My Lords, I am somewhat shocked by the implication that there is anything illiberal about the proposed extension of the law in this clause. In November 2017, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, speaking in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, included in his speech the following sentence:
“While terrorism often starts in conflict zones, it reaches far beyond them, organizing and inspiring attacks and radicalizing people across borders and continents”.
The clause recognises exactly what the Secretary-General described. Those who have been interested in terrorism law for as long as the period since 9/11 will recall that the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, in a speech in Barcelona shortly after 9/11, made the point that the United Nations agrees in principle that terrorism should be prosecuted wherever the defendant is irrespective of where the terrorist act was committed.
If this Bill, as we are told by the Government, is intended at least in major part to modernise the law so that it faces up to the changes that have occurred at an exponential rate in electronic communications since 2001, this is exactly one of those measures that achieves just that. Let us imagine that somebody was in this country with impunity having committed an act somewhere else that is a terrorism offence in this country. We prosecute those who committed the act in this country, but not those who committed exactly the same act, which appeared on exactly the same postings on the internet and in exactly the same YouTube videos, in another country. That makes absolutely no sense.
I say to the noble Baroness—whom I much admire—who proposed the amendments that there is a danger of us losing touch also with the public view on these matters. A set of opinion polls appeared two days ago in which it was revealed that changes in the law of this kind are broadly supported by more than 80% the public. While I do not believe in legislating on the grounds of public opinion, in this instance I regard the public as being right and I urge your Lordships to reject the amendments and not to reject the principle in the clause.