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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

That is true and of course, according to a further powerful argument that has been deployed in this debate, if the Bill is left as it is, it will create expectations of consequences that will never be realised and should never be realised, and which the Government have said will never be realised. The argument is that the Bill is designed to offer symbolic reassurance, but that in doing so, it will generate expectations that, when unmet, will have consequences contrary to those that the Government quite properly want. I have simply taken almost word for word paragraph 15 of the explanatory notes, which seeks to give such a reassurance. It states:"““The offences will not encompass material that just stirs up ridicule or prejudice or causes offence.””" Such a statement is, more or less, what I would like to be included in the Bill. I would be prepared to add a ““just”” or a ““merely”” if that would help the Government, but having listened very carefully to what they had to say throughout our deliberations, I do not believe that there could be any conceivable objection to including in the Bill such a bland, anodyne statement. It became absolutely clear what this Bill was about and was not about.