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Terrorism Bill

When the noble Earl put forward his list of candidates for glorification, I was a little disappointed that he did not include Nelson Mandela. It would be a brave person who did not want to glorify Nelson Mandela, particularly after those years spent in Robben Island. One could think of others in that struggle, like Eduardo Mondlane, who sought to throw off the yoke of a fairly cruel Portuguese imperialism. The point I wanted to stress was the conclusion of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, because we put a lot of time into it and we met till late hours. I promise that I will not delay the Committee by quoting at great length from it, but I do think it is appropriate on this point. It stated:"““The legal certainty concern is that terms such as glorification, praise and celebration are too vague to form part of the criminal offence which can be committed by speaking. The Home Secretary draws a distinction between encouraging and glorifying on the one hand and explaining or understanding on the other. The last two, he says, would not be caught by the new offence, because they do not amount to encouraging, glorifying, praising or celebrating. In our view, the difficulty with the Home Secretary’s response is that his distinction is not self-executing: the content of comments and remarks will have to be carefully analysed in each case, including the context in which they were spoken, and there will be enormous scope for disagreement between reasonable people as to whether a particular comment is merely an explanation or an expression of understanding or goes further and amounts to encouragement, praise or glorification””." I thought that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, might take some encouragement from the fact that the Joint Committee had come to that conclusion as well. However, I am sure he will not be so content that in the end we did decide that the crucial point was the issue of intent. I for one have been enormously encouraged by what my noble friend has said today about intent.