Terrorism Bill

It may assist the Committee and the Minister if I explain that these are probing amendments whose genesis is in discussions that we held. Liberty, in particular, had concerns about the drafting of the clause and its somewhat wide scope. I should say at the outset that we have argued for an offence of this sort in the past and I warmly welcome its inclusion in the Bill. I certainly support the general thrust of the clause, but we should be clear that what we are doing will mark a radical departure. The Minister may be able to correct me, but I cannot think of another occasion when we have criminalised conduct that is so inchoate that it could not be caught by other inchoate offences such as conspiracy, attempt or other species in the criminal law. Given the times in which we live, such a departure is necessary and there will be no argument about that from the Liberal Democrat Benches. However, if we are to take new and different directions such as that, it is important to get things right, especially because, as the Committee will see, this is an offence for which one can be sentenced to life imprisonment. To accentuate the positive, I certainly accept the presence of ““intent”” in the commission of the crime, such that"““a person commits an offence if, with the intention of . . . committing acts of terrorism, or . . . assisting another to commit such acts””." That is a helpful and necessary inclusion. Concern was expressed to us by Liberty, however, that because of the wider drafting of later parts of the clause it might not be too difficult for a court to infer intent in a way that was not necessarily intended by the Committee. Our amendment would include the word ““relevant”” in subsection (1) so that engaging ““in any conduct”” becomes engaging ““in any relevant conduct”” and would give the Secretary of State power to define what constitutes relevant conduct, and to do so through statutory instrument. I accept that such a definition will necessarily be wide and broad. We propose the creation of a statutory instrument so that we would not have to revisit the matter in primary legislation, should changing circumstances render it necessary to change the definition. As I have already said, the amendments are probing and I am keen to hear the Minister’s thinking about the clause.