Coroners and Justice Bill

I apologise to the Committee for my inaccurate understanding of what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, but his point seems equally valid. So is the recent comment that Matthew Parris and someone else, I think, saw no outcome for homosexuals from the proposed keeping in law—not making new law—of what was the Waddington amendment. Consequently, it does not appear that there is strong opposition from well known gay people to this modest freedom of speech. The second point seems terribly important. I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Dear, said about the police being in difficulties. What would be the message to the police from this House if they were in difficulties from the guidance, and from their obligation to take seriously and deal with each possibly malicious or possibly genuine but unneeded application to them to do something? I mean the sort of referral to the police that would not get to the courts, that would not be given the Attorney-General’s fiat, and that the courts would knock down. But it is not at the courts that it matters. It matters at the point of reference to the police—the need of the police to deal with it. Because the law was changed and accepted by the House of Commons, in the last year the police have known where they stood. What are they to understand if we then get rid of the Waddington amendment and keep the guidance? Are they then to act, possibly arrest and certainly interview perfectly respectable people who do not agree with what most of us in this Committee agree, I hope—that gay and lesbian people, among whom we all have friends, have equal rights to absolutely everything? The police will have to deal with the issue. That is the symbolic message that will go beyond symbolism and into a difficult position both for the police and for Christians, Muslims and Jews who follow the Old Testament and speak out about what they feel. It is important that the Committee reflects on that. For that reason, I will support the noble Lord, Lord Waddington.