I beg to move amendment No.605, in

clause 129, page 74, line 38, leave out from first 'factor' to 'and' in line 39.

This is a simple matter. Lawyers are fond of saying that words are ''otiose'' or ''surplusage''. In subsection (2)(a), the term

''(that is to say, a factor that increases the seriousness of the offence)''

is otiose. I know of no reason why it is there.

I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for two reasons. First, he has introduced me to the word ''surplusage'', which I had never encountered, and, secondly, because his amendment makes a good point. I ask the Committee to accept it.

Amendment agreed to.

Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

I was just reflecting on the success of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield and I recall the hon. Member for Woking saying that the Bill has far too many clauses. To make more progress, perhaps we should continue looking for further provisions that can be removed.

I would be grateful for clarification of the application of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 in subsections (1) and (3). As the Minister knows, the clause applies other than where that Act applies. Why are the other offences

''racially or religiously aggravated assaults, criminal damage, public order offences and harassment''

excluded from the general application? I probably know the answer, but it would be helpful to have it on the record.

If someone of religion A burgles the house of someone else of religion A, is that a religiously motivated burglary? Does the clause depend on the offender's religion or race rather than the victim's?

My understanding is that the clause would not apply in the hon. Lady's example, because it is not intended to apply to people in the same category. The answer to her second question is that the clause is intended to reflect the nature of the victim and, therefore, that an aggravated sentence would be passed on someone who committed an offence due to the victim's race or religion. Logically, they could be of the same faith or race, but in practice they will be of a different faith or race.

I have another question for the Minister, although I did not table an amendment on the issue, as I was properly advised that it would be complicated to do so at this point. I favour aggravated sentences for religious or racial offences, and those are perfectly reasonable social policy given that such attacks are particularly obnoxious. However, three other obvious categories of attack based on prejudice have come up in previous legislation—those carried out on the basis

of disability, gender or sexual orientation. Has consideration been given to such aggravating factors and, therefore, to whether an aggravated sentence should apply where a person with an obsession beats up someone who is disabled, female or of a particular sexual orientation?

The hon. Gentleman suggests that we should widen the scope of the clause to cover women and the disabled. The 1998 Act created offences of racially aggravated assault, criminal damage and harassment. Under the clause, however, offenders will not be charged with such offences, and the court will take prejudices into account during the case only as aggravating factors. Surely, he should be arguing for the creation of offences of aggravated assault against the disabled and women.

I understand the question, and it is difficult to decide whether the racial or religious element should be a separate offence or an aggravating factor. I remember the debates on the 1998 Act, and I found it difficult to come to a conclusion on the best legislative way forward. My instinct is that it is better to see such elements as aggravating factors. When a court hears about a gang attack, evidence might emerge showing that it happened because of the victim's race or religion—that might be the case in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. The court might add another year's imprisonment to the sentence as the assault was the result of prejudice and completely unjustified, not just a straightforward fight outside the pub.

During the debates on the 1998 Act, the Labour Administration took the social policy decision that racial attacks were so serious that separate offences should be created. I honestly have not analysed whether that approach has worked well, but I know that we must counter racial attacks and, indeed, all crimes that are precipitated by prejudice—the crimes in the categories we are discussing. I am troubled by the fact that we are putting into one category prejudices against those who are Sikhs or who are black, but that we are not registering the fact that people can suffer terrible crimes because they have a disability or because they are gay or female.

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned Northern Ireland where, in the 1980s, we put the prevention of incitement to religious hatred on the statue book and made it an offence because we were confident that that would deal with the horrible sectarian attacks. It simply did not work and there was not even a successful prosecution.

That is highly relevant for two reasons. In England and Wales, incitement to racial hatred is an offence but there are few prosecutions. In the Met area, in the years for which I have seen figures, there were three prosecutions in one year and fewer than 10 in the previous year. If that offence was intended to deal with people such as supporters of the British National party or the National Front who go round the streets shouting racist slogans or who put racist newspapers through people's doors, there have

been far too few prosecutions. I have been trying to wind up the police to prosecute more often.

I am also conscious that the debate is live in Scotland in the context of sectarian issues. The Administration have been thinking about legislation to deal with sectarian offences in Scotland, particularly those arising from football-related rivalry in Glasgow. I bow to the hon. Lady's experience of Northern Ireland, which may provide a helpful and relevant lesson for us. I am not pretending that I know the answer, but if we are seeking to have aggravated offences in one category and separate offences of racially aggravated crime in another and no offences if the aggravating consideration is not race or religion, we are not being consistent. I should be grateful for a considered reflection by the Minister. I would hope that we can get things right by using the Committee's experience to agree rather than having differences.

