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Terrorism Bill

There are a number of points to make. First, we are dealing with a constraint on freedom of speech, which does not apply to those other offences. In the sexual offences legislation, we are dealing with a specific issue of an interaction between two people in which the critical issue is consent, and in which one person’s word will often be used against another’s, and in that instance it is absolutely appropriate for the jury to come to a view on an objective test. I really do not understand how the Minister can come to the Dispatch Box, apparently briefed by her civil servants, to proclaim proudly that what she hopes to enact is that which is within the Caldwell case, which the hon. Member for Beaconsfield has described as something that leads to injustice. The Minister parades case law that has apparently been interpreted as leading to injustice as an argument for including it in the Bill. The House deserves rather better than that. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield made an interesting point about what a cleric newly arrived in the country might understand the clause to mean. As he said that, it occurred to me that the cleric might be quoting holy scripture.—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Mahmood) feigns incredulity, but I could quote a large amount of holy scripture that would fall within the constraints of the clause. That worries me. It also occurred to me to wonder—this too is an aside—what the position of an interpreter would be. Does an interpreter publish the words that he is asked to interpret? At what point does his understanding of what he has been asked to interpret become a potential offence under the clause?