Member

I turn to the substance of the amendment. We believe that it falls short. Our principal concern is that there is already a significant amount of law relating to aggravators and hostility based on differing characteristics. I should be clear: I do not take issue at all with the adding of the extra protected characteristics; I take issue with the duplication of legislation that already exists. This is an area of law that has grown into an expansive body—a panoply—of legislation, reaching across multiple statutes. We have Parts III and 3A of the Public Order Act 1986; Sections 28 to 33 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998; the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006; Sections 240 and 241 of the Armed Forces Act 2006; the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023—although I appreciate that has not yet been commenced; and Section 3 of the Football (Offences) Act 1991. Most significantly, we have Section 66 of the Sentencing Act 2020, a law that was passed by the previous Government and to which I will return in a moment.