Terrorism Bill

I am happy to speak in French to the Minister if he would prefer me to do so, but that is prohibited by the rules of the House, so I shall refrain from it. The Home Secretary comes to the House to make a case for the restoration of the concept of glorification. I think he knows and has acknowledged in the course of interventions that it is a concept hitherto unknown to our law and is undefined. The Home Secretary glossed over the history of the matter. The original announcement, which came from the Prime Minister as much as from anybody else, was that we would have a separate offence of glorification, condoning and exaltation of terrorism. That was the expression. What happened, although the Home Secretary seems to be unwilling to admit it in the House this afternoon, is that that idea came in for a massive amount of criticism, to the point where it was entirely rubbished and ridiculed. It was an unworkable proposal. It envisaged putting up a list which, in a convoluted way, meant that there was a 20-year cut-off period for criticisms, to try and get round the problems that it might pose in respect of the African National Congress. It was a dog’s breakfast of a proposal and the Government and the Home Secretary wisely abandoned it. Having abandoned the proposal, the next problem was to cope with the occupant of No. 10 Downing street, who once he has come out with one of his populist pronouncements, which he thinks has some resonance with the press, decides that the word still has to feature. That seems to be the only reason why glorification was put into clause 1. I say to the Home Secretary that it could be removed in its entirety and the Bill, with the concept of indirect encouragement, would still be perfectly workable. In some cases, glorification might be an example of indirect encouragement, but in other cases it might not. There is no rhyme or reason why it should be there.