Terrorism Bill

I rise to urge right hon. and hon. Members to disagree to Lords amendments Nos. 5, 11, 15, 28, 31, 32 and 34, and to support amendments (a) and (b) in lieu of Lords amendment No. 34. Amendments (a) and (b) are minor, tidying proposals and I do not intend to devote more time to them. The key issue is whether the House will agree with another place and seek to restore its original wording. I shall remind the House how we got to this point. We passed counter-terrorist legislation in the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, during the debates on which we said we would legislate to make prosecution easier, as required by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Page 53 of Labour’s general election manifesto, on which we were elected, stated that "““we will introduce new laws to help catch and convict those involved in helping to plan terrorist activity or who glorify or condone acts of terror.””" That was followed by the awful events of 7 July, which led naturally to a focus on the people who conducted those terrorist acts and on how they were recruited and incited, including through glorification. With the agreement of all parties in the House, a new Bill was introduced in the autumn. Of course, there were difficult issues of freedom and security—we were able to agree a lot that the Opposition said, but not all. Following that process, the House reached an agreement on the Bill, and that included a commitment to a review of the definitions of terrorism to be conducted by Lord Carlile and to reviews of the operation of the 2005 Act regime as well as a commitment to return to legislation, which will be introduced in the next Session, as I announced in a statement to the House a couple of weeks ago, and which was generally welcomed. I believe that that was a solid and stable basis on which to proceed, not only recognising the genuine differences of opinion but seeking to find a good way to make progress.