Comparison of Divisions: Terrorism Bill — Clause 1 — Encouragement of Terrorism — "recklessly indifferent" — 2 Nov 2005 at 15:30 with Division No. 74 on the same day at 15:41

Those voting Aye wished to change Clause 1 of the Terrorism Bill according to Amendment 79.

Clause 1 of the Bill says:

A person commits an offence if (a) he publishes a statement or causes another to publish a statement on his behalf; and (b) ... he knows or... has reasonable grounds for believing that members of the public... are likely to understand it as a[n]... encouragement... of acts of terrorism...

The amendment would have changed part (b) into:

(b) ...he intends or is recklessly indifferent to the fact that the publication will be understood as an... encouragement... of acts of terrorism... (c) It is not necessary... that he intended to cause... a specific terrorist act.

In other words, to be guilty you had to actually want to cause offence, as opposed to your words merely being interpreted as offensive, which is easily done even if it is not your intention.

The issue of this vote is almost exactly the same as the next one. You can see a comparison between the two votes here.

The majority of MPs voted against making the offence of Encouragement of Terrorism only apply to cases where an individual intended their actions to encourage terrorism.

NOTE: The clerks of the house have confirmed their list of names, though it differs from the official count for the Ayes of 299, meaning that there appears to be a majority of 3 rather than just 1. Click HERE for the list of MPs including those who were absent.

Those voting Aye wished to add a phrase to the end of part (1) of Clause 1 of the Terrorism Bill. This was a brief but similar change to what was proposed in the last division

Clause 1(1) of the Bill says:

• A person commits an offence if (a) he publishes a statement or causes another to publish a statement on his behalf; and (b) ... he knows or... has reasonable grounds for believing that members of the public... are likely to understand it as a[n]... encouragement... of acts of terrorism...

And the question which was the subject of this vote was to append the phrase:

• and intends that his statement shall have that effect

which would have meant you couldn't break this law unintentionally.