Terrorism Bill

I am grateful for the contributions that have been made in the debate, and especially that of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe. I added my name to the amendments because, like him, the clause struck me as a quite extraordinary provision. In part, the problem arises out of the definition of ““terrorism””. A definition that covered extraterritorial activity in the way suggested by the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) would go some way towards resolving the problem, but by no means all the way. For example, an offence under section 54 of the Terrorism Act 2000 relating to weapons training would be caught by the Bill, even though weapons training that takes place abroad might be considered legitimate or even worthy if it were carried out by freedom fighters opposing a disgraceful regime. To put the matter bluntly, any freedom fighter involved in Iraq before the overthrow of the Iraqi regime in Kurdistan would be caught by the provisions of the Bill, but that cannot be what the Government intend. That returns us to the point that, laudable though it may be to try to impose some universal jurisdiction in these matters, close examination shows the task is impossible. There will always be a series of unintended consequences that make such a jurisdiction unworkable. My underlying anxiety about the Bill is that it contains—dare I say it?—the foundations of some new world order. I listen carefully to the Prime Minister, who has said that the rules of the game have changed. He never explains what that means, but it has begun to dawn on me that he believes in a new and universal world order, in which any form or manifestation of terrorism or violence against the state would be eradicated. It seems to me that that belief lies at the heart of many of the proposals in the Bill. That is all very well, but the whole edifice crumbles when subjected to scrutiny and to questions about people’s right to take up arms against hideous regimes. We might be able to proceed only if we could achieve a definition of terrorism abroad with which the Committee was so universally satisfied, in the same way that the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) is satisfied about definitions of torture and genocide, that all hon. Members could feel absolutely comfortable that it described an activity that under no circumstances could ever be justified. I have to say that achieving such a definition would be fairly miraculous.