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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, I do not think I was arguing that. I was trying to answer the first question posed as to why we are bringing forward this legislation at all. The second question, relating to the noble Baroness’s first group of amendments, is why we have not we have not used the Obscene Publications Act. Her amendment removes the element of the offence which requires that an extreme pornographic image depicts an extreme image and replaces it with a reference to the definition of ““obscene””; namely, the ““deprave and corrupt”” test, which, as she says, is found in Section 1 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959. Her amendment also has the effect of rendering redundant subsections (6) and (7). Those subsections set out the, "““grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene nature””, " test and the list of extreme acts. The amendment has the effect of opening up the offence to all obscene pornography. It would no longer be limited to certain specified depictions of threatening, violent, bestiality or necrophilia images. The noble Baroness may wish to consider the implications of that when she comes to wind up. My officials and the department, when considering this matter over the months that it has taken to prepare the Bill, saw the initial attraction of linking this possession offence to the existing publication offence. Under the Obscene Publications Act, whether material is obscene depends on whether it would deprave and corrupt those most likely to read, see or hear it. That ““deprave and corrupt”” test works by reference to the likely audience. In the context of possession there is no audience. Directly importing the deprave—