Terrorism Bill

rose to move, as an amendment to Motion B, leave out from ““House”” to end and insert ““do insist on its Amendments 22, 23 and 29.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a short issue. It arises from a vote in your Lordships’ House a few weeks ago, which was won by a majority not only a 64th of the size of the majority in the Commons, but a quarter of the size of the majority that we enjoyed in this House a few minutes ago. Under the Bill as it came to the House of Lords, a constable who thinks that a statement being transmitted by an Internet service provider from a website which that ISP serves is unlawfully terrorism related can serve notice on the ISP requiring the removal of that statement within two working days. As the Minister pointed out, it is not an offence in itself to fail to comply with the notice. But the main significance of the service of the notice is that if the Internet service provider continues to transmit that statement for more than two working days after receipt of the notice, it will be treated as having endorsed the contents of that statement. The effect is to treat the ISP as having approved the statement and a defence of intent will not therefore be available. The only defence that would be available would be to argue that the police had got it wrong in regarding this as an unlawful terrorism-related statement. So the question of intent is out of the picture. In practice, it will almost invariably be in the interest of the Internet service provider to comply with that notice. It will have absolutely no wish to face prosecution for the sake of one statement from one website. Refusing to comply with the notice would involve a great deal of expense in defending a possible prosecution, the possibility of a large fine and the stigma of being associated with terrorism. Market forces will plainly ensure that result. The Minister has laid considerable stress on the fact that no Internet service provider is concerned about that. The ISPA—the association—is happy with the idea of a notice, which strengthens my case. It shows that Internet service providers will not exercise their own judgment on whether the material that they are required to stop transmitting is terrorism material. They will simply comply with the notice, so they are not worried. They would be much more worried about this if they were contemplating the possibility that they would take steps to refuse to comply with notices. So it seems to be a thoroughly bad argument. The result therefore is that the police, by serving the notice, can block any material that they dislike. I accept that there will be special procedures by which this will be done. The ordinary bobby on the beat will not do this. It will be carried out by a specialist group, which will no doubt have strong views of its own. The Internet is now an extremely important method of passing information and views. It is therefore of very great significance to freedom of communication. Recently, there has been strong criticism of the actions of Google in setting up a censored Chinese search engine. I believe that we should not leave a power as important as the power to serve a notice of this kind in the hands of the police alone. There should be a procedure which is similar to that for getting an arrest warrant. The police should go to a judge to get permission to serve the notice. I do not suggest that there should be anything in the nature of a hearing. There is, of course, no foolproof protection of freedom of communication here. There will be no hearing. The judge will have to rely on information from the police, and some judges may, as with arrest warrants, be more willing than others to authorise the service of notices. I believe that the need to get the warrant will make abuse of police powers less likely and will delay the service of notice only by a few hours at most—far less than the two working days which are already allowed for the Internet service provider to block the material. Saying that there must be something in the nature of a judicial warrant before a notice of this kind can be served is an important protection for freedom of communication through the Internet and will not restrict the police in the proper exercise of their powers. I beg to move. Moved, as an amendment to Motion B, leave out from ““House”” to end and insert ““do insist on its Amendments Nos. 22, 23 and 29””.—(Lord Goodhart.)