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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I do. That is a key point of the amendment. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, for giving me the opportunity to say that there is a lot of merit in the amendment. When it was proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, however, we got all the arguments of two weeks ago—all sorts of arguments—recycled, instead of going into the specifics of ““intent””. We should look at that. I will of course support the Government today. We will have many opportunities—on Report and Third Reading and when it goes back to the House of Commons—for the Government to consider the amendment. I hope that, given time, they will do that. However, I also think that we have to answer some of the points that have been made. I feel strongly about one point. People say that religion is a matter of choice and race is not. Of course that is true; I do not argue about that. However, that implies that if someone is inciting hatred against you because of your religion you have the option of withdrawing from that religion. That is the implication of what is being said, and I think that people ought to understand that. There is also a contradiction in the whole argument whereby some people say that the legislation is unnecessary, but the same people say that it inhibits freedom of speech. This is the third time that we have considered this legislation.