INCITING religious hatred should not be a crime, the House of Lords decided last night in another defeat for the Government over clauses in its anti-terrorism Bill.
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, is now expected to use Labour's huge majority in the Commons later in the week to overrule the peers in this test of wills.
The proposal to criminalise incitement to religious hatred was defeated by 240-141 in the Lords - the eighth defeat the Government had suffered over the Bill, which Mr Blunkett wants to have on the statute book by Christmas.
It was closely followed by yet another reverse, when the Lords decided by 200-128 that even those parts of the Bill that they have not thrown out should be in force for only a year. The Lords are proposing that, like the old Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Bill should have to be renewed annually.
Opposition has come from a coalition of Tories, Liberal Democrats and Labour rebels. The rebel peers have had the backing of distinguished independents, including former law lords.
Mr Blunkett averted another possible defeat by backing down on one of the Bill's most unpopular provisions. He had proposed to give himself the power to introduce European rules on a range of crime and justice matters without putting legislation through Parliament.
If that had gone ahead, a simple order from the Home Secretary could have made European arrest warrants enforceable in Britain. Faced with united opposition, Mr Blunkett agreed to make the power applicable only to the fight against terrorism, and only until June 2005.
Lord Strathclyde, Tory leader in the Lords, said: "Hasty law is often bad law. Hasty law touching on freedom of belief is particularly risky.
"It was a gross misjudgment to have buried these important, non-emergency issues, unrelated to terrorism, in an emergency Bill that should focus on terrorism."
Simon Hughes, the Lib-Dem home affairs spokesman, said he did not expect his party's peers to change their minds "even under pressure".