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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

No, I will not. What the Government did is what should happen in a democracy. If people are being oppressed, if people are being assaulted, if people are being assailed, we should try to offer them protection. There is a fear that the Bill may offer special privileges to religious groups. I am glad to say that it also covers people who do not have any religious beliefs, partly, I hope, as a result of representations by me and by other Labour Members. Lawyers have said—as have some Conservative Members—that there may be problems with the interpretation of ““incitement””. The courts have always had problems with interpreting ““incitement””: there are all sorts of laws involving it. Then there is the question of how to define ““religion””. We deliberately did not define ““race””, which is quite difficult to define. We left the definition to the courts in the case of incitement to racial hatred. Some objections to the proposals may be valid. No law is perfect. As has already been said, there is a danger of tit-for-tat activity on the part of one religious group against another; but, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has pointed out, there is a fair degree of protection from that, culminating in the requirement for the Attorney-General’s consent. I think that we can expect the Attorney-General to try and keep the lid on tit-for-tat activity. There is the possibility of the Attorney-General’s being accused of religious bias, but that did not happen much in the case of race, and I see no reason why it is likely to happen in the case of religion. Another argument is that while it is appropriate to cover race in legislation because people cannot change their race, it is inappropriate to provide similar protection in regard to religion because people can change their religion. Let us think about it. The logic of the argument is that if people do not like being subject to assault and hatred because of their religion, they can always change their religion. That is a sickening invitation to intimidation. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), most people are born into their religion just as much as they are born into their race. I believe that the laws against incitement to racial hatred have worked—imperfectly, like all laws. Not many cases have been brought, but the test is not the number of cases that have been brought, or at least that is not the only test. The law that the Tories introduced—they deserve credit for that—backed up the moral and ethical position that incitement to racial hatred was wrong. As a result of that declaratory effect, the stirring up of hatred on grounds of race has declined. Some people have been a bit more careful about what they say. That brings me to the objections expressed by comedians and clerics. The comedians apparently think that they would be breaking the law if they made jokes about religion; but they would be breaking the law only if they used threats, abuse and insults with the intention of stirring up hatred, or if in all the circumstances they were likely to do so. If a comedian needs the right to do that, we have the right to stop him or her, and I believe that that is what we should do. I do not believe that any comedians, or clerics, need the right to set out to stir up hatred against any of their fellow citizens. They would be in a sad state if they did. The police and others tell us that it is almost inevitable that there will be some terrible terrorist incident, no matter how hard we try to prevent it. I think that we need to enact the law in advance, and try to ensure that if there is a terrible incident we do not see the irrational but, again, almost inevitable attacks on, say, a particular religious group if members of that group are accused of being the cause of it. We need to be leading the way, not dragging along behind. The object of laws is to persuade people not to do things, partly by threatening them and partly by declaring that some things are right and some are wrong. If we do not take this opportunity to declare that incitement to hatred of people on the grounds of their religion is wrong, we will declare that we tolerate its continued existence. We should not do that.