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Terrorism Bill

My name also appears on the Marshalled List in opposition to Clause 21. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, has fully explained the background and I do not think that I need to go into it again. He also referred to the organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir—an Islamic political party operating internationally and priding itself on advocating non-violence. It denounced the London bombings and the New York and Madrid bombings as   well. However, it calls for the return of the caliphate—that is its aim—and, worse than that, it calls for Mr Blair to step down from office for lying about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction and for authorising cluster bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think that that gives your Lordships a little flavour of the nature of its political involvement. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, referred to Mr Gandhi, but I suggest that there is a British parallel which may illustrate the problems of this legislation. If Clause 21 captures Hizb ut-Tahrir, surely it will capture Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales. In the history of the party on its current website is a celebration of Saunders Lewis, the party’s president from 1926 to 1939. Although he was a noted writer and dramatist, he was not, it says, an ivory-tower academic. The website states that he,"““along with . . . Lewis Valentine and DJ Williams, took part in the celebrated burning of the Penyberth bombing school. This symbolic gesture sought to highlight the evils of militarism and to draw attention to the threat posed by military developments to the cultural and linguistic integrity of the Llyn peninsula””." The website goes on to say that a Conservative government could secure a conviction only by having these three men tried at the Old Bailey in London. They describe the trial as a watershed that sowed the seeds for the future. It certainly did. I have no doubt that it indirectly encouraged the activities of Mudiad Amddyffyn Cymru, who blew up the reservoir at Clywedog in the 1960s, put a bomb inside the Temple of Peace in Cardiff in 1968 and were responsible for the bomb on the railway line at Abergele during the Prince of Wales’s investiture when the two men who were carrying it were killed. I am also sure it was the inspiration behind Meibion Glyndwr, to whom I referred at an earlier stage of the Committee, who claimed responsibility for burning more than 200 cottages in the 1970s and 1980s. They even targeted the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, when he was Secretary of State for Wales in 1990. Yet the trial of the Penyberth Three is still on the Plaid Cymru website. Is that not unlawful glorification as defined in Clause 21? The Government may think Plaid Cymru is a dangerous party. Currently, it sponsors the Impeach Blair organisation and, like Hizb ut-Tahrir, accuses our Prime Minister of lying to Parliament and it wishes to impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanours in relation to the invasion of Iraq. Perish the thought that that should happen. Of course, Plaid Cymru has always—