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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all those who have spoken tonight, particularly those who have spoken in support of the amendment. I am particularly grateful to so many noble Lords who have taken the trouble to stay so late to listen to this debate and, in some cases, to take part. I am bound to say that I was slightly wounded by the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden. After the Committee debate I went through every contribution, taking heed of the criticisms made, and I take account of those criticisms in the new amendment. I remember clearly that the noble Baroness was concerned that the original wording might be taken to license homophobic behaviour. I do not think that anybody could say that that was a justifiable criticism of the new amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, defended the clause, as did the noble Baroness. I am not attacking the clause; we are talking about the amendment. Surely, the noble Lord was not saying that, by the greatest stretch of the imagination, the amendment could be said to license the incitement of hatred. I do not think that he really believes that every criticism of sexual conduct implies hatred towards the person concerned. Plainly, my amendment licenses comment, but it certainly does not license the stirring up of hatred. I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for his observations. He seemed to be saying that, certainly, my amendment would do no harm but he favoured guidance. I do want to repeat what I said earlier, but guidance did a fat lot of good over the past few years, when it was apparently referred to now and again before the police took completely wrong action under the Public Order Act. I listened carefully to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. He is a very distinguished lawyer, and, of course, he was entirely right in saying that it would not be difficult to direct a jury correctly on how to approach the wording of the clause. However, that is not the point. As my noble friend Lady Knight of Collingtree said, we are not talking about what happens before a jury; we are talking about how the police react in these circumstances. We know perfectly well that they have reacted in the wrong way when they have come to consider the Public Order Act. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, said that it was easy to understand the concept of intent to stir up hatred. He said that they were strong words. Goodness me, there are strong words in the Public Order Act: the words ““threatening””, ““abusive”” and ““insulting””. Those strong words did not stop the police investigating the behaviour of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, who could not possibly have been guilty of threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour when he commented in an article on the possibility of some people being reorientated sexually. We are not dealing with juries; we are dealing with bizarre action taken by the police under the existing law. We have a duty to see that it does not happen under the new law. That is the purpose of the amendment, and I commend it heartily to the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 87A) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 81; Not-Contents, 57.