Terrorism Bill

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point—I have been trying to deal with it for the past 20 minutes. It is clear that part of the offence is specific intent, for which clause 1(b)(i) provides. Under it, people can know or believe that they are trying to incite terrorism and they can be convicted for it. However, as the hon. Gentleman says, the Government wish to widen its scope. To what point is it being widened? I believe that it is being widened well beyond the recklessness test—the old test that was often put into statutes to ensure that someone could not wriggle off the hook by saying, ““Oh well, I may have said people should blow themselves up in Kensington high street, but I didn’t really mean it.”” There is difference between that and negligence, which may constitute a negligent comment of the kind that many a Minister or Member of Parliament has frequently made on the Floor of the House and regretted afterwards. The Minister must deal with that distinction this afternoon. Glorification is a completely separate issue. We know the origin of the glorification provisions. The Bill started out with a completely separate offence of glorifying terrorism and received massive public criticism. Consequently, the Government conducted a classic piece of new Labour dissimulation. On the one hand, they announced that they were backing down in the face of the criticism, but, on the other, they tried somehow to save the Prime Minister’s face by ensuring that glorification survived. I strongly suspect that there were long and disputatious moments in No. 10 Downing street between the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister.