---

Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I take that point, but you have to consider the alternative. We have had demonstrated to us very forcefully today by our mail bags, the press and, most notably, by my noble friend Lady O'Cathain, that the law has enormous symbolic importance. The noble Lord mentioned that my late and learned friend Lord Hailsham had said that his client did not need costs. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said that the client does not need defence, but that is not what the blasphemy law seeks to defend. It seeks to defend our image of our maker and our concept of our society. What is offended when people bring it into ridicule is our sense of who we are and what this nation is. Therefore, we need to look at this not in the high-flown language of the courts or the acerbic language of theology, but at what is proper in Parliament—pragmatism. The pragmatic situation is that, until very recently, there was no proposal on the Floor of the House to make this change in the law. It will greatly offend a large section of our society as a gesture towards secularism. Even if it is not that, that is how it will be seen. That is troubling the waters of our social life quite unnecessarily. The pragmatic thing is to let that sleeping dog lie, as Walpole would have said.