Terrorism Bill

I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) about the timing of the debate on this group of amendments. Amendment No. 33 would remove the reference to the definition in the Terrorism Act 2000 and leave acts of terrorism undefined for the purposes of the Bill. Amendment No. 69 was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham) and would limit the definition applying to certain parts of the Bill to attacks on civilians. My right hon. Friend has also accepted that attacks on British forces need to be covered, as well as perhaps attacks on property that recklessly endanger human life. Amendment No. 75 tries to achieve a similar aim by providing that acts outside the UK that do not involve British citizens or interests count as acts of terrorism or convention offences only if they are not done with the intent of causing the death or serious injury of foreign troops in a country. Amendment No. 61 provides that attacks on Governments and international organisations are not terrorism if those Governments or organisations have persistently been involved in breaches of human rights. Amendment No. 84 would change the definition of terrorism to remove the reference to ““serious damage to property”” and replace it with"““extensive destruction to property likely to endanger human life or result in major economic loss.””" This is an important debate and I acknowledge the seriousness with which it has been addressed by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee to try to reach the correct conclusion. As I said to the Home Affairs Committee when I gave evidence on the Bill, there is good reason why the new offences that the Bill creates should be governed by our existing definition of terrorism, which Parliament has approved and which has operated effectively, without some of the fears that have been expressed being realised, for five years. I wrote to the Chairman of the Committee following my evidence on this very issue and I pointed out that there is no agreed international definition of terrorism and that all the existing alternative definitions are unsatisfactory in some way. I cited the EU code, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen referred, and the state of affairs of the current United Nations discussions to try to address the issue. I need to be clear about this issue because of possible misunderstanding. I accept that it is a difficult issue and that there are problems with the definition in the Act. I accept and acknowledge that those problems exist. However, I also think that there are problems with the definition that my right hon. Friend offers us, although I mean no criticism by that. Therefore, it is important that we discuss precisely how to deal with the issue so that we may reach agreement on Report about how best to proceed. Having acknowledged the difficult nature of the issue, I wish to make a couple of specific points. The whole terrorist/freedom fighter debate has been dominant for some time, but I must say—I know that no one has suggested it—that al-Qaeda is not in the same spirit of freedom fighting that many ““terrorists”” have claimed in the past. However, that does not absolve me from dealing with the problem that the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) mentioned about definition. I wish to make a couple of points about the possible definition that we could reach. It has been suggested that only attacks that endanger life should be covered and that we should exclude attacks on property. I find that difficult and I remind the Committee that our existing definition includes only serious attacks on property and ask Members to recall the Provisional IRA’s attacks on the City of London in the mid 1990s. To suggest that such acts were not terrorist attacks seems to be missing an important point. The simple ““property or not”” definition does not entirely work.