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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

It is a privilege to listen to and follow the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), who speaks so clearly. I do not necessarily agree with everything that she said, but as I shall go on to say, there are some real issues of freedom of expression that we need to deal with. I declare an interest as the president of the Liberal Democrat campaign for lesbian and gay rights, but I have to balance that role against my well-established stance on seeking freedom of expression. The balance of this legislation is important to someone such as me and to those whom I seek to represent. I am glad that there is an increasing stirring on the Conservative Benches from Members who are concerned about freedom of expression. May I suggest that it would be more consistent and coherent if that concern extended to the issue of consenting adults viewing films and reading literature that those Members might consider to be offensive, and which others might consider to be pornographic? Conservative concerns about freedom of expression often do not extend to all free expression, and are sometimes quite censorious. Provisions on incitement to hatred need a rational framework, and we are slowly but surely getting there. Our laws on incitement to racial hatred have a very low threshold, in that there is no requirement to intend to stir up hatred and the language can be threatening, abusive or insulting. That is a long-standing provision, and I do not propose that it should be changed. However, it is a low threshold. At the other end of the spectrum, we need a high threshold to capture cases involving the criticism of people's opinions, whether they be political or aesthetic; I include in that religious opinions, even though they are often felt more strongly. That is why the House got things absolutely right with the narrow offence for incitement to religious hatred, which required an intention to incite hatred and was restricted to threatening language. Given that opinion is not innate and given that the Government were not offering any concessions on the matter, it was appropriate to have a freedom of speech saver clause, which hon. Members will remember debating and which is now on the statute book. I am pleased that there has been no plan to repeal that clause. Sexual orientation falls somewhere in between those two ends of the spectrum. It is towards the racial hatred end, in terms of requiring protection, because it is innate and part of a shared or common humanity; it is not something that one can alter or choose. However, it perhaps requires less protection because there is a great deal of sincerely held, often religious, opinion that extends to sexual orientation that does not—generally speaking, in this country, thank goodness—extend to race. I find homophobia just as offensive as racism, but there are people who sincerely hold such views but do not intend to stir up hatred against individuals. The threshold for offences in relation to sexual orientation therefore needs to be middle-ranking. When, on Second Reading—a long time and many clauses, new clauses and extra parts and schedules ago—I invited the Secretary of State to place the threshold close to that for incitement to religious hatred, but without the freedom of speech saver, he got it absolutely right. The Government have since then, broadly, got it right in choosing to stick with that, because the provisions in the Bill, without the Lords amendments, would exempt most religious language. That is a fact. As has been said, even the most ardent pastor who is strongly against homosexual behaviour does not intend to stir up hatred against people. That is obvious, and now that the Minister has offered guidance, it will be obvious from the guidance. On many occasions, such language will not be threatening, but fire and brimstone language can be threatening. That is why the word ““threatening”” alone is not sufficient to ensure that the threshold is high enough. I hope that the Government will succeed in persuading others, as they have persuaded me—or I persuaded them; whichever way around it was—that the combination I mentioned is exactly right. I have two concerns about scope of the Bill, the first of which concerns the Government's failure to cover in the Bill what is known as transphobic hatred, because the bigots out there who do intend to stir up hatred using threatening language against gay people do not make a distinction between people with transgender or homosexual tendencies, so the mischief could exist in both those regards. The same protection should be given in both such cases, and I regret the fact the Government have not taken the opportunity to do that. Secondly, I regret the fact that the Government's formulation does not seem to cover what I believe to be the real mischief—the liability of organisations such as the British National party to seek to equate all homosexuals, or particular homosexuals or a particular gay club, with paedophilia. I can think of nothing more inciting to, or more designed to incite, racial hatred than making that analogy, but it may not be done in threatening terms. Stonewall told me that the Government would argue in another place that that issue was covered by the existing provisions, but the Minister in the House of Lords specified that it was not. It is therefore an omission. That is a matter for regret. I do not want us to have restrictive measures, but if anything is going to cause problems, it will be in that area. That will not necessarily come from religious voices; indeed, it is far more likely to come from the odious religious right. I do not share the concerns of the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald regarding the sexual orientation regulations, as a series of measures. They are a series of progressive measures that give rights to people to escape discrimination. There is clearly an implication that people who run commercial businesses are not allowed to discriminate. I do not want to go too far into this area, and I urge the right hon. Lady not to either, but I do not accept that either those measures, or the measure that we are debating, are anything other than progressive measures that should be welcomed.