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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, that takes me down even more dangerous paths by asking me as a Minister to suggest what the other place should do. But I take the noble Baroness’s point. I thank my noble friend Lord McIntosh for his kind remarks, although he went on to say that he did not think much of my arguments. I was interested in his recollection of the great days of local government, when it had a role in deciding whether films could be shown in a local authority area. As a member of Oxford City Council in the 1970s I well recall Alderman Fagg chairing a sub-committee of the estates committee which viewed these films on Monday morning at 10 o’clock. I confess that we debated these matters and that I argued that there should be no censorship of any film and it was all unnecessary. Well, I have changed my mind. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has not. He has been a model of consistency over many years on these matters. Over the past few days I have received many e-mails from many organisations. I understand, of course, my noble friend’s concern about unnecessary intrusion into harmful activities in people’s own bedrooms. However, we are not talking about what might be described as the routine pornography which I am sure accounts for much of the billion pounds and the—as the noble Baroness suggested, though I am not sure how many people—million people; we are talking only about extreme or violent pornography. I want to make that clear. The noble Baroness asked me to explain in detail why the Obscene Publications Act and its definitions were not used in the formulation of this clause. This legislation has been proposed because the controls in the Obscene Publications Act are much more easily evaded these days by the use of modern technology, namely the internet, which makes it much easier to use and distribute and therefore easier to possess. As most such extreme material is hosted abroad, controls on publication and distribution are no longer sufficient.