Terrorism Bill

: I am not quite sure how long we have, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will start and stop when you tell me to do so. In a previous debate I gave the Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety an example that I thought would fall foul of the Bill—a meeting of Chilean political refugees, deemed to be terrorists by the Pinochet regime, at which someone said, ““I really value what you did in Chile. I hope that one day you can go home and seize back your country from the dictator.”” The Minister suggested that would not be caught by the Bill. The Minister suggested that six hurdles would have to be overcome before anyone could be caught and convicted under the Bill. I dug out the relevant copy of Hansard —2 November 2005, column 873—to find the Minister’s response to the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) in which she laid out the six hurdles to be overcome. If I have time, I shall go through my example again and compare it with her six hurdles and the term ““glorification””. Let us consider the first test, where someone attends a meeting and says, ““I really value what you did in Chile in the fight against Pinochet, even though he has deemed you to be a terrorist now. I hope that one day you’ll go back and seize your country from the dictator.”” That person must know that they are glorifying the actions that were taken and asking that they be emulated in the future, and the recipient of the information must also be in no doubt about that. The second test involves the likely effect. Indeed, people may well go back and commit the actions again to achieve the desired result. The third test relates to the context. In the context of a meeting of political refugees, there can be no doubt about the meaning of those words. The fourth test is whether there is a reasonable prospect of a conviction. Of course, if there were witnesses to the conversation, there would be a reasonable prospect. The fifth test is whether a prosecution is in the public interest. It may not be in the public interest with this Government, but it may certainly have been under previous Governments and—who knows?—under future ones. The problem is that that is a very subjective and political decision, which is not helped by the vagueness of the word ““glorification.”” The sixth test is whether the Director of Public Prosecutions would take action. If a crime had been committed and there were reasonable grounds to believe that a conviction could be achieved, the DPP would have little or no alternative but to proceed; he would be obliged to do so. I have struggled with this since 2 November, and I think that that is a very good example of how innocent people who say perfectly reasonable things to progress the cause of people fighting a despot might be charged, convicted and criminalised under the glorification element of the Bill. I do not believe that the six hurdles are safeguards; they are simply a description of the process of conviction. The bottom line is that too many people would be found guilty and convicted of crimes under the glorification provision simply for giving positive support to progress the cause of people fighting despots elsewhere. The term ““glorification”” is so wide, so broad and lacks so much definition that it ought not to appear in the Bill. Furthermore, no Government Member has yet been able to give a single example of any organisation or individual who would be charged under the glorification cause who would not have been covered by provisions guarding against encouraging, committing, instigating or commissioning directly or indirectly acts of terror, or recruiting to a terrorist organisation, or fund raising for a terrorist organisation, or any of the measures that are already on the statute book. The provision is unnecessary. It is too wide. It is unhelpful. It will criminalise the innocent. Let us reach an agreement, find a formula and accept the Lords amendments, with the necessary changes, but let us not object to them today.