I understand that. The point I was making was that when you engage in self-defence, you are in the process also of risking and taking life for that objective. That involves a calculation.
When the Chief Rabbi says there is no greater value than the sanctity of life, we understand that he would not contemplate taking his own. But are these people who could never contemplate taking their own lives because of their convictions saying that people who do not share those convictions should nevertheless be bound by them? Surely not, if you believe in religious freedom. All of us have our own moral beliefs, and it is society’s job to decide where morality and the law should overlap and then to shape the law accordingly. That is what this Bill seeks to do.
The Bill is so important, and the practicalities so crucial, that it needs to be scrutinised in detail. I hope therefore that it will receive a Second Reading.
2.34 pm