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Terrorism Bill

moved Amendment No. 68A:"Page 18, line 27, leave out ““except in section 9(4),””" The noble Lord said: My Lords, the words to which my amendment refers either have no effect whatever or they tear a small or significant gap in the protection that the Bill is intended to give to the public. If we assume that they have an effect, we should see what it is. In Clause 20(3), which starts at line 23 on page 18, there is a definition of what constitutes ““the public”” to which we are referring. It tells us that,"““references to the public are references to the public of any part of the United Kingdom or of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom, or any section of the public””." That applies to every reference to the public in Part 1 of the Bill. The application of the second leg of the definition is almost as wide but is subject to a narrow exclusion. Subsection (3)(b) says that such references,"““also include references to a meeting or other group of persons which is open to the public (whether unconditionally or on the making of a payment or the satisfaction of other conditions)””." Those words, crucially, are preceded by the words ““except in section 9(4)””. I apologise. I seem to have lost my place in my notes, so perhaps it would be better if I continued ad hoc. The definition of an offence under Clause 9 depends on the possession of radioactive material. The definition of ““radioactive material”” under Clause 9(4) is,"““nuclear material or any other radioactive substance which . . . contains nuclides””." The clause then gives a technical definition, but continues,"““and . . . is capable, owing to its radiological . . . properties””" of doing any one of four things. The effect of the exclusion in relation to the definition in Clause 9(4) is to exclude a nuclear substance from being classified as such if it is capable only of"““creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public””." As we have already discovered, the public are, because of the exclusion, not the public if they are gathered in a public place having bought a ticket or satisfied the rules of the local Labour Party or Conservative Party. If a person is carrying a substance that cannot cause serious bodily injury, cause serious damage to property or endanger a person’s life, but can create a serious risk to the health or safety of the public, the public are not there, so the material is excluded and the offence is not committed. That may not be the meaning of the drafting of the Bill, but it appears to have no other effect. With this exclusion, the Bill allows someone to come with material in his pocket—let us say one of those spray cans that contain a low-level radioactive substance, capable of producing long-term diarrhoea. Just because we are talking about nuclear material, we are not necessarily talking about explosives. We are talking about radiation. Such a substance can cause panic in an enclosed place. If your Lordships were coming to the opening of Parliament, qualifying as the public under the rules of the place, and the material were deployed here, technically no offence would have taken place. That must be ludicrous. What is any other interpretation of the Bill to be? I beg to move.