criminalise only that which deliberately stirs up hate and only that which uses threatening language—not insulting or abusive language—leaving a person completely free, however unpleasant and evil it may be, to insult someone because they disapprove of homosexuality. Because the offence is crafted so narrowly and already leaves fully adequate protection for free speech, there is no need for any additional savings clause. Discussion of sexual orientation, however unpleasant and offensive, does not entail the same controversy as religion where, as I have said, there is a need for an express free speech clause. There have been some controversial police actions in relation to the other harassment provisions of the Public Order Act in which the police, trying to shake off their old homophobic image perhaps, have been overzealous in investigating claims of homophobia—for example, in relation to comments by Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the former secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, or the evangelical Christian literature distributed by a retired Lancashire couple. However, it is clear that the specific homophobic hate speech offence does not criminalise such words, behaviour or writing unless they are threatening and intended to stir up hate. The unanimous view—a unanimous view taken not once but twice—of the Select Committee, with its legal advisers and including, for example, the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and two Conservative Members of Parliament, so it is not a party matter, is that there are adequate free speech safeguards. I fully agree with the principles referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza; the question is how they are to be applied in practice. The removal of Section 29JA would not result in jokes involving gay people being outlawed or prevent the expression of opposition to same-sex relationships where the discussion does not amount to threatening language with intent to stir up hate. It would categorically not impede genuine freedom of expression. However, there is real concern among the vulnerable gay and lesbian community that Section 29JA creates a legal loophole which could enable extremists to stir up hatred and attempt to avoid prosecution for words or actions that were deliberately meant to foment hatred. That concern is at least as great as the fear referred to by the right reverend Prelate. I hope that the Committee will accept the view of the Joint Committee. For what it is worth, my own view is that if the speech crime were to be interpreted over-broadly, I have no doubt whatever that the courts, looking at the Human Rights Act which requires them to interpret every statute, including this one, in accordance with Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, would again ensure that a case was not brought. The problem I have about the specific language we are being asked to keep is that it seems entirely superfluous. Section 29JA states that, ""for the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred"." I ask rhetorically: how could any reasonable person possibly believe that the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices, or urging people to refrain from or modify their conduct or practices, could be regarded as threatening or as intended to stir up hatred? Of course they could not. Therefore, this is an otiose provision.