My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, her noble friend Lord Polak, my noble friend Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. I want to focus on the amendment, not on a wide-ranging debate about everything that is wrong in relation to sex and gender or discourse in society.
I want to congratulate the noble Baroness because it is a simple and focused amendment. The word “misogyny” does not even appear in it. It is not thought crime. It is
not even a speech offence. It follows a well-trodden path of adding protected characteristics or certain characteristics to a list. Hostility towards people with these characteristics will be an aggravating factor in a crime that already exists and has already been proven or admitted beyond reasonable doubt in a court. I say to noble Lords who are worried that I will come back to their fears and try to assuage them.
It seems totally unconscionable to me that, for example, race and religion have been aggravating factors in the code for so long but not hostility towards women. Hence, in the waiting millennia—certainly decades—since the code, these factors have been added. Some people will say that we never needed to add aggravating factors at all, and we could always trust the courts to get it right. Whether that is true or not—and I am not sure it is—we have a well-trodden system, and it is unconscionable, particularly at this moment when women and girls are feeling the way they are, that we should say we must wait because it is all very complex. If it is not complex in relation to race, religion and sexuality, it is not complicated in relation to sex. These are people who have already committed a criminal offence.
Why add aggravation at all? If somebody gets drunk on a Friday night and gets into fights with people they come across, that is bad enough. But if they go out after a few drinks on a Friday night to single out a particular group or a particular type of person based on their race or religion, or go out beating up women, that is an additional public policy problem, and that is why aggravation in relation to the group is a matter for this Committee and for policymakers.
Midnight
I want to address the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, about sex in general. I have always understood sex and gender to be different things. I was brought up to believe that sex is more biological and gender is more the construct, but this debate will rage on. Noble Lords should remember, however, that this amendment is dealing with offences that have already taken place, and certain people have been targeted for these offences. With respect, therefore, we are not talking about other areas of public service provision: we are talking about offences that might be violent or sexual, but they are offences that have taken place.
I do not know what the approach of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is, for example, to people who call themselves non-binary. I do not need to know. I am sure that she would agree that if people declared themselves to be that way, and people beat them up for that reason, that would be a problem. We do not want to live in a society where certain people are singled out for violence. That should be an aggravating factor. I am minded, perhaps, to say that it should be possible to be open-ended about these things, but we have not got to that place. Perhaps the Law Commission will in due course, but we are where we are today, and the fastest way to remedy this terrible injustice to women is to add sex and gender immediately and then wait for the Law Commission’s report.
If the promoters of Amendment 219A think that there may be other groups that need to be added and should not be left out, they can promote their amendment in addition to the one tabled by the noble Baroness,
Lady Newlove. They certainly cannot suggest that it is an alternative, because sometimes the law needs to send a signal as well as work. This Bill is before us and we do not know when another one will come our way. We do not know when the Law Commission will report; we do not know what the reception to that report will be; we certainly do not know whether another Bill will come our way. How can we possibly, in good conscience, leave a status quo where an assault aggravated by race is covered, but an assault aggravated by the offender targeting a woman is not covered? I certainly cannot find that in my heart or in my conscience.