UK Parliament / Open data

Terrorism Bill

Proceeding contribution from Dominic Grieve (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Thursday, 16 March 2006. It occurred during Debate on bills on Terrorism Bill.
The hon. Gentleman may be right—there could be more such celebrations. In my part of London, celebrations of the Easter rising will undoubtedly take place. The Irish centre is within a few hundred yards of my home. Let me reassure the hon. Gentleman. If he accepts that indirect encouragement of terrorism should be criminalised, he should have no fear about supporting our amendment. It gets round the problem of the Government’s concept. The clause that covers proscribing organisations specifically focuses on glorification. Again, the amendment would remove that focus and provide that, if an organisation referred to terrorism in a way that made people infer that they should emulate it, it would fall foul of the proscription provision. However, simply glorifying something would not fall foul of the provision. Some glorification will undoubtedly constitute a reference to behaviour and terrorism in a way that encourages emulation but some will not. The amendment would get rid of the concept of glorification. That is a great improvement. I am waiting for the Home Secretary to intervene because no coherent argument has been advanced for the Government’s reason for getting so hooked on the inclusion of glorification. I do not know what will happen when the Bill returns to the other place. I note that, for something that has become so intimately bound up with the Prime Minister’s ego, when it previously returned to the Lords, only 156 out of 208 Labour peers turned up to support the proposals, even in the Government’s great heave to show their mettle. Indeed, some Labour peers supported us.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

443 c1670-1 

Session

2005-06

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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