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Terrorism Bill

My noble friend is right, to the extent, of course, that one has to incite a person to commit a specific act. It cannot be an incitement to commit acts of terrorism generally. I take as an example the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, because I know that he is a gentleman of resolute character. Let us suppose that I were to make statements to try to incite him to commit an offence in relation to his noble friend on the Front Bench. If I named the person to whom he should direct his attention and specified the acts, I could be accused of, and properly arrested for, seeking to incite the noble and learned Lord to do something of a criminal nature in relation to the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland. If, however, I were to encourage Members on the opposite Benches to commit imprecise, general acts of terror, that would be encouragement, but I could not be accused of having incited someone to commit a specific act. So encouragement is much more general. I suppose that that is the real distinction between the two: incitement relates to specific acts, and encouragement to general acts of terrorism.