Terrorism Bill

I have listened carefully to all the contributions to this afternoon’s debate, which has been fascinating, although we strayed into existential philosophy at one point. I will do my best to answer the serious points about the threshold, the requirements for offences and the safeguards to protect people from inappropriate prosecutions. I want to discuss the framing of clause 1. In framing the Bill, we have been very conscious of our obligation to our partners in the Council of Europe. In order to ratify the Council of Europe convention on the prevention of terrorism, we must create an offence of incitement to terrorism, whether direct or indirect. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), have said that existing laws are sufficient because we have sufficient powers on the statute book to achieve our objective. There is an offence of directly inciting people to murder, but there is no offence of directly inciting people to terrorist acts. In other words, there is an offence of direct incitement to get someone to do a specific thing, but we do not have an indirect incitement offence, and in order to ratify the Council of Europe convention, we must introduce one. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has said that he supports indirect incitement becoming a criminal offence. Opposition Members are clearly divided on the matter, as are hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. Some hon. Members genuinely think that we should have on the statute book an offence of indirect incitement in accordance with our convention obligations and our international obligations—in those terms, it would be an offence of public provocation, and in terms of the UN Security Council resolution, it would be an offence of glorification. To those hon. Members who do not believe that we need an offence of indirect incitement, I say that the Government believe that such an offence is necessary. We will discuss glorification, but we must have an offence of indirect incitement.