Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

I happen to be one of those on these Benches who have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I feel extremely sympathetic to the Bill. However, realising that the Bill contains deep ambiguities, I am also sympathetic to the amendment tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Wirral and Lord Lester of Herne Hill. I support the Bill for a variety of reasons. People have talked freely about the Australian legislation; they tend to forget that India has had similar legislation, which has been fairly successful in spite of occasional hiccups. I also recall that a similar debate took place in 1976 or thereabouts, when we were discussing the Race Relations Act and whether there should be incitement to racial hatred. The same kinds of arguments, about the chilling effect and so on were made. Happily, we know that those arguments have turned out to be wrong. I also welcome the Bill for the simple reason that we cannot have a society in which people are at liberty to provoke or incite hatred against a group of their fellow citizens, especially those who are weak, marginal and vulnerable. We simply cannot sustain a spirit of common belonging if incitement to hatred is a common practice. Although not a lawyer myself—I am certainly open to criticism and direction here—I also support the Bill because I have often thought that it all depends on how ““intention”” is meant. In matters as important as inciting hatred of one kind or another, intention, in the sense of deliberately wanting to do something, is not crucial. If, for example, I were to shout ““Fire!”” in a theatre, as a result of which a few people died, it would be no defence on my part to say that I did not intend that. I can think of countless situations where I might do something without intending its consequences, and yet the consequences might materialise. If they were so significant as to involve life and liberty, I might rightly be held culpable. I should have thought that if ““intention””—I do not know how the lawyers use the term; I speak as a philosopher for a minute—is understood in the sense of deliberately wanting something to happen, then, of course, it is not crucial. It is enough if I could have anticipated the consequences of my action, or if it is something that I could have foreseen with reasonable care. For those and other reasons, I am prepared to support the Bill. However, I have two reservations. First—I understand that this is against the advice given to the Government by people whom they consulted—the term ““religious hatred”” is deeply ambiguous. It is unlike the term ““racial hatred””, which simply means inciting hatred of a particular racial group. By contrast, ““religious hatred”” will mean inciting hatred of a body of beliefs, a religion, or of a religious group. Given the ambiguity of the term ““religious hatred””, which makes it asymmetrical with racial hatred, I wish that the Bill had not used it. It should have been called ““hatred of a religious group””. There is also the danger, given that so many able lawyers disagree, that there is a deep ambiguity in the Bill and that those who are in charge of implementing it are likely to be confused—as are those who are likely to be affected by it—about what is forbidden and what is not. Given that, I very much hope that we will give a fair wind to the amendments, because they are not wrecking amendments. They are designed to clarify and, in places, to rectify some of the ambiguities and puzzles of the Bill.