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Terrorism Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Judd, has just extremely eloquently made one of the two points that I was rising to make, so I will not repeat everything that he has said other than to comment that I have been extremely impressed by your Lordships’ discussion, which reflected what I call high academia. That is not surprising, but the academic community extends to the grassroots. It extends beyond professional teachers and other professional academics, whether teaching at a high university or in a local community. My noble friend Lady Williams referred to people’s professional capacity. Informal discussion groups and community groups who hold informal discussions constitute a rich tradition in the part of the country in which I live, and that tradition still survives today. Not everyone who leads those discussions or is involved in them is acting in a professional waged capacity; they are simply leading a discussion. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, it is very important that the academic community is taken to be all-encompassing in that sense. It is important that the Government’s amendments, which will be very welcome, are seen to apply to everybody, however high or low they may be in the great richness of academic discussion to which the Minister referred. My second point is that there is also a political dimension to this. I refer to what I do if I get a leaflet through my door from what I consider to be a thoroughly obnoxious organisation, which is likely to be a far-Right organisation—perhaps one of the organisations that operates on the far fringe beyond what might be called mainstream Fascist groups such as the BNP, that might well be taken to be promoting or condoning terrorist acts. My reaction is to collect all such leaflets from my neighbours and, if I do not get enough, to copy some myself and take them to the next meeting of my local political party, or perhaps to an organisation of which I am a member, Pendle United Against Fascism. In doing that I disseminate those leaflets but my purpose is a political one—to get people working to counter the stuff that is being put out in the community. This is all to do with intent and motivation. If the Government’s amendments meet the point I for one will be very happy. However, I do not want to be put in court and threatened with seven years in gaol for trying to organise anti-Fascist activities and, as part of that, having distributed some Fascist or Nazi leaflets. The same applies to local mosques. If Islamic-type terrorist material is being disseminated outside a mosque, at least the mosque committee, and perhaps a wider group, will want to spread it among themselves if they are going to do what the Government are asking them to do and use their influence and authority within the mosque to counter that activity. You cannot counter arguments unless you know what is being put out. It goes beyond academia at a national level; it goes to the local discussion and teaching that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and I are talking about, and it goes beyond that to political activity. We do not want a situation in which people whose intentions are of the best get caught because of the material that they have in their possession.