Meeting of the Parliament 26 January 2017
I welcome the review and in particular the commitment that it will include consideration of a consolidated hate crime act, which I have thought was worth considering since Parliament passed my own member’s bill, which became the 2009 act.
However, I wish to ask about the comments by the minister that prior to the introduction of the 2012 act, there was no specific offence in Scots law criminalising threats made with the intent of inciting religious hatred. The minister describes that as an obvious gap. Is it not more accurate to say that it was a choice that Parliament consistently made by consensus that aggravation of existing offences was the way to go rather than the introduction of piecemeal incitement legislation? Can the minister confirm that the review group will not be given any preset assumptions or preconditions about the role that the Government expects incitement to hatred legislation to play in future?