HC Deb 10 July 2000 vol 353 cc650-6

Lords amendment: No. 4, in page 7, line 13, leave out from ("activities") to end of line 15.

Mr. Charles Clarke

I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord)

With this we may discuss Lords amendments No. 5 and amendment (a) thereto, amendments (b) and (c) in lieu thereof, and Lords amendments Nos. 6 and 7.

Mr. Hogg

I rise to speak to amendments (a), (b) and (c), in my name. I speak to them for reasons of general principle and also for particular reasons which I shall outline.

I should like to touch briefly on the general point first. Clause 12 restricts free speech. I think that it is the business of the House always carefully to scrutinise whether it is right to impose restrictions on people's ability to speak their mind, even about pretty unworthy causes. Even more importantly, one should scrutinise the restrictions that we impose on the right of people to further the ability of other people to speak their mind.

May I remind you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, of the outcry in some quarters when the BBC and other organisations were prohibited from broadcasting the words of people such as Mr. Gerry Adams? I cannot, I am ashamed to say, remember his constituency, but as he does not appear in this place, perhaps I might be entitled to refer to him as Mr. Gerry Adams.

Mr. Simon Hughes

Belfast, West.

Mr. Hogg

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that information.

I was a very junior Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office at the time, and I had very real doubts, although they did not count for much, about the wisdom of prohibiting the broadcasting of the words of the hon. Member for Belfast, West—as Mr. Adams may or may not then have been—not to say about our right to do so. That general principle informs my approach to clause 12.

I am extremely unhappy about making it an offence for third parties, in effect, to organise public meetings that will be addressed by people who may be, or are, supporters of terrorism, in support of a terrorist organisation. That may not be a majority view—probably it is not. However, in general, I always lean in favour of rights and liberties.

Of course, there is always a balance to be struck, and where it should be struck at any one time is a matter of nice judgment. However, the general principle is: when in doubt, preserve a freedom.

Dr. Godman

I have much sympathy with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's comments. Was he in office when the decision was taken to raid the BBC in Glasgow?

Mr. Hogg

I have no recollection of the matter to which the hon. Gentleman refers; I am sure that in none of the offices that I held did I play any direct role. Governments take many actions of which their individual members do not approve. If we all resigned on the slightest occasion, no Government would ever be formed.

I have dealt with the general point. I turn to a particular and different point.

Mr. Simon Hughes

I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman on the general point and shall probably do so on the particular one. Does he agree that the reason for the general proposition is that, otherwise, we should have to accept the reverse—the "no platform rule"? At student unions and elsewhere, many people are not allowed to speak—whatever the desirability of their views—because it has been decided that they are beyond the pale. If debate does not take place, one can never win the argument.

Mr. Hogg

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Whenever there is any doubt, we should preserve the right.

The particular point is set out in my amendments. They deal with the proposal in Lords amendment No. 5 to impose a burden on the defence. That is the effect of subsection (3A). I readily acknowledge that the provision is subject to the new clause that would be provided by Lords amendment No. 19, and that that new clause would undoubtedly improve it. However, that does not alter the fact that the combination of those two provisions would impose an evidential burden on the defence. The burden is only evidential and not substantive, but the defence would none the less have to raise the issue.

The question that the House needs to consider—although few Members are in the Chamber to do so—is whether it is right to impose any burden on the defence or whether it is right to pursue the normal canons of criminal law by leaving the burden, throughout, on the Crown. I think that in this case we should leave the burden on the Crown throughout.

Amendments (b) and (c) would require the Crown to prove that the defendant knew that the speaker was, or professed to be, a member of the proscribed organisation, and that the purpose of addressing the organisation was to provide support to, or to further the aims of, the proscribed organisation. The Crown should be required to prove—at the ordinary standard of criminal proof—all the elements that I think should be incorporated in the offence: that the defendant knew of the status and the intent of the speaker. I am not in favour of proceeding by way of the reverse burden of proof, although I recognise that it is evidential and not substantial.

If the House is against me on this matter—as I suspect that it will be—I hope that it will consider the argument that one should remove the limitation contained in the offence to private meetings. If we take the reverse burden defence route—although I do not like it—I do not see, in principle, why the provision should be limited to a private meeting. Why should it not apply to public meetings?

I am in favour of liberty and free speech, so within the framework of the Lords amendments I want to give people as much free speech as we can—even though they may be supporting an unworthy and disagreeable organisation. I want to strike out the word "private" so that the provision applies to any meeting. I suspect that the Minister will not accept that, but I look forward to hearing his reasons.

Mr. Simon Hughes

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) for his amendments, which raise a perfectly proper set of issues. As he rightly said, few of us are in the Chamber to consider them and if a vote were called now, we might win it. However, as has happened before, people who have not heard the debate might appear from somewhere.

