Terrorism Bill

We will discuss the concept of ““attending””, which implies that the person who is doing the ““attending”” knows what they are doing. I hope that my hon. Friend is reassured that an individual must have a purpose in attending a particular place. Amendment No. 57 removes any concept of suspicion, which, as the hon. Member for Beaconsfield has acknowledged, would significantly narrow the scope of the offence. If someone does not know that terrorist training is taking place, they will not be caught by the offence. If we remove the word, ““suspects””, however, the offence would not cover someone who provides training and who has every reason to suspect, but does not know as an absolute fact, that their students are planning to use their skills for terrorist purposes. What is more, that person could continue to provide such training with impunity for as long as their suspicions do not turn into certain knowledge, which is not a satisfactory situation. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) have made the same point about chemistry lecturers and teachers, and I am prepared to think about that specific point a little more. But the hon. Gentleman’s description of the person of unsavoury character is not specific enough. The suspicion would have to be based on specific grounds. I shall respond to him further on that point. Amendment No. 89 takes a rather different approach. It retains, rightly, the concept of suspicion, but would qualify it with the word ““reasonably””. That is not necessary. Whether or not somebody suspects is simply a fact that the prosecution would have to prove in a given case. Amendment No. 58 would provide a defence of informing the police—or, in the case of an employee, the employer—of that suspicion. I understand the intention behind it, which is to provide a defence to those who take steps to make others aware, but it is unnecessary. In reality, it is highly unlikely that someone who had been to the police and reported his suspicions would ever be prosecuted. I doubt that the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions would be forthcoming in such circumstances. However, we would certainly not want a person who had reported their suspicions to the police to have carte blanche. Their suspicions could be reported in such a way as to play those suspicions down, or they could be so ambiguous that the police would find it difficult to follow them up, and the trainer could then carry on providing the terrorist training with impunity. Even if he was given ever-stronger reasons for knowing that the training would be used for terrorist purposes, he would fall outside the scope of the clause if the amendment were to be made. I turn to the amendments to clause 8. On amendment No. 42, it is certainly not the Government’s intention to catch people who could not reasonably be expected to know that they were at a training camp. Subsection (2) provides that in order for an offence under the clause to be committed, the prosecution has to prove that the person knew or believed that training for terrorist purposes was taking place, or could not reasonably have failed to be aware of that. If the person had no reasonable grounds for believing that he was at a place where terrorist training was taking place, clearly he would not have committed any offence. The first part of the amendment is therefore unnecessary. The second part of the amendment would provide a defence of attending a terrorist camp ““for legitimate research purposes.”” That would create a major loophole, to say nothing of a significant definitional headache for the courts in having to interpret it. The Government do not believe that attendance at a terrorist training camp can ever be considered legitimate. It has been suggested, not least during this debate, that attendance at such a camp, perhaps by journalists or by a non-governmental organisation, may be considered valid. However, we consider that attendance at terrorist training camps by such individuals lends legitimacy to such groups and creates an environment in which terrorism may flourish. That is wholly wrong. The Government do not consider that there can be justifiable reasons for knowingly attending a terrorist training camp at which individuals are trained in acts of terror that would lead to innocent people losing their lives. Terrorism is not a valid form of political expression, in this country or abroad.