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Terrorism Bill

The noble Lord will have to put up with this noble Lord on this one. As ever, I applaud the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for clarity and comprehension, for which he has a long track record. I was recently reminded of a very long track record. The noble Lord taught a friend of mine, who said to me recently, ““the good thing that you can understand about Lord Elton is that clarity is his middle name””. That was a nice compliment for him to make. We do not think that there is any ambiguity in the parts of the Bill that the noble Lord’s amendments seek to alter. They all relate to the definition of terrorism and in each case relate back to the Terrorism Act 2000. All the references concerned are clear on this point and there are helpful pointers to explain which sections of the Act the reader should look at. There should not be any confusion. I am afraid that making these changes would result in a provision that would not be as apt as the provision in the Bill. The term ““terrorism”” is defined for the purposes of the whole of the Terrorism Act 2000 not just Section 1 of that Act, as would be the implication of these amendments. Section 1 may contain the definition of terrorism, as the words in brackets helpfully explain, but that definition applies to the whole of the 2000 Act, as it will to the whole of Part 1 of this Act. This is a subtle distinction but an important one. I should draw to your Lordships’ attention the fact that several of the terms used in the definition of terrorism in Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000 are themselves defined later in that Act, in Section 121. For example, the terms ““action””, ““firearm””, ““explosive”” and ““property””, all of which feature in Section 1 of the 2000 Act, are all defined in Section 121 of that Act. Section 121 is not the only place in which relevant definitions appear. The definition of ““proscribed organisation””, for example, is to be found in Section 3(1) of the 2000 Act. For those reasons, I think the current drafting is correct. It is technically accurate in that it refers to the definition used in the 2000 Act, not the definition used in a particular section of it, and it provides a helpful pointer towards Section 1 of the 2000 Act as the place where readers may find the body of the definition. As I have indicated, I am sure that these amendments are very well intentioned but I hope that in the light of what I have said the noble Lord will appreciate why it would be appropriate to withdraw them.