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Terrorism Bill

As the noble Lord knows, encouragement can be direct and indirect; incitement is only direct—you directly incite someone to do things. The difficulty is that, with regard to terrorist activity, it is often said, ““I did not seek to incite someone to do X, Y or Z, but the words I used positively encouraged them so to do””. There is a distinction between those two things. We can already prosecute for the specific offence of terrorism. The provision will enable us to present those cases where ““encouragement”” falls short of sufficient information in relation to ““incitement””. When someone makes a statement which does not directly incite but nevertheless encourages someone to do something and create an act of terror, it will enable us to intervene at that point.