Schedule - Hatred against persons on racial or religious grounds
Racial and Religious Hatred Bill
4:30 pm
Dominic Grieve (Shadow Attorney General, (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Beaconsfield, Conservative)
I concede at the outset that these are probing amendments. I am unlikely to press any to a vote. Indeed, it would be rash of me to attempt to do so. Each one will, I hope, highlight areas that I urge the Committee to consider carefully. If I may, I will take the Committee briefly through what each amendment is designed to highlight. I should then like to develop my arguments more generally; hopefully, there will then be an opportunity for the Committee to discuss some of the issues.
Amendment No. 3 seeks to delete the reference in the meaning of religious hatred to
“hatred against a group of persons”.
When we are talking of a racial group most people would acknowledge that it would be rather unusual to have a single person constituting a race. I want to raise the question of whether that same issue applies to religion. We know that religion, in so far as we have definitions in charity law, is defined as recognition of a deity and organised worship of the deity. That is about the best definition that has ever been supplied. Certainly it does not appear to be an activity that requires a group to carry it out.
Recently a Satanist in the Royal Navy was authorised to use a cupboard on board one of the frigates to store his religious paraphernalia and conduct his worship in solitary form. He was clearly worshiping a deity. Indeed, the Royal Navy, presumably applying as best it could the provisions of the Human Rights Act 1998 and after scrutiny by the captain and chaplain of the vessel concerned, decided that this Satanist, who believed in such things as vengeance as a legitimate part of religion, should be allowed to carry out his worship.
In seriousness, I ask whether it is right simply to convert the concept of a racial group into the concept of a religious group, or whether we are, as a result of doing that, denying the protection of the Bill to people who may have individual religious beliefs that they practise routinely as part of worship. That is not merely a fanciful consideration. The evidence is pretty overwhelming that the degree of pluralism that exists now in British society means that people may believe in all sorts of things and have wholly individual beliefs that might not be shared by others. Nevertheless, does that constitute a religion? I should be grateful to hear from the Minister the Government’s view and that of their legal advisers. If we continue to use the word “group” in a religious context, we may be excluding certain people.
The next few amendment seek to play around with the issue of what constitutes a religious belief. The origin of my concern is the explanatory notes on the Bill, which make it clear from the use of the words
“religious belief or lack of religious belief”
that the Government intend the Bill to cover not only people who incite others to hatred against people with other religious views, and therefore a belief in another deity, but those who incite others to hatred of groups that essentially have no religious belief. What does that mean, to have no religious belief? It is an important question that the Committee must consider. Are we talking about incitement against secularists, atheists or agnostics, or about incitement to hatred of individuals who hold views that are incompatible with the religious belief of the group that is being incited to hatred?
I give the Minister an example: the case of Hammond. Mr. Hammond was prosecuted under the Public Order Act 1986 because he put up a banner saying, “Stop immorality. Stop homosexuals. Stop lesbianism. Jesus Christ is Lord”. The basis of the prosecution under the provisions of the Act was that Mr. Hammond was liable to insult people in the street who might presumably be of a homosexual or lesbian orientation. But when the law has been changed as the Government intend, it would be possible for the expressions “stop homosexuals” and “stop lesbians” to be caught by the provisions of incitement to religious hatred if—it is the “if” to which I want an answer from the Minister—the lack of religious belief is the fact that someone who is of a homosexual orientation and believes it is appropriate to engage in homosexual activity is doing something that is contrary to the tenets of the religious faith of the people who are being incited. That is no light issue.
The Bill as drafted is sufficiently loose to encompass any viewpoint that might be incompatible with the religious views of a religious group that is being incited to hatred. For example, it is said that people of some religions do not believe in democracy, so if one is promoting or criticising that group for not believing in democracy, it could be an incitement to hatred against that group.
Even leaving aside the wider issues—I am trying to narrow them down as much as possible—about what a lack of religious belief means, are we talking about criticising people for not believing in God, or are we opening the avenue to prosecution because a group of people who do believe in God are being incited to hatred of people whose views are incompatible with belief in the God whom that group happen to believe in?
I hope that the Minister will tell the Committee whether the Government have focused on this matter, because from reading the Bill and the explanatory notes about what is intended it seems to me that the lack of religious belief could be construed as simply being any belief that is incompatible with religious belief.