Coroners and Justice Bill

No, I have not. We have not heard any convincing arguments at all. We have seen some smoke and mirrors, and some hand-waving, but we have heard no evidence. The Minister said tonight—I paraphrase slightly—that the clause has no effect and that we can therefore dispense with it. It is true that it does not change the threshold of the offence, but that is not the same as saying that it has no effect. It provides a signpost to police and prosecutors that they must leave innocent people alone if all they have done is discuss or criticise sexual conduct. There is plenty of evidence that there is a real problem with the police's handling of these cases, and the effect of the clause will be to tackle that problem. The Minister also said a moment ago that bad people would try to hide their actions behind the clause. I can say, even as a non-lawyer, that they would not have much luck. The explanatory notes make it clear that the clause does not affect the threshold of the offence. If someone breaches the threshold of the offence, the free speech provision will do them no good whatever. I believe that the Minister is demonstrating what psychologists call cognitive dissonance, in that she is holding two mutually conflicting opinions at the same time. She is struggling with the tussle that they are causing in her brain. The free speech clause either achieves nothing or it allows bad people to get away with things that they would otherwise not get away with—she cannot have it both ways. It is either one or the other. It is a binary, black or white, zero or one, yes or no. There is no middle way that the Minister, as part of the new Labour intake into this place, would like to see. Nasty people who are facing prosecution will always cast about looking for a way to get off. They often falsely cite the Human Rights Act 1998, but I do not think that any hon. Members believe that that is a reason to repeal that Act. Similarly, the fact that people will falsely, and unsuccessfully, cite the free speech clause is not a reason to repeal it. We are told that use of the phrase "of itself" might mean that people can ignore the context of the remarks. That argument did not make any sense to me when the Lib Dems last raised it, and it still does not. I recall that the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) dealt with it fairly deftly at that time, although he did not get the chance to do so again tonight. I do not believe that it strips the context from the remarks that have been made. We are also told that we can deal with the cases that we are worried about by amending section 5 of the Public Order Act. The Government are apparently consulting on section 5; perhaps the Minister will confirm where we are on that. Perhaps changes will be recommended, but that is not the offence we are dealing with here. We are dealing with the homophobic hatred offence. If a general offence, such as section 5, can be used against people for expressing views on homosexuality, it is inevitable that an offence that specifically deals with homosexuality will be used even more often. So we must pay special attention to the need to protect free speech in this area. There is a lot of public sympathy for these victims of police heavy-handedness in the area of gay rights, and I think that people would like to see us make provision to try to stop this sort of trampling on people's civil liberties. The free speech clause does nothing whatever to reduce the level of protection that the Government—quite rightly, and with widespread support—aim to give to gay people. The Government admit that the clause does not affect the threshold of the offence; it cannot therefore be used to defend actions that fall within the ambit of the offence. It does not remotely affect any of the other criminal offences that can be used to target those who perpetrate or encourage acts of violence towards any members of our society or to target words that cause "harassment, alarm or distress". We should find the guilty and prosecute them—who would not endorse that sentiment?—but we should not catch the innocent in the crossfire of that approach. The free speech clause does no harm whatever; it does only good. If we remove this free speech clause, we send out the message that we are quite happy to take a risk with the freedom of people like Andy Robertson and Pauline Howe. I, for one, am not prepared to take that risk: I will vote against the Government and I urge other hon. Members to do exactly the same.