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Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2005

My Lords, I ought to start by paying tribute to both noble Lords who have spoken in this short discussion for their support, in general terms, for the measures the Government have been taking and continue to take with regard to our anti-terrorist activities. I acknowledge that for some this is a difficult process, and that, as the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, was saying, it is important that we are vigilant about the effectiveness of measures we adopt, such as proscription. Before I answer some of the more specific points, it is worth reminding ourselves where we are on proscription. There is not much doubt that it has great value in disrupting the activities of terrorist organisations. There are some examples of assets being seized as part of the proscription process. It sends an important message, not just in this country but to terrorist organisations internationally, about the fact that we take a serious view of their activities and find them abhorrent. We have put a great deal of information into the public domain and shared this with parliamentarians, so that they can take a view with the Government and be more informed in their deliberations. There has to be some restraint on the information that can be placed in the public domain for obvious operational and security reasons, but we have taken a bold and open view in our overall approach. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, asked about the value of proscription. Ultimately it is not easy to make a complete judgment on that, but we have no doubt that it is effective. Noble Lords do not have to take my word for that. Yesterday we published the report by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, who is much respected in your Lordships’ House. I take his words very seriously because he has a great deal of experience in these matters. He has been an intelligent, critical supporter of the legislation that we have brought forward to Parliament over a number of years. He says:"““Proscription is regarded by some as something of a toothless tiger. However, after careful inquiry, including discussions about the merits or otherwise of proscriptions during the worst of the troubles in Northern Ireland, I share the opposing view that it can play a role in reducing the opportunity for disaffected young people to become radicalised towards terrorism””." That can be found at paragraph 52 of the noble Lord’s report. It is a useful summation and is certainly a view that the Government, and I, share. The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, asked a number of questions. One was whether the criteria are the same for domestic and international terrorist groups. They are. Already 14 Irish groups are proscribed. These 15 new groups are the ones that security and intelligence agencies regard as the highest priority. The noble Lord also asked whether organisations know that they are to be proscribed. The order was published on Monday but we did not want to give any more notice than that. It must be understood that, by their nature, these organisations cannot be given formal notice. Many of them operate in an underground fashion and obviously want to hide their activities because of the nature of the evil in which they are involved. So it is not exactly something that one can post a letter to them about, thereby putting them on notice. But we are clear about why we are proscribing them. As I said, we keep the list of proscribed organisations under review, and action will be taken against groups where we believe it to be appropriate. It is important that we try to act in a concerted way in our approach to the proscribed organisations. As I said earlier, we have tried to publish as much information as we can on the individual groups. Both the noble Lords, Lord Dholakia and Lord Kingsland, raised the difficulty of the combined single order list. I can understand that but it is important to think of it in the following terms. We do not believe that there will be much appetite for 15 different and separate orders and potentially 15 different and separate Divisions in another place. We took the view that none of the names in the current order were sufficiently controversial to be likely to be opposed, and I think that our judgment has been fairly reasonably borne out. However, I assure your Lordships that if in future we were minded to proscribe a group where we judged that such proscription would be highly controversial, we would consider whether it would be possible to place it in a self-contained order so that there could be a focused debate on that particular organisation. But we would want to discuss that approach through the usual channels because clearly there would need to be a broad understanding of why we were thinking of dealing with the group in that way. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia—or perhaps it was the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland—asked one further question concerning the lists corresponding with UN, American and EU lists. No list is identical. We, as a United Kingdom Government, have to decide which organisations we want to proscribe according to our criteria and our priorities. Obviously we work with our partners internationally to secure agreements and understandings and to gather information so that we can have as common an approach as possible. That is the sensible way to proceed in what we all agree is a difficult field. I hope that I have responded to the questions I have been asked by noble Lords. I am grateful to them for their support of the order and I hope that it will find agreement.