Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Lords Chamber

or for other purposes. So one part of the Bill specifies education and training, but this part does not. Whatever the right wording is, it ought to be consistent between the two, and it is sensible for the benefit of avoiding doubt to put “education or training”. I beg to move.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 20FA in my name. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is seeking to broaden the scope of the potential areas where it may be possible for the courts to limit the prohibitions and requirements of an injunction. I am going to raise some queries about whether or not any of this really makes sense. I do not disagree with anything that the noble Lord has said, but I wonder where we are going when we talk about religion in this context.

Noble Lords will remember that in 2001, 390,127 people put down on their census forms that their religion was “Jedi”. I wonder whether, for the purposes of excluding someone from requirements under one of these new injunctions, saying that you had to follow your religion of Jedi would enable you therefore to say, “I should be allowed to carry on exactly as I wish”. Similarly, are we including in religion Satanism or the proponents of animal sacrifice?

I pose these questions not because I seriously seek to know whether, when the Bill was being drafted, those drafting it were considering proponents of animal sacrifice or even those who consider themselves to be Jedi knights. I am, however, quite clear that I have come across plenty of people who behave in an anti-social fashion who, if they thought that there were some exemption from the requirements of an injunction, would suddenly pronounce that they had all sorts of religious beliefs, beliefs that a normal person—or to your Lordships here, if that is not the same—might consider was not really a bona fide religion. Is there a requirement now for the Government to define what they consider to be a religion? If there is such a definition somewhere, the noble Lord will have it to hand and explain it to me.

My second concern is that, even in an established religion which we would all recognise as bona fide, there are certain norms of behaviour. If, however, you pursue your belief in that religion with an excessive degree of zeal, does that excessive zealotry automatically mean that you can have exemptions from the requirements of an injunction? What is or is not reasonable in pursuit of your religion? We may get advice from one of the right reverend Prelates, although I suspect not.

Many years ago, meetings of the Tottenham Labour Party used to take place on Sunday mornings, next to a black church where the singing of hymns was extremely loud. The church was extremely well attended: far better attended—and probably more fun—than the meetings of the Tottenham Labour Party. However, what constitutes reasonable pursuit of your religious beliefs? For example, is it acceptable that, in pursuit of your religious beliefs, you decide to go into the common parts of an estate and pray extremely noisily every night at 2 am? Some people might claim that was pursuit of their legitimate religious beliefs, but is that reasonable in this context?

My final point is: even if this is the reasonable pursuit of a bona fide religious belief, does that pursuit have a disproportionate impact on other people? I pity the courts that have to interpret this and the local authorities or housing agencies trying to pick their way through it. I hope that, by tabling this amendment, we will get some elucidation from the Minister on what is intended by this phrase. I absolutely support and accept the principle that these injunctions should respect bona fide religious beliefs. However, we will have to define what a set of bona fide religious beliefs is, what the normal extent of practising those beliefs is and in what circumstances their normal practice has a disproportionate impact on other people.