Terrorism Bill

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) on his amendment No. 3. I would support him in the Division Lobby if he pressed the argument that we should remove the subsection referring to glorification because, as he said, of its dangerous vagueness. I spoke on the subject last week during the Committee stage, so I will not repeat the arguments that I advanced and the examples that I gave of incidents that might be caught by the Bill, such as people holding dinners in favour of one national hero or giving speeches in praise of another historic hero. I trust that the Minister will address herself to some of those when she replies. I agree with the Liberal spokesman, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), that one or two of the examples that we bandied about were rather fanciful. I doubt whether Robin Hood would fall within the clear definition of a terrorist, but some of the others were quite serious. I spoke last week about the Irish examples that could be cited on both sides of the political divide that has hitherto existed in Ireland, and there are other international ones as well. In addition to adopting the arguments that I made last week, which were not met, I seek clarification about how international the application of the clause will be. I cannot anticipate a later group of amendments that deals in general with the commission of offences overseas, but in trying to envisage the problems that the insertion of the term ““glorification”” might create, it is important that we get clear in our minds whether we are speaking of incidents involving glorification in this country, or whether we are still liable to find that people are being prosecuted on allegations that they have glorified various violent people in their own territory, far away from this country. The Government have tabled, and we will discuss later, amendment No. 48, which seeks to move towards some of the arguments that we used last week about extra-territoriality. The Bill will now apply only to offences committed by foreign nationals overseas if the offence falls within clauses 1 or 6. We are debating clause 1, which, as I see it, will continue to be enforced extra-territorially in this country in respect of an offence"““so far as it is committed in relation to any statement, instruction or training in relation to which that section has effect by reason of its relevance to the commission, preparation or instigation of one or more Convention offences””." We are discussing the power being applied extra-territorially only in so far as we are discussing a breach of a UN convention or the European convention on human rights, which this country is obliged to enforce extra-territorially. I regret to say that I have not had time to look up the relevant conventions, but I suspect that the Government’s choice of phrase is not a word-for-word match. I am unsure whether a foreign national would suddenly be charged with an offence because they had said or done something in their own country before coming here that would amount to an offence if it had occurred in this country. I shall move on to one of the more tricky examples. If someone in the Caucasus were to praise the Chechen rebels and their struggle against the Russian authorities, they would arguably commit an offence, although they might not appreciate it at the time. They would have praised the commission of an act, because they would undoubtedly have praised people who had participated in terrorism in circumstances in which it might be inferred that they were encouraging other people to join. It is almost certain that they would not have the first idea that they were breaking British law or were making themselves liable to conviction in a British court when they stood up to speak in some far-away town in the Caucasus and became carried away with their own version of patriotic fervour. Such a person might come to this country and find that the Russian Government were demanding of the British Government that they should be arrested and dealt with on an extra-territorial basis, because they had committed the act of encouraging terrorism. If that is the case, I regard it as wholly objectionable, although I do not support anybody encouraging the commission of indiscriminate acts against civilians anywhere in the world, and I do not object to the law being enforced against such people. A Bill that seeks to define the encouragement of terrorism in such general and uncertain terms should not be allowed to create an offence of worldwide application. Furthermore, the British Attorney-General should not be put in a situation in which he or she is subject to political pressure from a foreign Government to start arresting people who come here, because, in that Government’s opinion, one of their citizens has committed an offence under the Bill. Clause 1 would be improved by the deletion of subsection (2), but the key point is that subsection (2) should not be applied to the opponents of President Chavez in Venezuela or those who lead uprisings in Chiapas in Mexico or in the Caucasus. It would be preposterous if the Government were still contemplating the possibility of using that vague wording to start arresting people, if such people were unwise enough to visit this country after making over-stirring and over-excited speeches in the country from which they came.