Lord Elliott of Ballinamallard (UUP)

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to make a few points in this debate. To be fair, there is legislation that covers the glorification of terrorism. The problem—I think the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and others have tried to make this point—is that it is not strong enough and does not do what it is supposed to say on the tin. If we look back at the case of Fusilier Lee Rigby, two people were convicted and jailed for that. In 2021 there was a conviction for encouraging terrorism and collecting information after posting messages. In 2023 there was another conviction for sharing a video of National Action, a proscribed neo-Nazi group. In 2024 someone was jailed for encouraging terrorism. I do not want people to think that there is no legislation; there is, but the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, is trying to improve it, particularly for those victims. We hear, in summary, that the law allows for the conviction of people who glorify terrorism. The vast majority of the UK population has not been convicted of any offence and prosecutions require specific evidence. I also picked out from a report that, in the year ending March 2023, 169 people were arrested for terrorism-related activity. Only 46 were charged with terrorism-related offences and we have no idea how many were actually convicted. What we are trying to do here is to make things better. I ask noble Lords to put themselves in a situation; the examples I give are live examples. There is a group of young people playing in a junior band and a busload of adults pull up who are coming from a Gaelic football match and they start singing pro-terrorist songs and chanting “Up the Ra”. What does that do for those young people who are out playing and enjoying music? I give another example. A man during the Troubles, because he was a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, was murdered. That evening, his three young children and his widow were in the house and groups of people drove past in cars, cheering at his murder. Those were his neighbours who were doing that—cheering at his murder and shouting “Up the Ra”. Tell me that that is not an offence. If it is not, it should be. Tell that man’s widow, who is still alive, and his children that that is not an offence. If it is not, it should be. We need to tighten the glorification of terrorism legislation. I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and I have to say that she gave some examples that are not akin to what we are talking about here. You cannot stop some of those chants and singing “The Fields of Athenry” or “The Sash” at a Rangers-Celtic match—and, by the way, that is not illegal, but there is a significant difference between singing that and going out to publicly antagonise people by shouting “Up the Ra”, “Up the UVF” or support for other terrorist organisations. So I support the amendment.