Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2006

My Lords, as noble Lords will be relieved to know, I can be relatively brief as the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has clearly and precisely outlined the ground that I had intended to cover. However, I will make a preliminary point relating to the debate in the other place at the end of last week. At that time Mr David Heath, my colleague, took up the point made earlier by Dr Rudi Vis that we should, both in the other place and here, have the opportunity and the time to deal with each organisation separately. Because we do not have that—because we are dealing with a list of 21 proscribed organisations—you have a wholly unfocused debate. That is not sensible. I will not repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, said, except perhaps to dot a few ““i””s and cross a few ““t””s. He remarked that the PMOI had never—I repeat never—been responsible for any attacks on British nationals, European Union nationals or United States nationals. When introducing the proscription list, Mr McNulty said in the other place last week: "““When deciding whether to make an order proscribing a group, several additional factors are taken into account””." Those include, "““the specific threat that it poses to the United Kingdom, the specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas, the organisation’s presence in the United Kingdom, and the need to support other members of the international community in their fight against terrorism””.—[Official Report, Commons, 20/7/06; col. 491.]" I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, or I or any other Member who has contributed would contest that but, as he has already pointed out, you cannot accuse the PMOI of being responsible for those. I find it very puzzling; in fact, I find the Government’s position on the PMOI inexplicable. On one hand, you have a frank admission from the former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, that the proscription was initiated and pushed by him—there is no doubt that it was pushed by Britain within the European Union—as a consequence of a direct request by the Iranian regime to him at the beginning of the negotiations which were designed to try to reduce the nuclear programme that it was following. Then you have, as the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, observed, the remark by the Prime Minister from the Dispatch Box in another place that the same Iranian regime that requested this is now a recognised state exporter of terrorism to the whole of the Middle East. Indeed, it goes further afield than that. It goes into Europe—there have been events in Berlin—and even to south America. I do not understand. Likewise I do not understand why, as the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, said, the Government do not take a more favourable and supportive attitude towards the NCRI, which supports democracy, human rights, equality of women, law and the separation of church and state—all things that the theocratic dictatorship in Iran despises, but which we very much uphold.