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Queen’s Speech Debate – Home Affairs

Mr. Frank Dobson: I should like to start by saying how much I welcome the Government's proposal to take extra measures to protect medical researchers, including many in my constituency, against the unacceptable activities of some animal rights extremists.

I also welcome the Government's intention to reintroduce the proposal to create a specific offence of incitement to religious hatred, which fell in the House of Lords. As a person of no religious belief, I do believe that no one should be discriminated against or become the object of hatred because of their religious belief. Plenty of people have suffered in the past, and these days it tends to be Muslims who are suffering. We have already outlawed religious discrimination in employment, which is a step forward, and we are now proposing to provide the same protection with regard to incitement to hatred, which has been happening.

I hope that we can go further on just two points. In the proposition that was advanced previously, but rejected by the House of Lords, people were also to be protected against incitement to hatred as a result of their not having any religious beliefs. I hope that that will continue to apply. I should also like the Government to take this opportunity to abolish the ridiculous common-law offence of blasphemy. It is absurd to provide any such special protection for any religion, but as the existing law protects only the Church of England, it is even more ridiculous. A law that was established at York assizes in 1836—the last time the measure was really determined—is not fit for the 21st century.

Mr. Grieve: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the blasphemy law, but there seems to be a contradiction in his argument. He thinks that religion should not be protected by blasphemy law, especially as the law applies to only one faith, but he also wants an offence of incitement to religious hatred that will do precisely that for all religions. Is there not a contradiction in his position?

Mr. Dobson: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is so dim that he cannot distinguish between somebody expressing dislike of a religious belief or even ridiculing it and incitement to hatred against people because of their religious beliefs. He should be able to spot the difference, even if he is a Tory.

Turning to more general matters, we must all recognise that laws need updating to keep abreast of changes in society. The new factor that we have to face up to is the existence of the suicide bomber; a person who is willing to sacrifice their own life while taking the lives of others. Our criminal justice system has never had to contemplate how to deal with such people. Unlike people who might be described as conventional terrorists, suicide bombers are not deterred by the threat of detention and punishment after the event, which does not offer any protection to a potential victim either. Anticipation and prevention are what is required.

That is why I was happy to support the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, which permits the detention of non-British subjects without trial if they come from countries to which our returning them would break our obligations under international law. That was a stop-gap measure, however, and I believe that the gap has been stopped, although at some cost. It has damaged our international reputation as a country with an open society with the rule of law and the right to a trial.

I urge my hon. and right hon. Friends not to await the outcome of the court decisions on the Belmarsh detainees; win, lose or draw, I think that there are better ways of achieving what they want than detention without trial. I believe that it would be possible to adopt measures that protect the people of this country, which is paramount, but which at the same time do not bring our system into international disrepute. I think that the proposals of the Joint Committee on Human Rights would go a long way towards achieving what we want. For example, there should be changes in criminal procedures to permit for the first time the use of intercepted phone-tap evidence. Personally, I have never understood why such evidence is not used. If it is possible to open envelopes and look at people's letters, I do not see any difference in principle.

At the same time, we would need some fairly savage penalties for anyone on the side of authority who was using what we might call electronic wizardry to falsify any such information. We need to ensure that there is not a lot of over-enthusiasm. None the less, it would be possible to let people out of Belmarsh or wherever, subject to the restriction orders that the Joint Committee proposed, with extremely intensive surveillance and electronic monitoring. The security services might welcome such action, as it would give them the opportunity to maintain surveillance and perhaps catch people who try to get in touch with those who have been let out.

We must always bear in mind that we need to protect the people who are here in this country, but we must also remember that the objectives of terrorists in modern times have not been the overthrow of Governments. No established democracy has ever been overthrown by terrorists, whose object is to get us to bring our own sacred institutions into disrepute and to damage us in international affairs. They want us to cease to be an open society and to practise the rule of law, and to abandon our commitment against arbitrary action against individuals. They love it when we have to put up with the trappings and inconvenience of enhanced security measures. They want us to abandon tolerance of diversity and freedom of expression, and they are delighted if we inhibit the right to trial and, more particularly, the right to trial by jury.

I will find it very difficult to support the concept of terrorist trials without juries. We have the precedent of the Diplock courts in Northern Ireland, and it has to be admitted that they seem to have worked fairly well. However, in terms of abandoning jury trials because of the fear of intimidation, I cannot accept that the situation in England, Scotland and Wales is like that in Northern Ireland at the height, or depth, of the troubles, or like that in Sicily when the mafia were waxing strong. I cannot believe that the scope for intimidation on the mainland, so to speak, or the ratio of intimidators to the potentially intimidated are on the same scale as people in Northern Ireland experienced.

We must ensure that if we do these things properly and allow jury trials, for example, the security services can exploit the fact of people being intimidated by spotting the intimidators, tracking them down and dealing with them. I should be very reluctant to contemplate the abandonment of jury trials in respect of any criminal activity, including terrorism, on the mainland. Such action would be a significant step away from what we hold sacred, and it would be in exactly in the direction that the terrorists and the Mr. Bigs behind them would like us to go.