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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I am very grateful to my friend for his intervention, and I hope that it will attract a comment from the Minister later. It is important that we get this right, because we are dealing with such a precious commodity. This is not some little Bill dealing with planning issues in the south-east—[Interruption]—important though they are, of course. The Bill deals with a matter that is fundamental to what this House is supposed to be about, yet we are still surrounded by a fog of ignorance as to how many prosecutions there might be, the effect that they might have on society, and whether they would limit the kind of debate that we all welcome. I cannot believe that those who are promoting the Bill—particularly the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), who is a very fine man—would intentionally do anything to limit vigorous discussion. We need answers to these points when the Minister winds up the debate. I promised that I would read the following extract, which is very strong. If I went out and spoke in such terms and someone in the audience then committed some act against another religion, would I be caught by the Bill?"““Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.""In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.""You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?””" As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) will know, that is from the gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter 23, verses 27, 28 and 33. Would Christ have been prosecuted under this Bill in the first century AD for stirring up religious hatred?