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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Elton, I hope that the Government will pay particular attention to the speech this afternoon by my noble friend Lady Cox. I agree with the noble Lord that she has done more than anyone else in your Lordships’ House to warn of the growing danger that militant Islamism poses to western society and the wider world. Her warnings are well documented and go back in the official record to well before 9/11, at least to her contribution on the gracious Speech of 18 November 1999. On that occasion she exposed Islamist activities in Sudan, the Caucasus, Dagestan and Chechnya. She also drew attention to the threat that violent Islamism already posed to this country, by quoting the militant leaders, Abu Hamsa and Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, speaking thus a few days previously in London:"““We declare that we will never rest until we establish the Khilafah, that is an Islamic State for all Muslims worldwide, which will be a shield behind which Muslims can protect themselves and from behind which they can fight the enemies of Allah””.—[Official Report, 18/11/99; col. 100.]" That sort of talk does not endear one to the jihad. I for one was not at all surprised when her next major speech here, on 12 January 2000, was jammed. I had had the interesting pleasure of paying an undercover visit to the Soviet Union with my noble friend before the wall came down. We were both familiar with the kind of warnings one receives when one antagonises large and evil organisations. My noble friend referred today to the extraordinary complacency with which our police, security services and Palace authorities reacted to the incident by trying to pretend that her speech had been jammed by a faulty microphone, even when no such faulty microphone could be discovered. Disquieted by this, we also raised questions—as she mentioned—about a report in the Sunday Times on 30 July 2000. This revealed that a Mr Salah Idris, whose factory outside Khartoum was destroyed by US cruise missiles after being linked to Osama bin Laden, had a substantial shareholding in IES Digital Systems, a UK company supplying high-tech surveillance and security management to the Palace of Westminster, New Scotland Yard, the Royal Courts of Justice, some of our nuclear power stations, several of our Armed Forces’ establishments, Canary Wharf and British Airways, Texaco and other blue-chip companies. After much toing and froing, our security services confirmed that this was so and obligingly revealed that Mr Idris had increased his shareholding to 75 per cent. However, and this is the astonishing point, they suggested that we had no need to worry, because Mr Idris,"““does not have any day-to-day involvement in the running of the company””." Your Lordships can relax. For a statement that reveals the chasm between our security services, police and bureaucracy on the one hand, and the real world on the other, I submit that that must just about take the biscuit. If you own 75 per cent of a company, you single-handedly fix the remuneration of the directors, can personally hire and fire them and can change the company’s memorandum and articles of association at will. Also, you do not presumably increase your shareholding from 25 per cent in 2000 to 75 per cent a year later—after 9/11—unless you are pretty interested in what the company is up to. This sort of story makes some of us reluctant to believe the police when they say that they need the power to lock people up for 90 days without charge. At least, it makes one nervous. I very much hope that the Minister will address herself seriously to the questions raised by my noble friend Lady Cox, particularly as to whether terrorists are using their money to buy into our national infrastructure, with the aim of destroying our economy and security from within. The Bill is largely a laudable attempt to arm ourselves as best we can against the new evil of Islamist terrorism. It introduces new offences and gives the police and our security services wider powers. I wish it well, especially in the improved form in which it will no doubt leave your Lordships’ House. But we are unlikely to get rid of this new menace through the powers taken in the Bill, even when added to the considerable powers already granted to the state. We are also unlikely to succeed in bombing the Islamists out of existence. They are by now far too numerous and diffusely spread throughout our western societies and across the globe. It looks as though the bombs may be coming our way for some time yet. We need to consider an additional tactic if we are eventually to prevail. We must somehow encourage an honest debate among Muslims as to the true nature and purpose of their religion. To do that we will have to give tremendous support to those Muslims who believe that Islamist violence is in breach of the Koran. These are deep and difficult waters. One problem we westerners face when we consider Islam is that it is both a religion and a political system, and the penalty for deviation from it is death. Islamism is also a movement for world domination, as was Soviet communism. But, although no one believed much in the Soviet system after about 1950—it was held together by fear—these modern Islamists do very much believe in their mission, even to the extent of blowing themselves up in what they fervently believe to be the service of God. A few very brave Muslims are beginning to take on this challenge. I recommend a brief article in the Spectator at the end of July this year by Dr Patrick Sookdeo, entitled The Myth of Moderate Islam, in which he sets out some of the uncomfortable parameters of the debate. For instance, he disabuses those of us who used to think that Islam is a basically peaceful religion. Sookdeo points out that nearly all the peaceful verses in the Koran were written before 622, when Mohammed moved to Medina. He also explains the accepted rule of ““abrogation””, which means that wherever contradictions are found in the Koran it is the later verses which hold sway. I am sure this all very basic stuff to many of your Lordships who have been interested in Islam for many years, but if we are going to encourage debate among Muslims many more of us must know at least something of their religion and its history. Dr Sookdeo is Director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity. In his article he points to other Islamic scholars who are courageously starting to open up this whole debate. He ends by suggesting some gradual steps forward, some of which are included in the Bill but which I do not have time to cover today. However, the article certainly opened my eyes, so I have put a copy of it in your Lordships’ Library. I commend it to the Minister.