5.15 pm

Lords amendments Nos. 4 to 7 have considerably improved the Bill in a small but important sense. I thank my noble Friends in another place—particularly Lord Goodhart, Lord Lester of Herne Hill and Lord Avebury—who worked assiduously in pursuing these issues for us and in helping to persuade Government to change their view.

Lords amendment No. 4 would delete lines 13 to 15 of page 7 of the Bill as it was when it started its passage through the Lords—our procedure is rather bizarre—and would prevent an offence being committed if someone addresses a meeting and knows that the meeting will be addressed by someone belonging to or professing to belong to a proscribed organisation. Such mischief is not acceptable, but we do not think that it should be an offence. The original provision would have made a criminal of someone like the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington), or me, who turned up on a platform to speak against a terrorist or someone who belonged to a proscribed organisation, such as an Irish proscribed organisation.

Someone would commit an offence if he simply knew that he was about to share a platform with someone who belonged to a proscribed organisation or merely said that he belonged to such an organisation. That is clearly nonsense, because it means that the members of such organisations or those that claim to belong to them could never be engaged in debate—they would have the platform to themselves.

I understand the thinking behind the original provision. It was intended that if someone who claimed to be a member of a proscribed organisation or who was a member of such an organisation spoke at a meeting, no one else would turn up to speak on the same platform. However, that is not the way life works. One might not know in advance, or much in advance, who was going to speak and what his pedigree was. Therefore the Lords amendments have prevented the criminalisation of people who are free from any involvement in criminal or proscribed organisations. That is a good thing. It explains why the amendments in the other place were accepted, as a result of negotiations that took place both in the open and behind the scenes.

Lords amendment No. 5 led to a debate on where the burden of proof lies. The Government accept half the loaf, but the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham seeks to persuade them to accept the whole loaf. The half loaf is represented by the defence that someone does not have reasonable cause to believe that he will share a platform at a private meeting with a member of a proscribed organisation. The burden of proof has shifted, because someone has to lay that defence on the table and it is up to the prosecution to carry out the remaining work.

I would much prefer the burden of proof to remain fairly and squarely with the prosecution. The right hon. and learned Gentleman also referred to Lords amendment No. 19, which deals with the burden of proof. That issue exercised us much in Committee and it has been raised on this Bill and on other Bills currently before the House. However, I ask the Minister to recognise that the amendment tabled by the right hon. and learned Gentleman is better than those that were accepted in the other place without a Division.

Finally, I ask the House to accept amendment (a), tabled by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It would delete the criterion which means that the provision will apply only to private meetings; it would now apply to both private and public meetings. We shall avoid another problem if we avoid defining whether the meeting is public or private. In theory, one could define one or the other, and if I were advising the prosecution, I could work out how one would do that and what criteria would have to be fulfilled. None the less, it is better simply to require the prosecution to prove the case if there are to be any such offences.

The best outcome would be to not convict people or not provide that people should be criminalised if they speak on such a platform. However, if we cannot have that, I hope that the Minister, even at this late stage, will be prepared to accept the amendments. If he did that, we could have another debate ending in happy amity, without a Division, and, in my view, improving the Bill.

Mr. Lidington

We are happy to accept the Lords amendments. It is important to remind the House that this group of amendments does not deal with the generality of terrorist organisations or individual terrorists, but only those organisations that have been proscribed under procedures in the Bill.

The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) addressed arguments about no platform and the need for democratic politicians to rebut publicly the arguments of unpleasant political groups. However, we are talking about something different in this group of amendments, and are dealing with organisations whose record of activity in violence and murderous behaviour is such that the Government in office decide to make an order for proscription, which is endorsed by Parliament through approval of delegated legislation. In other words, the democratically elected representatives of the British people decide to put a certain organisation outwith the bounds of normal political discourse, at least until it has stopped resorting to terrorist activity.

Mr. Hogg

Will my hon. Friend consider that point a little further? I know that he will not accuse me of supporting terrorist organisations, particularly the IRA, as he has never done so in the past. However, I urge him to cast his mind back to the time when he was at university. Had I been president of the Oxford Union at that time—as I once was—I might well have been minded to organise an event at which a member of the IRA explained to the union what they were about. It is right that terrorist organisations should be exposed to criticism from the democratic community and have the ability to explain themselves. I should be very unhappy if the president of the Oxford Union could not do that.

Mr. Lidington

I would certainly never dream of accusing my right hon. and learned Friend of supporting terrorism. However, I strongly disagree with him about supporting the notion that a member of a proscribed terrorist organisation should be given a platform that is available to other political groups in society.

I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend and the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey that there is a place for robust argument with extreme groups such as the National Front, the British National party and the Socialist Workers party. This group of amendments deals with organised criminal gangs, motivated by politics or ideology, whose record of violence is such that they have been proscribed by the Government and Parliament of the day. That point makes the difference. The Lords amendments tabled by the Government take us some way in the direction of concerns about civil liberties that have been expressed by Members of both Houses.

