My Lords, I shall be brief, because I know that noble Lords are waiting for the Statement. I thank the Minister for his reply. His first point was that the Government wanted to address the unique situation where, they contend, the people envisaged —those who have committed terrorist offences—have threatened to undermine our democracy. Other noble Lords who have contributed to the debate and who I very much thank, including the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Anderson, talked about other extremely serious offences such as murder, rape and, I think, manslaughter. Why just terrorism? Personally, I think
that the offence of rape undermines the principle of our modern society, which should exist, about equality between men and women, the dignity of women and our rejection of abuse of women. Apart from very serious terrorist offences, I might judge a rapist on a more serious basis than someone who gets a fine for graffiti, for example, presumably in support of some proscribed organisation. Therefore, I do not think that the argument is very sound, if I may say so.
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Secondly, I do not think it is sufficient to tinker at the edges. The Minister asks if we have drawn this too widely in covering minor terrorist offences as well as major ones, and whether a blanket restriction is inappropriate. I do not think that that will cut the mustard, quite honestly. We have a serious, fundamental issue here, which, quite apart from the practical consequences that I and others addressed, is one of access to justice, the rule of law and the integrity of our legal system. I am afraid I am not persuaded that the Minister has made the case for Clauses 87 and 88 to stand part of the Bill. I hope we may be able to come back to the matter because it does not seem to me very sound policy. I am not sure that the Minister thinks it is very sound, actually—I think he was struggling a bit there.