Orders of the Day — Obscene Publications Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 11:01 am on 3 April 1987.

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Photo of Mr Ian Mikardo Mr Ian Mikardo , Bow and Poplar 11:01, 3 April 1987

The hon. Gentleman may be right, but he is only guessing. Of course there have been substantial changes in the guidelines, but the hon. Gentleman has no method of knowing—nor have I and nor has anybody else, except those who wrote the guidelines—to what extent those changes have been made as a result of the debate, in which the hon. Gentleman and I participated, on the previous obscene publications Bill. There is no effect that can be proven.

Secondly, the term "grossly offensive" is vague, indeterminate and subjective. It will be applied inconsistently according to the robustness of outlook of justices and juries in different courts in different parts of the country, or even in the same court. It involves subjective judgment. I have:t in mind that only two days ago the House rejected, in the context of the word "evil", the idea of basing the law upon a subjective judgment on a word the definition of which was inevitably imprecise. Today we should not try to do something that the House said it did not want to do the other day.