The Bill should provide the statutory defence offered by Lords amendment No. 5 in respect of a private meeting. It is more difficult to argue that somebody engaged in organising a public meeting which is to be addressed by a member of a proscribed organisation is a complete innocent. It is right that we should deny publicity to organisations that Parliament has stated should be proscribed altogether.

I hope, too, that Lords amendment No. 5 will deal with the matter that was raised in the Lords by my noble Friend Lord Glentoran. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point when he replies. My noble Friend asked what would happen in respect of meetings that had been convened to assist terrorist organisations to make the transition to democratic politics. He cited an example from Indonesia, where a terrorist group and the Indonesian Government had met at a conference arranged by a charitable organisation. Such meetings may be important in enabling a breakthrough to be made and in encouraging a terrorist organisation to commit itself to democratic and peaceful means of advancing its political objectives.

I hope that the definition of a private meeting in that amendment will take account of such circumstances, because those meetings are an important bridge in bringing proscribed organisations back into the democratic main stream.

Mr. Charles Clarke

I thank hon. Members for welcoming the changes that the other place has wrought to the Bill. Lords amendment No. 4 deals with concerns that were raised, and we accepted the weight of opinion on that subject. Lords amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7 add a new statutory defence where a person is charged with an offence under clause 12(2)(c). That will apply where a person is charged with the offence in respect of a private meeting, and makes it a defence for him to prove that he had no reasonable cause to believe that the address would support a proscribed organisation or further activities.

I emphasise that it is to remain an offence to arrange, manage or assist in the arranging or managing of a meeting that one knows is to be addressed by a person who belongs or professes to belong to a proscribed organisation. However, in certain cases there should be a statutory defence. That point was made by Lord Glentoran in the other place, and the statutory defence in Lords amendment No. 5 seeks to address that.

I turn now to the amendments in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg). Amendment (a) would remove the word "private" from the statutory defence so that it would apply also to public meetings, which is the right hon. and learned Gentleman's principal intention. We accept that there could be a genuinely benign private meeting to be addressed by a member of a proscribed organisation—one could think of various examples—and it could therefore be legitimate to arrange such a meeting under the circumstances set out in our statutory defence. However, we cannot accept the arranging of public meetings to be addressed by members of proscribed organisations, even when the person arranging the meeting does not think that the address will support the organisation.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of his experience as president of the Oxford Union and his desire to subject terrorists to the pressure of debate with Oxford undergraduates. There is no way to reconcile the difference of approach between us. The point of the offence in clause 12(2)(c) is to help to deprive proscribed organisations of what is commonly described as the oxygen of publicity. To excuse the arranging of any public meetings would be thoroughly detrimental to that objective. The right hon. and learned Gentleman made it clear that he does not agree, citing examples from his experience in the Oxford Union and as a Home Office Minister dealing with issues arising from the Irish situation.

5.30 pm

I do not see any way across that division of opinion. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will decide whether he wishes to push the matter to a vote. I acknowledge that it is a difficult issue. However, he has made his position clear this afternoon and on other occasions.

I move on to amendments (b) and (c), in the name of the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham, and his motion to disagree with Lords amendment No. 5. He proposes an entirely different approach. The proposal is that, rather than providing a statutory defence, it should be part of the offence itself that the person arranging a meeting should know that the address by the member of the proscribed organisation was to be with the purpose of providing support for that organisation or of furthering its aims. On amendment (b), I should first say that to commit the offence in clause 12(2)(c) a person does have to know that the meeting is to be addressed by a person who belongs or professes to belong to a proscribed organisation. The word "know" appears at the end of subsection (2). So he does have to know that that person belongs or professes to belong to a proscribed organisation. There is no need for an additional "he knows", as proposed by amendment (b).

Amendment (c) raises a more substantive point. We considered an approach along the lines of that proposed by the amendment, and I do not dismiss the amendment out of hand, for that very reason. We decided against it because we did not wish to create an offence which depended not on one mens rea but on two. In other words, to commit the offence, the arranger would have to know, first, that the member of the organisation was to address the meeting, and secondly, that the addresser would have the purpose of, for example, encouraging support for the organisation or furthering its aims. An offence depending on the accused's knowledge of the state of mind of a third party would be extremely difficult to operate in practice.

For that reason we decided to opt for the statutory defence approach. It focuses not on what the accused knew about the state of mind of the addresser, but on what he had reasonable cause to believe about the address itself. There has only to be evidence in favour of the accused that is sufficient to raise an issue. The burden then falls on the prosecution. That seems fair to both sides. We believe that this is the right way to go about these matters and that it will produce the right result.

With that explanation, I hope that the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham will consider withdrawing his amendments.

Lords amendment agreed to.

Lords amendments Nos. 5 to 7 agreed to.

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