Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 September 2020
The debate is on a motion that opens by acknowledging that we, as a Parliament, must address the pernicious and vile hate crimes that remain all too prevalent, and which closes by proposing one possible solution that seeks to ensure that Parliament can pass robust and unambiguous law that will achieve what we all want it to achieve without serious unintended consequences.
The Government finds itself in something of an invidious position, having proposed a bill and—no doubt in good faith—having sent it out for consultation with a view to improving and amending it before introducing an effective and clear proscription on hate crime. The bill has been proposed by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, whom I believe when he says that he understands the lived experience of hate crime, and that he has a deep desire to change that. I know that he wants to get this right, as we all do.
Around 2,000 people have responded to the consultation. That is the highest number of responses in this session of the Scottish Parliament. Although not all the responses have been published yet, it is clear that a significant number of them have raised serious concerns about the stirring-up offences and the potential chilling effect on freedom of speech—but not about those exclusively. There are concerns about other aspects of the bill, some of which I will flag up shortly. Those concerns are all equally deserving of being aired, scrutinised and interrogated, if we are to make good law that will protect those who are impacted on by hate crime.
In late October, the Justice Committee will commence taking evidence from witnesses on their views of the bill, with members seeking to inform themselves on the key issues and likely amendments. It is intended that the committee will have interrogated all the points and issues that are raised in order to bring us to stage 1 by late December. That is an extraordinary timetable for a bill that has produced an unprecedented number of responses.
As Fergus Ewing just said in the previous item of business, we are in the middle of a pandemic. Faced with the biggest crisis since the war, the Scottish Parliament is making unprecedented decisions daily, and we do not know how the pandemic will impact on our operations over the next four months.