Member

Amendment 422A from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, would apply to the offences concerning support for the display of articles et cetera under Sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 respectively. As I set out in Committee, these amendments, which are broadly the same as those tabled in Committee, would limit these important offences in such a way that they would become largely unusable in practice. The additional requirement for a superintendent to authorise an arrest would also be disproportionate and would take independent operational decisions out of the hands of the police, which is their proper responsibility. Despite the slight change in drafting, the amendment would still undermine the objectives of our proscription offences, particularly Section 12.