Police and Justice Bill

This may be a probing amendment, but it is none the worse for that. I was certainly glad to see it on the Marshalled List because, during my Second Reading speech, I had a few words to say about the Police Standards Unit. We are entitled to know a little more about what it is up to. I gather that it produced the booklet Hate Crime: Delivering a Quality Service. I would quite like to have a better idea about what that booklet says. Does the Home Office generally and the Police Standards Unit in particular accept any responsibility for the series of ridiculous investigations following complaints about allegedly homophobic and racist language? Members of my party are not the only ones to be concerned about too much attention being paid to politically correct causes. I direct the Minister to an article in the Guardian on 18 January by Jonathan Freedland. He suggested that some police officers do not seem to recognise the difference between a hate crime—a conventional offence of violence but one in which the violence is motivated by bigotry—and an incident in which language has been used which has been viewed by some people as racist or homophobic.  Of course, there is all the difference in the world. Is the Home Office encouraging the police in this area? Does this error arise from bad advice given by the Police Standards Unit in the booklet to which I have referred? If it does not arise as a result of bad advice emanating from the Home Office, will the Government please explain and justify not only one or two cases where the police seem to have wasted their time on completely frivolous investigations, but a whole course of conduct which seems to extend to police forces all over the country? I remind the Minister that we have every right to be concerned about the questioning of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester after he made perfectly reasonable comments on the Church’s teaching regarding homosexual acts. We are entitled to hear how it came about that Anne Robinson was questioned about allegedly anti-Welsh remarks as if she were about to commit some dreadful racist crime and start killing people because she had anti-Welsh motives in her makeup. We are entitled to ask how it came about that a respectable person such as Lynette Burrows was questioned by the police as if she were a common criminal after her comments on gay adoption on BBC Radio Five Live. We are entitled to ask how it came about that Sir Iqbal Sacranie, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, was investigated by the police after he had told the ““Today”” programme that homosexuality was not acceptable and should be viewed as a medical problem. Why was he treated like a common criminal about to use violence against people because he did not like their sexual orientation? It is almost too crazy to believe that it could have happened in this country. What about the journeying of officers from North Wales to investigate whether Lance Price had witnessed a hate crime committed by the Prime Minister as if the Prime Minister himself, shouting at the TV screen at the time of the Welsh Assembly elections, was a threat to public order? It is almost too crazy to believe that any chief officer of police would have directed officers to come down from Wales to carry out an investigation into the conduct of the Prime Minister. How has it happened? Is this the result of bad advice from the Home Office? If it is not as a result of that, how is it happening? Has the Police Standards Unit anything to account for in its behaviour? Then there was the gay horse incident at Oxford, when an undergraduate who said to a police officer, ““Do you realise your horse is gay?””, found himself arrested under Section 5 of the Public Order Act for making homophobic remarks and spent the night in the cells. We can smile at that and think that it is funny, but any police officer who has learnt anything about the law must have known that that undergraduate had not committed any offence at all. He was not threatening people with violence; all that he was doing was making what they took to be a tasteless remark about homosexuality. Lastly there was the case of the couple in Fleetwood who put in a call to the Wyre Borough Council to ask if they could display evangelical Christian literature in council buildings to counteract what they regarded as an abundance of gay rights material. They finished up being investigated by the police. When you look at all those incidents together and add up the police time wasted, you really are forced to the conclusion that chief officers of police throughout the land seem to have got completely the wrong end of the stick with hate crimes. Why have they got the wrong end of the stick? You have all these units in the Home Office that are supposed to be advising them which is the right end of the stick, yet they get the wrong end of the stick. I suggest that it is about time we looked at what sort of advice is coming out of the Home Office and the Police Standards Unit. It is clearly an insult to the public that time should be spent on these matters when some forces are saying that they have no time to investigate shoplifting. It really is an insult to the public when one reads of the police in Hull screening out theft, criminal damage, common assault, harassment and non-domestic burglary because they have to meet Home Office targets. The question is, when behaving in this ridiculous fashion, were the police trying to implement what they thought were government policies and priorities? Were they following advice given by the Police Standards Unit in its booklet Hate Crime: Delivering a Quality Service? If so, the sooner that the unit is dissolved the better. Perhaps in her closing remarks the Minister will say whether I have got the wrong end of the stick or the police have got the wrong end of the stick and what the explanation is for these bizarre investigations and the complete waste of police time involved.