With the leave of the House, I will respond to the points of hon. and right hon. Members. First, let me address the amendment. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) made a passionate and well-articulated case for adding peacebuilding to
the list of reasonable excuses. His example is at the heart of the challenge—peacebuilding is most needed in fragile states, but it is in fragile states that foreign fighters emerge and safe spaces are constructed for that very reason. Effectively, the two sides of this challenge are summarised by peacebuilding. It is therefore important to say that, first, the list is indicative. As long as I have been in this House, there has been debate about whether we have judicial discretion and about not doing too much in primary legislation. Lawyers in this House will be well used to that. The more comprehensive the list, the less room there is for judicial discretion. With no list, there is judicial discretion; holes are found, and we become subject to a different interpretation by judges every time. The word “indicative” is key. This is an indicative list. The major reasons listed are the headline reasons why the vast majority of people go to these places. They are clear, but still broad enough to cover most of the areas that concern us.
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Top of the list of subsection (3B) is obviously paragraph (a)—
“providing aid of a humanitarian nature”.
There are numerous definitions, both at the UN, and no doubt within our own Department for International Development, where humanitarian aid is defined in law, whereas peacebuilding has a broader interpretation. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has been a soldier on a peacebuilding mission. I have been a soldier on operations, where you peacebuild with a gun in your hand. So it is a broad definition. I believe that the indicative list plus “reasonable excuse” should give the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby the comfort that peacebuilding—as Earl Howe said in the other place—would be recognised as a reasonable excuse. Peacebuilding would be viewed as a reasonable excuse. But of course, like all the issues listed here, the “reasonable excuse” would have to be proffered and then proved—proved by the prosecution, who would have to prove that someone was not a doctor, or that someone’s idea of peacebuilding was not peacebuilding.
Interestingly, the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) used the example of the “Four Lions” film, which is actually tragic rather than a comedy. The tragedy is in the waste of life and so on. When the characters go out for the wedding, they do not go to a wedding. It would not be a hard excuse to disprove; I do not think they actually attended a wedding. It is qualified within the list. The “reasonable excuse” would have to be tested by the prosecution.