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Terrorism Bill

I want to deal with the issue of culture, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams. I apologise to her, as I had written ““culture”” in my notes, but I did not come to it. I take on board what she said about culture, and she is right. The majority of those who have had to deal with the Internet from the police side are dealing with the more pernicious element. That is important, and must be considered. Additionally, one must consider that those who will be tasked with terrorism issues will have that specialist knowledge too, so they will be looking at material in which the terrorist element, with regard to the way terrorism is promoted and propagated, is the nature of the material they will be seeking to remove. It is right that I say that, because it is not culture but specialisation. One of the things we have had to consider seriously is the effect that promulgation of terrorist material has had on the radicalisation of our youth and the impact it can have, very quickly, on those who are susceptible to it. So the fact that the specialists will be operating this is actually not a matter that should cause us great concern. I think it is a matter that should be of great reassurance. Many of us are not scandalised but upset by things which perhaps are not as familiar. For example, I had the dubious privilege of representing local authorities and parties involved in quite serious paedophilia cases. That means that one’s eye is trained to the distinction which one must draw between inappropriate behaviour and serious behaviour that is culpable. One is therefore more attuned to looking at that which is seriously pernicious. I think that that is the nature of the work that the police will do. One also has to understand—and the noble Baroness is right about this too—that the Internet is a very powerful instrument. It is a powerful instrument for good and it is also a powerful instrument for evil. Making that decision is difficult. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, says, ““Isn’t it absolutely proper, therefore, to say that you should go to a judge on every occasion?””. We come back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, in an earlier amendment, that many Internet service providers have no idea about the content of the material that is put on their sites. Many of them have welcomed the fact that we have, in working with them, been able to identify the parts of the material that are unlawful for various purposes and are pernicious in nature. They have been anxious to remove inappropriate material from their sites and we have been able to express welcome and gratitude for that. The issue then is what to do about the notice. We have an opportunity to notify the Internet service providers of material that is inappropriate. They then have a choice to make the decision on whether to take it down. There has been no suggestion that the police or others in the areas in which we have worked have behaved inappropriately in the matters they have so notified. We do not believe that there will be a significant difference here either. It is a two-stage process because after the notice has been given the police will then have to consider the nature of the material, whether they wish to prosecute, and then produce material that will go before the judge. We think that that is the appropriate time. We do not think that it would be appropriate to bring the judge in at this stage for the reasons properly given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochbroom. The noble and learned Lord makes an important point. It is right to say that if a judge has adjudicated on the content of this notice which is declaratory, it would be very difficult for an individual thereafter to claim that they disagreed with the definition of that content. We think that the most appropriate system is the one that we are advancing. We do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, that, once someone has a notice, they suspend all independent assessment and then simply comply. There has been compliance on the notices that have been issued in other circumstances, but I certainly cannot say that that compliance has been 100 per cent. People have issued and made their own judgments about it. We allow for that eventuality here too.