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Terrorism Bill

I sincerely hope not. I hope that, not only from what I have said but from what will be in the Bill, it will be absolutely clear that those who do not wish to encourage terrorism and those who do not wish to facilitate matters of this sort will be absolutely safe. That is what the Government certainly intend to happen and it is how we believe these clauses should be properly identified. I made it clear that the Government’s view is that that is already possible without the amendments that we are now suggesting. Because of concerns that are genuinely held in this House and elsewhere, we have sought to go even further to ensure that that is put beyond any doubt. The Government’s case is that the fears currently being expressed, although genuinely held, are ill founded, and we wish to do all that we can to ensure that those concerns are laid to rest. I think that in essence I have dealt with Amendments Nos. 24, 25A, 30, 36 and 37, and I turn to Amendment No. 39. Given the importance of the approach that we have adopted, we obviously cannot support this amendment, which would withdraw the defences from Clause 2. Such a change would make sense if the offence could be committed only through intent, but not if intent is not part of the central offence. Given that it cannot be, we believe that we must retain the defences. These are the means by which activity that would be illegal in one context is legal in another, but they still allow the offence to be effective. In other words, they are the means to allow the offence and its associated powers to be effective in tackling both the mindset of the disseminator and the act of dissemination. Therefore, we invite noble Lords not to pursue those amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, referred to Amendment No. 27, with which I have not dealt. It relates to Clause 2, which we have discussed at some length. The amendment would remove subsection (3) from the Bill in its entirety. We do not see the merit of so doing. We believe that subsection (3) provides important safeguards. It clarifies what constitutes direct or indirect encouragement in the context of the offence of disseminating terrorist publications. In particular, it provides that the offence can be committed only if the publication in question is likely to be understood by those to whom it is made available as an encouragement to commit terrorist acts. As we have already indicated, there are plenty of other defences and safeguards to ensure that those who pursue legitimate scholarly, academic or other pursuits will not be committing the offence in Clause 2. In particular, we are widening the defence of non-endorsement, so all such people will be able to benefit from it. Nevertheless, we can see no reason to remove the additional protection provided by Clause 2(3). I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, said that this is a probing amendment. We have looked at the subsection again and we think that it is a helpful, as opposed to unhelpful, clarification and that it is necessary.