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Electronic Commerce Directive (Hatred against Persons on Religious Grounds or the Grounds of Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2010

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the draft statutory instrument, which he described as a technical measure. I have to say that it is a very technical measure, which I had considerable problems trying to understand as I travelled down on the train this morning. I was of the view that this might be legislation by obfuscation, in that I found it difficult to understand what on earth it was getting at. I was grateful for the Explanatory Memorandum, which at least had—as always—something about what was being done and why, under paragraph 7 on the policy background. Even then I was still somewhat confused, and I have only one or two questions to put to the noble Lord. First, I noted the title, but could not work out why race and sex—for example—were not included in the list of things that discrimination might be applied to. They might be covered by other regulations that I have had the privilege of listening to the Minister describe on an earlier occasion. My next point—again it is very minor, but perhaps the noble Lord will be able to help me—is that the Explanatory Note to the regulations explains, in the last paragraph, that a transposition note has been prepared. I understand that I can get that from the Criminal Law Policy Unit at the Ministry of Justice. No doubt I ought to have got hold of it before this debate. Perhaps the noble Lord can tell me what is in the transposition note, and in the regulatory impact assessment that was prepared by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. No doubt the noble Lord referred to that in his opening speech, but I missed it. I would be grateful for an assurance from him that there is no major regulatory impact, which is why the assessment was made. I have no further points to make on the regulations.