Terrorism Bill

My Lords, I rise to support the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and speak also to my Motion. The sole purpose of my Motion is to remove all references to glorification from the Bill. Clause 1 covers two forms of encouragement—direct encouragement and indirect encouragement. Direct encouragement is already covered by the existing law of incitement; I believe that now to be common ground on all sides. It may help the House if I give an example of how far the existing law of incitement goes. It may be that some of your Lordships have one of the devices—which I have not—that warns one of an approaching speed trap. In 1976, the manufacturers of such a device were prosecuted for advertising their products. It was said that they were inciting motorists to break the law by speeding. The defence was that they were not inciting anyone to do anything, certainly not to break the law—that was up to the driver. That defence was rejected. The manufacturers were duly convicted, and the conviction was upheld by a strong Court of Appeal. It is rather a good example of what I think the Government have in mind by indirect encouragement, yet it is covered by the existing law. There is nothing wrong with the existing law of incitement, and the reason why no one has been prosecuted for inciting terrorism is not because of some fault or deficiency in the law; it is quite simply because of a reluctance on the part of the police, for whatever reason, to prosecute. Instead of encouraging the police to use the existing law, the Government’s response has been to make it easier, as they believe, for the prosecution to secure a conviction, by including indirect incitement in Clause 1. That is good as far as it goes. The trouble is that the Bill does not define what it means by indirect incitement. It may be that the Home Office lawyers or the draftsmen of the Bill found that task too difficult. Instead, all we have to go by is an example of a statement which is to be treated as falling within the scope of indirect incitement, namely glorification. To legislate by example is a most unusual way of proceeding. It is as if the Government were to say that they cannot define the offence with any degree of precision, but that this is the sort of thing they have in mind. That will not do for a criminal offence. On the last occasion the Bill was before this House, an amendment put down by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland, attempted to cure that defect and improve the Bill by including a definition of indirect incitement. It was an olive branch, held out to the Government by him in all good faith. The Home Secretary did not accept that olive branch. Instead of adopting—and perhaps improving—the definition suggested by the noble Lord, he rejected it out of hand. What were his objections? I submit that they were trivial. First, the amendment had referred to the ““listener”” and one cannot listen to a placard. That was a good debating point, but we need something better than debating points if we are to reach consensus on this important matter. That defect could have been so easily cured.