Terrorism Bill

My Lords, first I shall deal with a matter that the noble Baroness raised early on in her speech—the Government’s manifesto for the elections last May—and the amount of weight that your Lordships should place on it in making up your minds this afternoon before the vote. The manifesto indeed mentioned glorification; but it did so in the context of being a self-standing offence, the offence of glorification. By the time this Bill came before your Lordships’ House for the first time, there was no mention of any self-standing offence of glorification. The offence had become indirect encouragement, and ““glorification””, in so far as it appears in the Bill, does not even appear as a definition. As the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, said on Report, glorification is simply a guideline. That point was emphasised, with his customary skill, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, in the remarks that he made earlier. Whatever other factor is to influence your Lordships in making up your minds, in my submission, the manifesto of the Government at the previous election should not be one of them. The noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, have presented a fundamental case against Clause 1(4) cogently and compellingly. I shall not attempt to elaborate on what they have said. I shall merely draw out two points from their analysis, which I shall make shortly—even telegraphically. First, as the noble and learned Lord said, the definition of indirect encouragement is so vague as to plainly contradict the European Convention on Human Rights. The noble and learned Lord mentioned Article 10. For me, the crucial one is Article 7. If before he does something, somebody does not know whether or not it is a crime, that is bad law, which ought to be struck down. The second reason why I think the analysis of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, is so pertinent is what I describe as the constitutional malignity of Clause 1(4). The definition of indirect encouragement is so vague that the scope of the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide whether or not to prosecute is immense. In effect, the DPP will decide what the law is when launching prosecutions in court. That is a fundamental breach of the rule of law. I do not have to cite the European convention to reach that conclusion; it is enshrined in our own common law. I want to make it absolutely clear that the Opposition support this Bill. In particular, we support the offence of indirect encouragement. We need a really effective weapon against the preachers of hate, and we want the Bill on the statute book as quickly as possible. The reason why we tabled the amendment is not because we are opposed to the offence of indirect encouragement; we are, rather, opposed to its definition. We think that the Bill, when enacted, with glorification still contained in it, will not achieve results in the courts—the results we need to combat terrorism effectively. Far from being soft on terrorism, as the Prime Minister has so petulantly asserted from time to time, it is we who are being tough on terrorism. By refusing to use their head in relation to the definition, the Government are being soft. Not for the first time, the Government prefer the soundbite to the substance of the matter. We have now to consider whether to send this back to another place. I do not like the idea of waiting another nine months for this Bill to go on to the statute book. Effectively, if we carry on our resistance to the point of invoking the Parliament Act, that is what would be implied. I also take the point, made more than once by the noble Baroness, that another place is the democratically elected place. But equally, we have a constitutional duty, given to us by another place, to make it think again if we think that it is wrong. Early in her speech, in response to a question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, the noble Baroness gave an undertaking that, at the beginning of 2007, a whole range of issues connected with the offence of terrorism would be reconsidered by the Government. She said, most significantly, that glorification would be included in that review. Before deciding whether to put our Motion to your Lordships’ House, I shall have to set that against my fundamental feeling that what we are about to make is bad law.