Victory for Free Speech

On Monday 9 November, the Commons voted to overturn the Lords’ amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill to protect free speech. However on Wednesday evening of the same week, the Lords rejected the Commons’ amendment by 179 to 135 votes. The following morning (11 November)  the Government accepted the Lords' position. Consequently, the free speech clause remains secure. The attempt to remove it through the Coroners and Justice Bill has thus failed.

In April 2008 the Lords backed a free speech amendment proposed by Lord Waddington in relation to a new offence of inciting hatred on the basis of sexual orientation.

CARE has always said that rap lyrics inciting hatred and violence against gay people are completely unacceptable.  CARE accepted the creation of the new offence of inciting hatred against people on the basis of sexual orientation. However, it has been deeply concerned that, without a free speech clause on the face of the Bill, the new legislation would result in Christians regularly being subjected to police investigation on the basis of suggestions that their expression of orthodox views about sexuality had the effect of inciting hatred.   (CARE has pointed out that problematic rap lyric could be addressed by other existing legislation.)

The free speech provision was carefully worded so that (as the Government acknowledged) it would not water down the offence in any way, but make it plain on the face of the Bill that people objecting to same sex sexual practice – possibly because of their faith – would not be deemed to be inciting hatred.

This was, and continues to be, a crucial provision. There is already a growing number of Christians being questioned by the police for expressing orthodox views about sexual practice, on the grounds they may have committed ‘hate crimes'.  This is without the new offence of inciting hatred on the basis of sexual orientation (which still has not taken effect).

The Government, however, ignored this concern and inserted a clause into the Coroners and Justice Bill deleting the free speech provision. Thanks to the Lords vote, though, the clause deleting the free speech provision will not be part of the Coroners and Justice Act.

After the result, CARE's Director of Parliamentary Affairs Dan Boucher, commented, ‘This is a great day for free speech and religious liberty in the UK. Lord Waddington has done a tremendous job standing up for civil liberties. We are greatly indebted to him. We are also very much indebted to the Christian Institute which led on this issue. It is, as ever, a great pleasure to work closely with them.’