Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 15 December 2020
As a member of the Justice Committee, I record my particular thanks to the clerks for their tireless work on the scrutiny of the bill, which has been an effort by all. I also pay tribute to all committee members from all parties for the collaborative nature of the scrutiny.
There has been a lot of publicity about the bill, with the media saying that it is controversial, flawed or contentious. We have heard some of those words today. It is easy to get sucked into all that, but it is not what we found in the committee. Witnesses were generally supportive of the principles of the bill, although some had concerns that I will come to and which we have already heard about. Members worked together to improve the bill and our stage 1 report is a fair reflection of that process.
The main issue is that we all want to tackle the plague of hate crime in our country. It is real. We all know that and we in the committee and in Parliament have heard it many times. A few weeks ago, the cabinet secretary came to the cross-party group on racial equality, which I chair, to talk about the bill. Many of the organisations that support those who are affected by such crimes were positive about the principles of the bill and agreed to write to the Government to say that following the cabinet secretary’s presentation.
There is no committee member or party that is not committed to tackling hate crime. We worked from that platform. We want to work in a way that does not impinge on freedom of speech and the bill does that.
It is perhaps our first recommendation from the stage 1 report that best sums up the bill. Rona Mackay read it already but I will do so again because it is important:
“The committee agrees that the right to freedom of speech includes the right to offend, shock or disturb. The committee understands that this bill is not intended to prohibit speech which others may find offensive, and neither is it intended to lead to any self-censorship. The committee is anxious to ensure, however, that these are not unintended consequences of the bill.”
That final part, about unintended consequences, is important, because all parliamentarians have a duty to ensure that there are no such unintended consequences. Part of that involves helping the public to understand what the bill does and does not do.
That said, the committee has done its job. The evidence clearly led us to aspects of the bill that needed to be changed. The cabinet secretary has already spoken about those and about the amendments that he will lodge at stage 2. As others have said, he came to the committee early in the process. We heard significant concerns about the stirring up of hatred. Even if some of those were exaggerated, it is right to address that issue head on. Our report welcomes the cabinet secretary’s proposal that the bill be amended at stage 2 so that, with the exception of race, the stirring-up offences will apply only to intent.
We received a lot of evidence voicing concerns about section 4, which deals with offences that are committed as part of a public performance. It is right that the cabinet secretary has committed to removing that section from the bill.
We also heard a lot of concerns about section 5, which deals with offences of possessing inflammatory material. The committee’s report made suggestions about providing more clarity that might ease those anxieties. The cabinet secretary went further in his response and will be seeking to remove that section from the bill.
Those are all indicators of a Government working collaboratively to bring forward the best legislation possible.
I welcome the Government’s agreement to deepen the freedom of expression provision for religion and also welcome the cabinet secretary’s intentions, raised today, to lodge amendments at stage 2 that will add freedom of expression sections for the protected characteristics of transgender identity and age. Those are welcome additions to the bill.
Regarding the individual hate crime characteristics, I agree that race should be treated differently and that there should be an offence of stirring up racial hatred. The history and volume of such crimes point to the need for that outcome, which is also what the stakeholder groups would expect.
We heard strongly held views about whether sex should be included as a hate crime characteristic. Ruth Maguire summed that debate up well. Dr Marsha Scott of Scottish Women’s Aid worried that such a move
“might have unintended negative consequences”.
Engender agreed, commenting that
“rushing to legislate ... runs the risk of entrenching that misunderstanding further in criminal justice bodies and public understanding, and in women’s perception of what the state will or will not tolerate for them”.—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 24 November 2020; c 3, 5.]
However, there were strong arguments on the other side of the debate, including from Lucy Hunter Blackburn, who told us that
“it is really important that people see themselves in the bill. A group of people who cannot see themselves in the bill ... are those who are subjected to any kind of abusive behaviour or harassment ... based on their sex”.—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 17 November 2020; c 65.]
Ultimately, the committee unanimously came to the same place on the issue as the Scottish Government: that both cases were strong and that we need the working group that has been established to do its work and report back to Parliament on the issue. We suggested a timescale of a year for that, but I accept that that is ultimately for the group to decide.
This is a good bill. It will not solve every problem or do everything, but it has the potential to change lives and help tackle hate and prejudice. I hope that this debate has tackled some of the myths around the bill and demonstrated that the committee is working to improve it and make it as good a piece of legislation as possible. I am disappointed to hear—I heard it only today—that the Conservatives will not vote in favour of the bill’s general principles, but I will certainly do so and I encourage others to do so.
17:26