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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is also worth reminding the House, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting did earlier, that in commenting on the offence that we propose to establish in March this year, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said:"““We accept the existence of a serious, albeit limited, problem of incitement to hatred on religious grounds. We consider that the measures proposed in the Bill are unlikely to give rise to any violation of the right to freedom of expression under article 10 of the ECHR””." It is true that we do not expect there to be a huge number of prosecutions. In nearly 20 years, there have been only 76 prosecutions for inciting racial hatred, 44 of which resulted in a conviction. However, we expect that the new offence will have a desirable deterrent effect. The Board of Deputies of British Jews holds the strong view that the incitement to racial hatred offence has reduced the spread of anti-Semitic literature, and we expect that the new offence will stop extreme groups and individuals from using religious belief to stir up hatred. The debate has been good and genuine. I accept that the measures are controversial but we shall debate them further in Committee in an open-handed way, and we shall no doubt bring the Bill back in an improved form. It is an important Bill, and I commend it to the House.