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Terrorism Bill

My Lords, in essence, I guess that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, wants to know whether an intent requirement is contained within the new grounds of proscription set out in Clause 21. Intent is a matter that can be proved only in a criminal trial, so it is not an appropriate concept to import into proscription. Nevertheless, there are important safeguards that will ensure that proscription does not happen in inappropriate cases. It may be worth reminding your Lordships of how the proscription regime operates. If the Secretary of State believes that an organisation has been concerned in terrorism, he may by order add it to the list of proscribed organisations. However, the order must be approved by both Houses of Parliament, subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Parliament has the absolute right to reject such an order if it disagrees with the Secretary of State’s decision that an organisation has been concerned in terrorism and warrants proscription. In reaching its decision on the provision on grounds of proscription in Clause 21, Parliament can have regard to any statements issued by or on behalf of the organisation and the context and manner in which they were made. In that respect, amendments passed in your Lordships’ House at Report stage may not be as helpful as the previous version of Clause 21, which included a description of ““unlawful glorification””. However, the Government are carefully considering our response to the amendments and may address them in another place. I am conscious that generally, in regard to proscription, Parliament is required to some extent to take advice from the Government on trust. It has been the Government’s practice to make available a sanitised version of the intelligence cases against groups that are candidates for proscription but, for obvious reasons, the detail of the intelligence must remain confidential. That is unlikely to be the case for organisations being proscribed on the basis of their indirect encouragement of terrorism. The reason for their prospective proscription will be their public statements, so Parliament will be able to assess the case against the organisations in question and determine whether the Secretary of State was right to say that they are suitable candidates for proscription. Among the factors that can be to taken into account is the nature of the statements in question. The Secretary of State, and Parliament in deciding whether to uphold his decision, will be able to consider whether the statements were such as to lead a listener to infer that he should emulate it. Parliament will also be able to consider whether the statement in question was a one-off mistake that did not usually and actually associate the organisation with the indirect encouragement of terrorism, or was symptomatic of the behaviour of the organisation. In forming that decision, the only issue at stake is the behaviour of the organisation. That is what both Houses of Parliament consider when deciding whether an organisation has been correctly proscribed. The process by which they reach their decisions will only be confused if it is suggested that they should stray outside those parameters. Once an organisation has been placed on the list of proscribed organisations, it, or someone affected by its proscription, can appeal to the Secretary of State against proscription. If he does not accept the appeal, the matter can be appealed to the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, an independent judicial tribunal. If the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission dismisses the appeal, it is still possible for further appeals to go to the Court of Appeal or its equivalents in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Those arrangements are appropriate and would not be improved by the amendment. It does not add clarity to the way the Secretary of State makes his decision; nor, for that matter, does it change how both Houses of Parliament will consider the case for proscription and either accept or reject it. In any case, it is inappropriate to seek to impose a statutory intent test in a matter that is not the subject of a criminal trial. The existing safeguards governing proscription are substantial and, we argue, have worked well. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, made some interesting comments and reflections on the proscription of Hamas, but it is worth reminding the House that it is only the military wing of Hamas that is currently proscribed. The political wing of that body is not proscribed, so it would not be affected in the way in which the noble Baroness suggests. My noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws made comments about Hizb ut-Tahrir. Again, that organisation is not currently proscribed. The list of proscribed organisations is kept under review. If the Secretary of State decides that Hizb ut-Tahrir meets either the current criteria for proscription or those in the Bill, the matter will, as I have said, need to be endorsed by Parliament. The same point arises in response to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. I do not intend to comment in detail on individual cases, as that would be inappropriate while discussing legislation which, after all, provides the framework for those later considerations. The amendment is unnecessary, and would add nothing to the process of proscription. It would, if anything, confuse that process, which, as I believe most noble Lords accept, has worked very adequately until now. For those reasons, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.