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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

While the hon. Gentleman is advising the Government on various approaches that might have resolved some of the problems, may I ask his opinion about a totally different approach? A level playing field could be created by abolition of the law of blasphemy. Civil law can be relied on to deal with such matters as public order and race; we have robust laws in many other contexts. Would we not have secured a much more straightforward position by abolishing the blasphemy law, and avoided many of the difficult issues that we are discussing now?