Racial and Religious Hatred Bill
10:30 am
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. O’Hara, and echo the Minister’s statement that we will enjoy sitting under your chairmanship. I also welcome the Minister to the Committee. We are indeed old sparring partners, but the sparring has always been enjoyable, and I have little doubt that this Committee will be as interesting. I also thank the Government for allocating enough time. This is the first Bill, under the new rules of programming, for which I am confident that we have allocated enough time. In fact, we probably have more time than we need, but that does not matter; if we finish early, so be it. The original proposal was for two sittings, which made me slightly anxious that we might not have enough time to scrutinise the Bill properly, but four sittings offer us ample opportunity to do our job.
I look forward to the debate. I agree entirely with the Minister that, whether we have doubts about the Bill or earnestly support it, we share the same objective; we all wish to see a peaceful society, in which discourse is conducted in moderate fashion, and people behave with moderation. However, the question is whether the Bill will achieve its intended effect, and we have some serious reservations about that. I hope that the amendments that have been tabled—doubtless a few more will be tabled during our debates—will provide an opportunity for examining the Bill carefully, for looking at available options for improving and altering it, and for teasing out the actual effect of the detailed words, which is not always understood.