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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I wish to add a few words to what my noble friend Lady Williams so eloquently said. In Committee we tabled an amendment in somewhat similar terms but with one important difference: it would have made it impossible for the Attorney-General to give permission in cases where certain conditions were not satisfied. I was persuaded by the arguments in Committee that it was not right that there should be an absolute bar where certain conditions are met. Therefore, we have brought it back in a slightly different form, which means that instead of there being an absolute bar, the Attorney-General, in deciding whether to give his permission, must take these conditions into account. That seems to me to be very reasonable. I cannot imagine that an Attorney-General would wish to instigate proceedings where violence was being exercised against a government who were guilty of tyranny, of grave oppression of its people, where there was no democratic way of removing that government, and where the acts of the terrorists were not directed against innocent citizens. Quite clearly—and this amendment takes this into account—the terrorists responsible, for example, for the massacre of the schoolchildren at Beslan have placed themselves absolutely beyond any pale and quite plainly should be prosecuted wherever they can be found. However, I strongly believe that there are circumstances in which this country should not seek to prosecute those who are undertaking acts against a tyrannical government which fall within the very wide definition of terrorism and I believe that there should be on the face of the Bill an obligation on the Attorney-General, when he decides whether to authorise a prosecution, to take those matters into account.