Racial and Religious Hatred Bill
10:30 am
Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
I beg to move,
That the Bill be considered in the following order, namely, Clause 1, the Schedule, Clause 2, new Clauses and new Schedules, remaining proceedings on the Bill.
May I say how good it is to see you in the Chair, Mr. O’Hara? You chaired the first Committee that I sat on back in 1997; that was a pleasant experience. I know that later in our proceedings we may be joined by Mr. Amess, and we look forward to that too.
The hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and I could describe ourselves as old sparring partners now. We have been at this for more than two years. Although we have often had to agree to disagree, we have always done so in a sensible and constructive spirit. I expect that to continue. This is the first time that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) and I have been in our corresponding roles. I look forward to his contribution and that of other hon. Members. It is interesting that although this is the third time that the Government have proposed these measures, almost half the members of the Committee are new Members of Parliament. That will add to our discussions.
May I offer an apology to hon. Members, in particular to the hon. Members for Beaconsfield and for Shipley (Philip Davies)? During my closing remarks on Second Reading, they both asked me to give way—the hon. Member for Shipley did so repeatedly—but the circumstances did not allow it. My normal custom is to give way at each and every opportunity, and I assure hon. Members that that will be the case in Committee. Whenever they ask me to give way or to clarify something I shall be happy to do so.
This is a two-clause, one-schedule Bill. It is tightly focused, and I am sure that our debates, which will be lively and interesting, will also be tightly focused under your chairmanship, Mr O’Hara. Already many amendments have been tabled. It is our job as a Committee to ensure that we fully scrutinise the Government’s proposals and the amendments. I have made it clear that my motivation in proposing this measure is my belief that it is the right thing to do. It removes an anomaly in the law whereby certain religious groups—Jews and Sikhs—are protected by race hate legislation, but other religious groups are not. In seeking to close the law we are responding to the urgings both of faith leaders across the spectrum and the police.
I reiterate the point that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I made on Second Reading: we are prepared to engage and we are prepared to listen. Obviously, we would be foolish if we did not consider any sensible proposals that could improve the Bill. There are many issues to be debated. They will doubtless include what we mean by “religious belief” and “hatred”, and whether the use of religious language or symbols can be taken as a proxy for race. There will no doubt be discussions about the so-called likely limb and some of the changes that we are proposing there, and the circumstances in which an offence may occur. All the amendments, taken together, will take us right across the full range of the Bill.
I am pleased that we have reached a sensible agreement about the number of sittings that we will need. In view of the earlier remarks of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield, I think that we will be comfortably able to do our job properly within the time that has been allocated.
I conclude by saying that my motive in introducing the Bill is to deal with that small minority of people who currently seek to stir up hatred against people on the grounds of their religious belief. We are dealing with an anomaly in the law and closing a gap in the law. Some members of the Committee will take a different view of the proposed changes in the law. I know that despite our disagreements, those hon. Members share my commitment to tackling racial discrimination and race hatred in our society. We will be debating the means by which we do that and the measures that we propose. I do not in any way suggest, and never will in these debates, that hon. Members on either side of the Committee have a motive other than tackling religious and race discrimination; that is a common bond between us. However, we will debate and disagree about the manner in which we propose to tackle it.