Terrorism Bill

I disagree. My constituency is a place to the north of Scotland, which is a place just south of my constituency. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield strikes exactly the right balance in his amendments to clause 8. The accused must show that, on the balance of probabilities, he was in a training centre for one of the three legitimate reasons given in amendment No. 59. I am concerned about the potential to fall foul of clause 6 as a result of people’s suspicions. Amendment No. 42 offers a small measure of protection, because any such suspicion must be reasonable—it does not cover suspicions borne of prejudice or mere fancy. The common theme of clauses 6 and 8—we dealt with it at length yesterday—is that it is all too easy to blunder unknowingly into a situation and fall foul of the legislation. I cannot see that that is what the Government intend, but it is unfortunately the consequence of the clauses’ drafting. As hon. Members said yesterday in the context of clause 1, people must be able to regulate their conduct according to this legislation, which, frankly, is not possible at the moment. The concern that I seek to highlight in relation to clause 8 relates to ““legitimate research purposes”” and investigative journalism, which often performs an important function in these situations. The Government might believe that suspicions should be investigated not by journalists but by the appropriate authorities. We all know that in the real world matters can often be rather more complicated. The British Government of the day might choose, perhaps because of some wider concern, to ignore something that is going on in another country that constitutes a training place for terrorism. Yesterday, we spoke about Uzbekistan. The Government of Uzbekistan have had the benefit of a great deal of very benign doubt from the British Government, if I may put it like that. Who is to say that, if a training camp were to be established in Uzbekistan, we might not go looking too hard for it? An investigative journalist, however, might want to undertake some sort of exposé, but, under the clause, he or she could feel constrained from legitimately exercising professional freedom.