Coroners and Justice Bill

I want to move this amendment despite having already spoken at some length on the issue, but first I should like to make one or two observations and explain what I intend to do. I listened carefully to what was said in the previous debate, and my first point is that I am a great supporter of devolution. I believe that to the greatest extent possible, problems should be tackled at the regional or local level, or at levels within the great nations that make up this country. I do not believe in having harmonised, standardised solutions to all problems imposed from the centre. Therefore I understand entirely those who maintain that when functions are transferred, surely the people making up the assemblies should have the opportunity to debate and decide upon important questions of ethical and legal significance. But there is another factor that comes into play, which is that certain basic standards should apply across the nation as a whole. Those are what we tend to call human rights standards. The reason that the Government under the right honourable Tony Blair extended civil partnerships, a highly controversial matter, to Northern Ireland was on the basis that the rights of gay and lesbian people to equal treatment without discrimination should be enjoyed throughout the country, not only in one part of it. Further, the reason that the same was done with the sexual orientation regulations, also highly controversial, was again from a proper conviction that the rights of the individual should not depend on the particular place they happen to be within. So there is a tension between the need for human rights standards to be fulfilled and the need for proper respect for the wishes of people in the nations and regions of the country as a whole. The problem about the law of blasphemy, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights indicated, is that in modern times, were it challenged, it is strongly arguable that it is not compatible with the convention rights, in particular the rights conferred by Article 10 of the convention. Why not? Because it is bad: it is too vague; it lacks legal certainty; and it sweeps too broadly. Unlike the 1987 order I have described, which is a statute, the common law offence suffers from the twin vices of overbreadth and vagueness. If that is right it means that, at present, those living within Northern Ireland are being subjected to an arcane, archaic, unenforceable and outdated law, which has been eclipsed, in any case, by a statutory provision, which therefore makes it lack any necessity. When the Northern Ireland Act, the Scotland Act and the Government of Wales of Act were passed, the convention rights were written into those statutes to make sure there could not be breaches of those basic rights as a result of devolution. Therefore, although it may be decided in the end to leave it to the Assembly, there will be difficult questions that the Speaker of the Assembly will have to deal with—unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, a former Speaker, is not in his place today—and tricky wider questions if we leave it as it now is. If I were a unionist in Northern Ireland—