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Terrorism Bill

I add my support to Amendments Nos. 30 and 36. Many of the concerns expressed by the academic and library communities, and advanced by noble Lords on all sides of the Committee, have been addressed by the Government’s amendments. We understand that further amendments will offer even greater reassurance. The Minister has gone out of her way today to reinforce that degree of reassurance. However, from what I understand about what the Government intend in relation to Clause 2—unless the interpretation of my noble friend Lord Eatwell is correct—there remains the issue on which we clearly appear to continue to disagree. The Government have introduced the notion of intent into Clause 1, so that a person must have the intention of encouraging terrorism to fall foul of the offence of publishing a statement glorifying terrorism or must be reckless of the consequences of his actions. That is enormously welcome. However, in the spirit of what the Minister said about listening to all our concerns, I need to set out my concerns about Clause 2. As has already been said, the protection offered in Clause 1 is not extended to those who disseminate publications by selling, giving, lending or making available for loan material. The Minister has said that the intention defence in Clause 2 (9) will be extended to all categories of person, and not just to those who provide electronic services, but as other noble Lords have pointed out, that intention defence applies only to material that could be useful to terrorists, and not to statements encouraging terrorism. This creates the interesting anomaly to which other speakers have referred. A person might publish a statement glorifying terrorism—let us say, as part of a study illustrating propagandist techniques relating to the war on terror—having no intention that that statement should be understood as an encouragement to terrorists. A librarian who makes that study available for loan might be prosecuted, because his intention would be no defence. A further problem is the fact that the burden of proof will rest with the defence, whereas, as I understand it, the proving of intention in Clause 1 would be the task of the prosecution. The library community has pointed out that the drafting of the clause makes it very difficult to see how a librarian would know which publications he should not lend. The Bill makes it clear that the material must be,"““wholly or mainly for the purpose of being . . . useful””," to a terrorist. But what does that mean? I understand that an AZ London would not be included on those grounds, but I referred earlier to The Anarchist’s Cookbook. Would that be included? What about historical treatises, which were at the time when they were written intended to fuel and encourage acts of terrorism? Several noble Lords have referred to them. They might conceivably incentivise or be of assistance to violent political activists who apply tried and tested methods to new circumstances. How might a librarian be able to judge whether material fell into the category of,"““wholly or mainly for terrorist purposes””," when its original purpose was wholly or mainly terrorist but when it was included in the collection because of its historical or academic interest? The Government have said that their intention is simply to catch extremist literature, but I am not sure that that is a definition with which we can be satisfied. There are sound reasons for arguing that our libraries should be able to collect and make available for loan extremist literature, if only to further the study of the motivation of such groups. But there is a difference between what might be defined as extremist and what might encourage or assist the commission of terrorist acts. We should not be banning the former, while I see the argument for very careful handling of the latter. I do not believe that the Director of Public Prosecutions will spend a lot of time prosecuting librarians. My fear is, rather, one to which we referred in a previous debate—that librarians will restrict the material that they make available for loan because of their fear of prosecution, which would be detrimental not only to our great libraries and our academic community but to the nation as a whole. Amendments Nos. 30 and 36 would achieve what the Government seek to do while removing the potential unintended consequences. While introducing ““intent”” into Clause 2, in parallel with Clause 1, the person would commit an offence only if they made material available for loan with the intention of assisting a terrorist. I believe that the library community would be content with that change, as it would address its concerns about the shift in the burden of proof in Clause 2(8). I hope that the Minister will give a favourable response to these concerns.