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Terrorism Bill

I strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who has made a broad sweep of her argument and has put the anxieties of universities extremely well. I want to make a simple point, from a non-lawyer’s point of view, about natural justice. As I think that the noble Baroness indicated, so far in Committee the discussion has been about protecting librarians by strengthening the defence that they could deploy should they be charged with a criminal offence. It has been explained—if we did not know already—that if there is a strong defence in the Bill, charges will not be laid because it will not be possible to sustain them. But why should a librarian doing the job that he is employed to do be liable to be charged at all? Why should he have to appear in court on such a charge? On Second Reading, I spoke specifically about the University of St Andrews, which has an institute for the study of terrorism. In many ways, its situation is no different to any university except that it has a large stock in the library of material about terrorism to support its institute, which not only is useful to researchers, teachers and students, but also could be useful to a terrorist. Suppose a postgraduate student at the University of St Andrews goes to the library and takes out material which he says is to help with a thesis that he is writing. Some time later, a suicide bomber does his worst, say, in London. On searching the terrorists’ home, the police find the very collection of material which was taken by the student from the library at St Andrews. Surely, Parliament should see to it that there is no question in British law that that librarian should be charged with a criminal offence, whether or not he has a strong defence. Clearly, it should be the student who is liable and should be charged. The librarian should be no more than a witness in court. Amendment No. 45, in particular, or something like it, would solve the problem. I realise that the wording may not be absolutely correct, but an amendment to that effect would mean that the librarian and the university governing body could not be held responsible. Such an amendment could be combined with a form to be signed at the university library on which the person taking out the material would say the purposes for which he requires it. That would be essential. I am no professional, but Parliament should ensure that librarians will not be appearing in court or threatened with appearing in court because of their work and the books that are stocked in the library. That is wrong. I support this amendment very strongly.