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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I add my congratulations to those of other Members to the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Malik). His maiden speech was indeed a delight to listen to. It was full of humour and not altogether uncontroversial, but neither was mine. I hope that he enjoys his time in this place as much as I have enjoyed mine—and that is as friendly as I am going to get tonight. The Bill is the latest in the long line of oppressive measures that has come out of this Government. However, this one is especially dangerous. At the end of the last Parliament, we passed a Bill that managed to prohibit us even from smacking a naughty child without some busybody turning up with a magnifying glass to see whether that had left a mark. This Bill will curtail not action, but the free expression of thought, which has always been the underlying tenet of our democracy. It did not matter whether one was a fascist or a communist, whether one was a militant evangelical street preacher or a militant atheist, or whether one was a carefully spoken professor of philosophy at Oxford or Alf Garnett, because whoever one was and whatever one thought, one was able to express those thoughts freely. One did not have to work out what someone else might think of those thoughts and decide what to do about them several stages down the line. I am worried about the definition of intention. The Bill will not be restricted to covering the intended stirring up of religious hatred because, as it says, it will apply if an action is ““likely”” to stir up religious hatred. A person might not think that his or her actions are likely to result in the stirring up of religious hatred, but if an act of religious hatred follows and someone wants to contend that the person should have thought that that would be likely, what matters is not the intention, but what another party has done. I shall draw an analogy away from the subject of religion to explain why I am worried. I frequently make speeches about the pro-life issue. Let us suppose that I address an audience with an impassioned speech about what goes on in abortion clinics, as I frequently do, and make the judgment that the audience will be sympathetic to what I say, as they usually are. I could say, ““If we could see the unborn children going into those clinics, we would rise up against it.”” I have used the expression ““rise up against it”” many times and I mean it metaphorically. It might be that the audience was made up of 100 people and that 99 went away and all they did was to hand out pro-life leaflets. However, one person might take what I said so much to heart that he committed an act of violence against a clinic or, worse still, against someone going to work in a clinic. That is an analogy, but if I were a vicar, which I will never be because that is something else that I disapprove of, I could be addressing my congregation after making the judgment that it was the usual Sunday morning congregation, so they knew me and I knew them. I might use a metaphor, but someone in the congregation could take the metaphor literally and go out and do something of which manifestly none of us would approve. Under the Bill, I could then be charged with the offence of saying something that was likely to stir up religious hatred. The vague definitions in the Bill seriously undermine it. I would be more reassured if the Bill was about intent, but the definition goes way beyond that. Then there is the definition of what is a religion. If I say that I think that devil worship should be outlawed, is that stirring up religious hatred? If I say that I do not think that Satanism should be encouraged in Her Majesty’s prisons—by the way, I do not—is that stirring up religious hatred? Some of the best conversations that I have ever had have been with the hon. Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley). We have had fantastic conversations in the Lobbies. What we have said would probably not bear much scrutiny under the proposed legislation. However, the hon. Gentleman and I have enjoyed our conversations, and I want to ensure that people can continue enjoying the freedom of religious debate, which I think will be severely curtailed under the Bill. I do not believe in inciting hatred that results in violent acts, or hatred that results in serious discrimination. However, I believe in the right freely to criticise, and to do so in the strongest possible terms. If one of the hon. Gentleman’s band of followers wants to stand in the street, point his finger to me and say, ““Ann Widdecombe, you are bound for hell””, I do not want to go whimpering to a policeman. I want to turn back and say to him, ““Now let us discuss that because I have got absolute proof, mate, not you.”” That is how I want to react. That is democracy. That is a free society. That is human beings having the basic confidence in their own convictions to accommodate other people’s convictions regardless of how offensive they might be to them. There was a time when that was an ordinary way of British life. We do not need to sacrifice it in the name of yet another load of oppression from the Government, another load of political correctness and another serious removal of freedom from our country.