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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, quoted Kenneth Tynan. I do not know whether he saw the interview with Doris Lessing in one of yesterday’s newspapers when she talked about an evening she spent with Kenneth Tynan, which ended with some remarks she made about whips. The noble Lord and I have both been Whips, but Kenneth Tynan and Doris Lessing were talking about a different sort of whip. If the noble Lord can find the appropriate newspaper, he might find that interview amusing to read. I should like to add to what the noble Lord said, because I am coming at this from a similar angle, even if I do not necessarily arrive at the same conclusion. In Committee, I quoted the famous remark of Mrs Patrick Campbell more than 100 years ago, which I shall now quote properly in full. She said: "““It doesn’t matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses””." I think that most, or all, of us would agree with that. Our only problem is the definition of what frightens horses and what goes slightly too far. At this point, I have to say that I am very grateful to the Minister, with whom I have had some discussions. He offered me the chance to look at a number of these films and no doubt the noble Lord will tell us more about that in due course. In what was possibly a cowardly manner, I did not take him up on his offer, and so I have left it to him to look at the films. However, I have read the Bill, which defines an extreme pornographic image as an image that is, "““(a) pornographic, and""(b) an extreme image””." There follows a definition of the word ““pornographic”” which the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, described as being something that causes sexual arousal. However, the extreme image is defined in subsection (6) as, "““(a) an act which threatens or appears to threatens a person’s life,""(b) an act which results or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals””," and so it goes on. At this point it becomes slightly difficult. Having offered what I will call the Mrs Patrick Campbell definition of what we think is the right approach, I then said that I do not know what we define as that which frightens the horses. I think that we want to hear more from the Government, and particularly about what the Minister and the Government consider to be extreme images, before we make a decision. As I understand it, the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, has put forward two options. The first option set out in the first group of amendments seeks to amend the Bill, and if that does not work, the second group would strike the whole lot out. As we implied in Committee, we want to hear more from the Government before we come to a view. I do not know whether it is appropriate, but the noble Baroness might want to come back at Third Reading, particularly as the noble Lord has now taken a look at some of the extreme pornographic things that he invited me to see. At that stage, and after hearing what the Minister has to say, the noble Baroness may want to consider these matters again.