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Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I rise to plead with your Lordships’ House to reject the amendment and agree with the House of Commons. I do so because it is important for us to recognise the signal that legislation sometimes sends to the world outside. The problem is that we are faced with a clash of competing profound values. No one could possibly argue against the principle of free speech and the need of this House and this Parliament to uphold free speech. I happen to be gay. I happen also to be a Christian. I like to believe that I am robust enough to be able to be criticised and have offensive things sometimes said to me because of my sexual orientation and sometimes to be abused because of my sexual orientation. Many other lesbians and gay men face the same sort of offence and difficulty week in, week out. The freedom of people to express criticism is something that I defend to the hilt. However, we also know that the level of violence against lesbians and gay men because of their sexual orientation is increasing. Very recently, we had the case of someone who was first shouted at, then abused and then assaulted in the heart of our capital city; he subsequently died. The attack happened because of his sexual orientation. We can support the expression of intolerance, but the problem comes when intolerance spills over into physical violence. I am not suggesting that anyone who says that we should protect free speech in relation to this amendment would conceivably condone activity of that kind, but the problem is—