Terrorism Bill

That is right. We know from the past that many of the experts in weapons of mass destruction in Iraq—technical engineers—were all trained at Imperial college. The foundations of the Iraqi nuclear research programme were based on the knowledge of the students who had been on the relevant courses, to such an extent that I understand that now there is an informal system of regulation to try to provide a degree of vetting of those who undertake courses that may be particularly sensitive in terms of technology being imparted to such people. These are real issues, which I acknowledge, but we must live in the real world. A university lecturer who is delivering a course is placed in a difficult position if he begins to worry about a perfectly ordinary undergraduate. It is the same for someone who is training someone else to fly a small aircraft. Potentially, he might be committing a criminal offence. The worry for him is that if something subsequently emerges about the individual, the chain will be followed up in exactly the same way as it was after the events of September 2001. He will then be questioned and might even be prosecuted and liable to 10 years’ imprisonment. The Government must provide a let-out clause to ensure that people are not placed in an impossible position. The reality of most contractual relationships is that if a student pays money to acquire a skill, the classes cannot be discontinued half way through because it is thought that he is an unsavoury character. Either there has to be a fail-safe mechanism so that the student can be reported and the teacher told whether or not he should continue with the classes, or there must be some protection under the law. That is what amendment No. 58 is designed to achieve. I take amendment No. 58 seriously and regard it as more than a probing amendment. Unless the Minister can provide me with some assurance that the Government will reconsider this issue between now and next Wednesday, or can give me a positive response in this debate, I intend to put the amendment to the vote. There must be a safeguard that enables people to report to their employer or to someone in authority, saying, ““I am troubled by this student but I cannot really say anything more about it.”” That person would know that he was protected and would not subsequently be open to prosecution. The same thing, but in rather a different context, will apply to attendance at a terrorist training camp. I am sure that we all agree that that should be made a criminal offence. There is ample evidence that individuals have attended places that provide terrorist training—they went there because they wanted to be trained as terrorists. The difficulty arises over what happens if individuals find themselves at a place of terrorist training for good, valid or innocent reasons? There is no mechanism in clause 8 for any exoneration of such a person. The only fall-back position will be the discretion of, presumably, the Attorney-General—I hope that the terrorist training place is abroad, but I suppose that it could be in the UK—or the DPP not to prosecute. There is a way through that difficulty that improves the clause, and that is what amendment No. 59 is designed to achieved. It states:"““It shall be a defence to an offence under this section for a defendant to show on the balance of probabilities””—" so the onus will be on the defendant, which is not something I usually like, but to make the Bill bite I accept that we should reverse the burden on the balance of probabilities—"““that his attendance at any place used for terrorist training was—""(a) for the purpose of preventing the instruction or training taking place; or""(b) for the purpose of gathering information about the instruction or training; or""(c) involuntary.””"