Terrorism Bill

The Home Secretary can read what my noble Friend Lord Kingsland said. He took the view that the Government’s slavish adherence to glorification was unproductive. He and many other peers on the Front and Back Benches criticised that. However, he said that the Opposition believed that the argument might have been exhausted and they therefore abstained on the vote. So many peers of all parties, including the Labour party, took objection to ““glorification”” that they defeated the Government despite the Government’s turning out their troops in large numbers. That is a telling indication of the independent mindedness of the other place. For that reason, when the Bill returned here, I went to much trouble to ascertain whether there is a way in which we can square the circle. At one stage, I drafted an amendment that made use of the words ““referring or glorifying””. I try to apply a bit of logic to what I do, and I hope that the Home Secretary will forgive me for saying that I could see no basis on which the word ““glorifying”” in that context would add anything at all to the legislation. This is what worries me about the Government’s approach. When we read the Bill, we see that the Government have created an offence and then, in a bizarre way, put in a subsection that draws specific attention to an activity that they want to criminalise or condemn. That is very bad law. It would have made sense, had the Government persevered—I am glad that they did not—and said that glorifying terrorism was in itself an offence. Mercifully, they did not go down that road, because enough people pointed out to them that that would have been a completely loopy proposal. What we have here, however, is a remnant of that loopiness. The House should not be in the business of encouraging loopy legislation.