Terrorism Bill

I am grateful for that explanation. Trying to help the Prime Minister’s ego is a new task for Opposition spokespeople. I am delighted that they are diverting their energies to that. What of the Liberal Democrats? No one—including them, probably—has any idea where they stand. On Tuesday they were with the Conservatives in accepting ““glorifying””. On Wednesday they had parted company from the Conservatives, but today they are back with the Conservatives and opposing ““glorifying””. It is such typical behaviour from the Liberal Democrats that perhaps it is not worth considering. The case for including glorification is strong. It is a clear and well understood English word that captures better than any other word some of the conduct that we are trying to deal with in the Bill. As I have said, I imagine that that is why the press have picked up and focused on the word. They know what it means and they know that their readers understand it. It was and, I hope, will be perfectly clear in the Bill for the sake of the courts. It is also a word that the nations of the world were prepared to accept last September when they voted to adopt UN Security Council resolution 1624, which features that word. We should uphold it in Parliament. As I have also pointed out before, in light of the attention given to the issue of glorification, if we were now to remove it from the Bill the courts would be fully justified in reaching one obvious conclusion—that Parliament did not intend glorification of terrorism to fall within the scope of the encouragement offence. If any hon. Members doubt that, they may like to read a judgment given by the Lords of Appeal only last week. In the course of his remarks, Lord Bingham of Cornhill said:"““There is no warrant for treating Parliament as having meant something it did not say””." That clarification, given in the case Regina on application of Gillan and another v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and another, which was given 8 March, should cause all of us to be clear that if we take out the word ““glorification””, there will be understanding of that in the court when the legislation comes through.