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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I shall be very brief. I am very grateful to all those who have spoken in support of these amendments, and particularly to the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, for his very trenchant intervention during the Minister’s response. It is of course true that Internet service providers have not been lobbying for this particular group of amendments. That is perfectly understandable. They are commercial organisations concerned with having a procedure which they can understand and comply with. They are not concerned with issues of freedom of speech—indeed, that has been shown by the action of some major Internet service providers in other parts of the world. I have not been asking for uncontrolled access to the Internet. I entirely accept the principle behind this—that something on the Internet, transmitted in material from a website, which is truly terrorist-related should be removed. It is simply that the police should not have the authority to enable them to go around removing any material which they have the slightest suspicion might possibly be of some interest to somebody for terrorist purposes. I do not think that something ““capable of being”” understood and something ““likely to be”” understood are different in nature; they are simply different degrees of probabilities. Something is capable of being understood if it has maybe a one in 10 chance that it will be understood in that particular way. It is only likely to be understood if it has a 51 per cent chance. I think that the arguments for and against have been fully placed. I therefore seek the opinion of the House. On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 4) shall be agreed to? Their Lordships divided: Contents, 148; Not-Contents, 147