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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I will in a moment, as I said. The Bill consists of just two clauses and a schedule. Clause 1 will give effect to the schedule. The schedule will amend part 3 of the Public Order Act 1986, to create offences that involve the stirring up of hatred against groups of persons on the grounds of religious belief or lack of religious belief. The Bill will therefore introduce the new offences by extending the existing law on incitement to racial hatred rather than by creating a new self-standing set of offences. In amending the 1986 Act, the schedule deliberately does not define what amounts to a religious belief. It will be for the courts to decide what constitutes a religious belief for the purposes of the legislation. However, for the purposes of article 9 of the European convention on human rights, any religion must have a clear structure and belief system, and case law suggests that any religious belief will need to attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance. The beliefs must also be worthy of respect in a democratic society and not incompatible with human dignity. The schedule will make a clarifying amendment to the existing offence of stirring up hatred against persons on racial grounds, to make it clear that material must be likely to be seen by someone in whom hatred was likely to be stirred up. Finally, clause 2 makes it clear that the proposed legislation applies to England and Wales only.