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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I declare an interest as chief executive of Universities UK, in drawing attention to the grave concerns of the academic and library communities about the scope of this Bill. At this late stage, and as the 40th speaker, inevitably many of the points I intended to make have been made, and with both passion and eloquence. I was much struck by the contributions of my noble friend Lord Parekh and of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, which chime very much with my own views. I support the thrust of what the Government seek to do by means of this Bill—as indeed so many other speakers in this debate have also said. But, as with many of them, I would urge caution. In the proper and necessary drive to protect national security, we must not allow the unintended consequences of broadly drafted legislation to undermine academic freedom, to create laws with which it is next to impossible to comply, and to frustrate the legitimate study of a wide range of subjects with possible relevance to terrorism—not least because to do so will seriously undermine our capacity to deal with the terrorist threat. Much has already been said about the provisions in Clause 1. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, and the noble Lord, Lord Lester, gave us graphic examples of potential dangers. I agree that the provision remains too broad. I welcome the amendment made in the Commons requiring intent to be demonstrated. We are moving in the right direction, obviously, but concerns remain that a wide range of legitimate teaching and research might be caught by the new offence. Universities are further concerned that, under Clause 2, librarians will be required to assess whether any material available for loan might conceivably be interpreted as an encouragement to the preparation or commission of terrorist acts. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friend Lord Eatwell urged us, from their direct experience and expertise, to be cautious. I was pleased to learn that my noble friend’s representations to the Secretary of State appear to be bearing fruit. But Universities UK, together with the Society of College, National and University Libraries, is gravely concerned about the implications of the new criminal offence, not least because, rather than risk prosecution, librarians may simply withdraw a wide variety of material that could be interpreted as having relevance to terrorism. Furthermore, in Clause 2, unlike in Clause 1, there is no concept of intent. I should stress that not only am I concerned about teaching, research and the lending of publications in fields directly related to terrorism, but there are fears that potentially the broad range of the Bill could embrace a wide variety of fields including history, political science, theology, chemistry, biology and possibly others. Clause 6 relates to training for terrorism. Under subsection (3) a person commits an offence if they provide training in,"““the making, handling or use of a noxious substance””," if the person knows or suspects that the training may be used for terrorist purposes. The definition of ““noxious substance”” could include everything from household bleach to ricin. I welcome comments made by the Higher Education Minister, Bill Rammell, to the effect that the universities’ concerns are unfounded. I hope that my noble friend the Minister, in responding to this debate, will be able to provide more detailed assurance because reassurance is urgently needed, as many contributions today have demonstrated. It appears that the Bill could result either in direct and intentional censorship on a potentially wide scale or, more probably, in self-censorship by academics and librarians fuelled by fear of prosecution under the extremely wide provisions of the Bill. I know that those are entirely unintended consequences but they are dangerous none the less. Those are the issues that this House will need to probe in some detail in Committee, but I hope that the Minister, in responding to the debate, will be able to explain to me—for I do not yet see it—why as the Bill stands, and as so many noble Lords have identified, the academic community has nothing to fear.