I hope that the Minister will forgive me if I make a serious point about the clause. The way in which the clause is worded makes it prescriptive that if an offence is religiously aggravated, from which I would infer that it was done on the basis of the hatred of a religion, the motivation ''must'' be taken as an aggravating factor.

I understand the intention behind the clause, but let us consider an example: a group of people are fired by the catalogue preamble by the Prime Minister to an Aztec exhibition, which says that the exhibition illustrates vibrant cultural diversity, and decide to set up the Aztec religion in this country. Having set up their temple, they say that they will be seeking a change in the law as soon as possible to allow human sacrifice to take place on a large scale—in the meanwhile they will obey the law, but that is their intention. Other people in the same community who feel extremely angry about human sacrifice burn the temple down, beat up the adherents of the sect and end up in court.

Must the circumstances be treated as an aggravating factor and can the views of the sect be treated as a mitigating factor? I hope that the Minister will excuse my using so extreme an example, but with the developing cultural diversity in this country such examples are not be impossible. My concern is not with treating as an aggravating factor an offence that is motivated by hostility to a religion, but the use of the word ''must''. I can foresee circumstances in which serious problems would be caused because members of the public might say that, in their opinion, an offence was not aggravated because there were mitigating circumstances. Some offences can cause someone to incur deep public hostility in the community by behaving in a way generally considered outrageous, but are found to have mitigating factors when the perpetrator comes before the courts.

I hope that the Minister will excuse me, but I think that I have a point here. I have illustrated it fairly frivolously but I have a horrible feeling that the ideas that I come up with are sometimes closer to the truth in the society around us than I have realised. I think that my point should be considered.

I shall try to help my hon. Friend to come up with an example slightly closer to the ground. The Scientologists can be quite aggressive if someone criticises or questions their religion in any way. I once worked for Carlton and questioned them about their religion for a television programme. If they tried to occupy one's premises, and if one broke the law in moving them, they could, I suppose, claim that that was a religiously aggravated offence. However, there might be seen to be mitigating factors. Is that closer to what my hon. Friend was suggesting?

My hon. Friend gives a good example. Another example might be a dispute between two religions over who is the occupier of a place of worship. That happens in India and has happened in Israel and Palestine. One group is in occupation and another group uses force to evict the first group. Such a case might depend on legal ownership, but one can certainly see that the issue could become quite complex. It does not bother me at all; I welcome the fact that, ordinarily, if one underlying reason behind an attack on another person is dislike of their religious beliefs, that should be an aggravating feature. However, the use of the word ''must'' could cause courts some problems.

The clause re-enacts a current provision in the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. Section 153 of that Act provides that, except for certain offences, courts should treat a racially or religiously aggravated offence as an aggravating factor. Section 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 provides a definition of such an offence and sections 29 to 32 create a series of racially aggravated offences, such as racially aggravated assault, which are excluded from the provisions of the clause because they are, by definition, aggravated offences already. That answers the first point made by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey.

On the hon. Gentleman's second point, I am aware of the debate on other forms of motivated offending. He asked directly whether the Government were considering change in that context through the Bill; we are not. Clause 129 is merely a re-enactment, following the logic of what has already been done in the 1998 Act, to ensure that racial and religious aggravation are taken into account in determining the seriousness of an offence for the purposes of this part of the Bill.

The hon. Member for Beaconsfield raised an interesting although extreme example. I would not want to mislead the Committee but, in general, religion will be taken to refer to established religions. I am not sure how that would be defined in the example that he gave.

I may be wrong, but I recollect that the authorities say that a religion is the worship of a deity. I shall have to look it up, but I have distinct memories that the definition is couched in a way that if people decide that Quetzalcoatl is the god whom they should worship, and they meet regularly for that purpose, they would be described as a religious group. That is the reality under current law. The Minister may wish to consider the definition of a religion because it is an

interesting point. I hope that it remains abstruse, although it could turn out to be a real point at some stage.

I could do no better than to take up the hon. Gentleman's offer.

Let me push the Minister one step further. He said that he is re-enacting legislation that we passed a couple of years ago. Can he say whether it is Government policy—somewhere and somewhere soon—to bring legislation for other hate crimes into line with that for hate crimes based on religion and race? I understood that it was, and I hope that it is. What stage has the Minister reached, and why could such a provision not be included in the Bill?

As I have undertaken to respond to points that two other hon. Members have raised, I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that same communication in response to his final question.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 129, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.