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Counter-Terrorism Bill

The noble Baroness has touched on an issue that is not of huge import, because, as she rightly says, we could probably catch terrorists who are involved in that sort of thing without having ““racial”” in the definition. As she said, the March 2007 report by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on the definition of terrorism brought this up to enhance clarity. We accepted this in our response to his report, which we published on 7 June 2007. As I say, we believe that any relevant acts or threats are likely to be committed for a political or ideological purpose. We also believe, however, that the specific inclusion of ““religious”” in the current definition could lead some to argue that racially motivated terrorism has been specifically excluded. We may be wrong, but that is why we have gone down this route, particularly because ““racial”” and ““religious”” are often tied together in other legislation as, for example, racial and religious hatred and racial and religiously aggravated offences. Clause 82 puts it beyond doubt that racially motivated terrorism is included in the definition. It will not widen the scope at all. It would not, for example, bring the activities of far-right groups within this definition. These are already covered where they meet the tests set out in the definition of terrorism in Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The clause is included for those reasons and for clarification, and should stand part of the Bill.