Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:09 pm on 14 March 2005.

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Photo of Baroness D'Souza Baroness D'Souza Crossbench 5:09, 14 March 2005

My Lords, I, too, want to speak briefly about the amendments set out in Schedule 10. Words are powerful; they cause injury, often as hurtful as physical attack. Equally, they form the best defence against ignorance, bigotry and intolerance. In those countries where hate speech laws, whether directed at religious or racist hate speech, prevail, the underlying conditions of discrimination and hatred do not seem to have improved.

The noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, has, with his customary clarity, exposed the confusions in the Bill as it stands, in particular pointing out the anomalies in the current blasphemy laws. I should like to refer briefly to the wider experience of such laws and the real dangers to freedom of expression that they pose.

Schedule 10 rests on at least three assumptions: that offence and even insult are measurable forms of expression; that the suppression of ideas and communication, however outlandish and/or unacceptable to others, will make for greater peace and harmony—in other words, that laws alone will make for a more gentle and humane society—and that broadly defined laws will not adversely affect the expression of difficult and controversial views inherent in democratic society. I believe those assumptions to be wrong. Offence and feelings of insult are subjective states of mind and feeling. What is offensive to me may not be at all offensive to you, so why should I be able to prevent you from seeing or hearing what is not offensive to you?

Of course, there are conditions to that kind of freedom, the most important being that we are able to avoid offence. That introduces the whole question of context. We must be free not to see the play or film, not to buy or read the book or not to turn on or hear the broadcast. If we are unable to avoid seeing, hearing or reading insulting material, as has already been pointed out by several speakers, existing laws on the statute book, such as the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and the 1986 Act, provide protection.

There is no attempt to define religion precisely, but, instead to regard a group sharing common beliefs to be legitimate targets of insult. There is here the opportunity for mischievous cases to be brought and for some disreputable cult groups to claim the status of religion and for extreme factions to speak in its name. The phrase in the Bill,

"material . . is likely to be heard or seen by any person in whom . . . it is . . . likely to stir up racial or religious hatred", is chilling. For example, who is qualified to define culturally sensitive notions of threat, abuse or insult? When does dislike or antipathy become hatred, and who defines that turning point?

Unwitting denigration of a particular religious belief or practice on, let us say, a public broadcast system, could well fall foul of the law. The lack of clarity will undoubtedly increase self-censorship, which is already practised by journalists and in the arts.

Although the Home Office Minister, Fiona Mactaggart, considers it unlikely that many prosecutions would occur, that is not good enough. We cannot rely on the view of one Minister in a letter to safeguard fundamental freedoms. Broadly defined and restrictive laws, once on the statute book, have a tendency to be used by authority to maintain power, to stifle criticism and to dampen undercurrents of discontent. An exhaustive study, admittedly carried out in the 1990s, demonstrated how hate speech laws, where enacted, have had a chilling effect on freedom of expression and, even more seriously, have in some cases been a barrier to public debate on how best to resolve tensions within society.

For example, hate speech laws in Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands are based on the premise that human dignity, quite apart from any question of safeguarding public order, must be protected. It cannot be argued that those laws have resulted in a decrease in insult directed towards Jews, Muslims, Turkish workers, immigrants from the Maghreb and the rest of Africa or other minorities. In fact, there has been a growth in support for extreme Right-wing parties in those countries. In France, it has been suggested that Monsieur Le Pen, who was convicted of hate speech under the 1972 Act, was forced to temper his message. Recruitment to his party increased significantly in subsequent years—some say because he was prevented from preaching his real aims and policies and came across as less extreme than he actually was and is.

Also, in Schedule 10, there is an unhelpful blurring of the distinction between advocacy and incitement. The latter is generally taken to imply both the intention and means to commit a criminal act such as race hatred. Advocacy, on the other hand, is a tool for persuading others—even with the use of hostile language—of a cause, religious or ethnic, and as such is a vital aspect of free speech.

A society that has a more civil tone to its discourse is pleasant and welcome, but some of the issues in society are unpleasant and difficult. We cannot afford to ignore those tensions. I shall cite a distinguished Sri Lankan lawyer, whose country has been torn by racist violence for decades, but who still argues:

"Dissent and indeed hate will eventually be expressed; sadly in Sri Lanka, we have witnessed far too much evidence that censoring hate from public discourse only banishes it to more deadly fora".

Liberty is better protected by less legislation. A focus on laws to curtail expression surely distracts attention from the vital need to invest in education and debate to address the root causes of religious discrimination. In my view, the Bill should proceed without the existing Schedule 10 which, if it ever reached the statute book, would constitute a serious hostage to fortune for many years to come.