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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

The amendment has been tabled rather late in the passage of the Bill. Although I cannot quarrel with what the Minister said about the blasphemy Act and its history, those arguments could have been advanced when the Bill was first proposed—I wonder why they were not. I agree that the content of the Act remains and may be dormant or in disrepute, as was described by the Minister, but I am concerned not so much with the content of the Act as with the abolishing of it and the perception, perhaps suspicion, that will be generated as a result. I recall a dormant clause in another Act concerned with promoting homosexuality in schools. The Act had not been applied, but when we went to abolish the relevant schedule, mayhem broke out. I wonder whether we should not leave the Act as it is, as I think was the Government’s intention when they framed the Bill—otherwise, they would have put in the clause then. They are now doing it at a late stage, perhaps because of what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, has said.