Terrorism Bill

I have listened with interest to what the Minister has said on this matter. We share her aims in clause 3. We entirely agree that it should be possible to give a notice to take down internet material that offends under clauses 1 and 2. We have no problem with that. The difficulty is, as the Minister will acknowledge, that the internet service provider is in a different position from the person who has put the material on the web in the first place. We take the view in this country that the internet is a powerful tool for disseminating information, and that on the whole—although it can be used for bad purposes such as pornography, child pornography and, indeed, terrorism—the balance is in its favour in that it allows the distribution of information around the world. It is therefore in the public interest that the principle of the freedom of the internet should be maintained. Disquiet has been expressed recently that, under pressure from some foreign Governments, internet service providers and search engines have been prepared to reach accommodations with those Governments to withdraw certain material, particularly in China. That is an infringement of the ability to communicate freely. There is a serious public interest in maintaining the right to communicate freely on the internet. I fully understand how the Government’s provision will operate. There will be trained officers to carry out research work and serve the notices. That is all perfectly appropriate, but, as the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) so rightly said, when a person receives one of those notices, it is in terrorem. They will receive a notice telling them that they risk prosecution unless they remove the material, and that they will not be able to rely on the statutory defence of lack of knowledge. Any internet service provider that is doing its job properly and is respectful of the public policy arguments relating to the maintenance of freedom of speech will have to make a judgment as to whether the police officer is right to serve the notice. There could be instances in which an internet service provider decided that the case was borderline. It would not be the first time in our history that a police officer had made a mistake, however well-intentioned they might be. In those circumstances, what could be more sensible than to provide a mechanism to reassure the internet service provider that an independent third party had scrutinised the request from the police officer, so as to establish that there was at least a prima facie case to justify the officer’s action? That is all that we were talking about, when the other place inserted the judicial scrutiny provision. I was surprised to hear the Minister say that this would be no different from the scrutiny of control orders. She has failed to understand the nature of the review that a judge would carry out. I would assume that it would be identical to those made on an ex parte application for an injunction. The police officer would simply have to show the material to the judge, and the judge would have to make a swift assessment of whether he thought that it fell foul of clauses 1 and 2. The judge would then give his approval. That would provide the reassurance to the internet service provider that he was taking the right decision in taking the material off the web. The Minister seemed to say that there was a great need for haste in such cases. I confess that I was a little surprised about that, because when we debated clause 3 it never occurred to me that it, or clauses 1 and 2, would be used as an emergency provision suddenly to remove or prosecute people. Instead, it seemed that it was part of the Government’s perfectly commendable plan to ensure that the circulation of material that constituted a direct or indirect encouragement to terrorism could be controlled. The truth, I suspect, is that material of that kind is likely to have been on the web for weeks if not months or years before somebody finally starts taking action against it. That there will be some threat to the public from a delay of 24 hours, which is probably all that would be needed in order to go before a judge—in an emergency, the delay would probably be of a few hours, and the hearing could probably be done in the middle of the night were there some pressing reason—does not therefore seem to be the best point that the Minister has made in the debate, although I acknowledge that I do not take exception to the broad thrust of what the Government are trying to do. I regret that the Minister has not persuaded me that the amendment was a foolish move by those in the other place to try to improve the Bill. I am a little disappointed not to have seen her telling us cheerfully from the Dispatch Box that it was rather a good idea and a minor improvement to the Bill that should commend itself to the House. The hon. and learned Member for Medway made the point that the other approach would be to have an appeal procedure. That is another way of doing it. It would provide for some degree of judicial review of the decision taken. Where people are making a decision that interferes with the normal right to exchange information, it seems to me that the cost, which would not be much anyway, could properly fall on the state, at least in providing for this scrutiny measure. To be fair to the Minister, she has not suggested that the scrutiny measure will undermine the provisions of clause 3, as that would be rather far-fetched. The measure is not of huge importance, but having read it and considered what the other place has done, it seems to be a material improvement to the Bill. When first confronted with the amendment, which did not come from my party, my colleagues in the other place took the view that it helped matters. I am therefore sorry to learn that the Minister is unsympathetic to the amendment. If, as I assume will be the case, the matter is pressed to a vote, Conservative Members will vote for the amendment to be retained, because although it is not of huge importance, it is a minor and sensible improvement to the legislation.