30 October 2005

Religious hatred bill may be amended helpfully?

It's begun to look like the House of Lord's is protecting freedom of speech and managing to erode the most vicious elements of the proposed bill on religious hatred.
"Lord Hunt, opening the debate during the Bill’s committee stage, said: “You cannot promote tolerance by limiting freedom of expression. Tolerance and freedom of expression buttress one another. They are inseparable siblings. This Bill just goes too far, far too far.”
Lord Lester accused the Government of trying to introduce sweeping new speech crimes to deal with what ministers admitted was a minute gap in existing public order powers. He claimed ministers were “playing politics with religion” and using the Bill to try to persuade Muslims to vote Labour."
Let's hope their Lordships can do likewise in the ID card bill, it looks like they may have the will to. God protect us from bad law.
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