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Mr. Butler: I want to raise a matter which may be dealt with in the reply to the debate. If the comments to which my hon. Friend just referred amounted to incitement to racial hatred--for example, if they were comments based on a tribal difference between the ruling tribe and other tribes in another country--presumably, if the dual criminality test were passed, people could be prosecuted for them in this country when the Bill became law.

Mr. Yeo: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I am not sure what the law is in Finland, but if there were a similar measure in Finland, a prosecution might possibly be brought against the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) for incitement to racial hatred in relation to remarks made a little while ago about Finnish nurses. My hon. Friend has raised a very interesting point, which he may want to explore in detail when he makes his contribution.

Mr. Butler: I do not think so.

Mr. Yeo: We look forward to Opposition support for the Bill. I believe that we can now expect the Opposition's

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support for almost any measure to do with law and order or crime. The word has gone forth from Islington that there is no principle, however deeply cherished it may have been in the past, however loudly and frequently--

Mr. Michael: If the hon. Gentleman wants to lengthen his speech with knockabout, may I remind him that many issues that the Government now support were first proposed by the Opposition and voted down by the Government? That is the fact on law and order.

On extra-territoriality, I remind the hon. Gentleman of the debate in Committee and on the Floor of the House during the passage of the Sexual Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Bill, when we were urging the Government to go further regarding conspiracy to do things abroad, for example in relation to child sex abuse.

Mr. Yeo: That intervention bears out my point that there is no freedom, however deeply cherished in the past, no principle, however loudly trumpeted in an election address--perhaps by the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) in 1983 or 1987--that cannot now be abandoned in pursuit of votes.

Mr. Michael: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify that point? I know this is knockabout, but it sounds as though the hon. Gentleman said something which I believe he would not intend. He surely does not regard it as a freedom to be able to abuse children abroad.

Mr. Yeo: Of course I did not say that, and I certainly did not wish to imply it.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Think before you speak.

Mr. Yeo: I believe that hon. Members will find that the record is not capable of that interpretation, but if it is, I unreservedly withdraw it.

However, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) wishes to emphasise that point, I remind the House that some positions that have been taken frequently and vociferously by the right hon. Member for Sedgefield and many of his colleagues, not only on the European Union or industrial relations but on a much wider range of issues, are now absolutely reversed in their present attitudes.

The right hon. Member for Sedgefield reminds me of a mirror image of President Kennedy. He is ready to announce that there is no freedom he will protect, no frontier he will defend if such freedom or frontier stands between him and electoral victory. Most at risk are the freedoms that have historically been enjoyed by Labour Members of Parliament. When it comes to tyranny--

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris): Order. This has to be related to the Bill.

Mr. Yeo: I am grateful for that reminder. What I had in mind--[Interruption.] Exactly. What I had in mind was the possibility that Labour Members of Parliament, fleeing from the tyranny which they now face from their leadership, might wish to travel abroad and plot a coup against the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr. Michael: The hon. Gentleman should contrast the weakness and ineffectiveness of the present Prime

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Minister and the strength of the Leader of the Opposition, who has the wholehearted support of the parliamentary Labour party, something that the Prime Minister does not enjoy from the Conservative party. However, that is not a matter for today's debate, is it?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think, as a tennis player, that is one set all.

Mr. Yeo: I am grateful for that adjudication. I will say only that of course the whole House knows that the Prime Minister has the unanimous and wholehearted support of all Conservative Members. [Laughter.] His only opponent unfortunately seemed to meet his demise last night, at the hands of the Reigate Conservative Association.

At any rate, the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne was published in good time to allow the Opposition to determine their reaction to it, even though he was unable to get a sponsor. That contrasted with what happened when the Government took a decision, which took the Opposition by surprise, on the royal yacht, when we unfortunately had to wait until The Sun published an opinion poll before we knew whether the Opposition--

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If there are any more allusions of that nature in the hon. Gentleman's speech, I should be grateful if he would not deliver them this morning.

Mr. Yeo: I am most grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Let me just say that I welcome the support that we have from the Opposition. It would be nice to know the Liberal position. One might ask, "Where are they today?" We may soon be asking, "Where are they tomorrow?" judging by the latest opinion poll results in the newspapers.

I shall draw my remarks to a conclusion, much to your relief, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am delighted that there is so much interest in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne clearly has the attention of a great many Conservative Members and I look forward to the passage of the Bill, which I warmly commend to the House.

10.55 am

Mr. Richard Alexander (Newark): I join those who have voiced thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson). I want to comment on the dispassionate way in which he has talked us through the Bill, which is of great interest to all hon. Members present. If the public, who regard our proceedings as two 15-minute slots on Thursday and Tuesday afternoons and something of a bear garden, were to take closer interest in thoughtful debates of this nature, the image of Parliament would be much improved. Earlier this week, Madam Speaker encouraged such an improvement.

The Bill is a brave attempt to put right an anomaly in the law of this country, and when I studied the background I was astonished that it had not been put right before. I understand that it covers the entire United Kingdom without exception, but I was slightly thrown by the ifs and buts in clause 5, which deals with commencement and extent. I hope that my interpretation, that the Bill applies equally to the entire United Kingdom and will do so from the moment that it comes into force, is correct.

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Crime is international today, as many a television or film script has illustrated, but until this Bill the laws of the United Kingdom were blind to what took place overseas, even if it were planned here, apart from the Sexual Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Act 1996, which paved the way.

It is a pity that the reform planned in the Bill must be hung on the obscure concept of conspiracy--a concept which conjures up images of people in black pointed hats sitting around a cauldron, with varying degrees of gunpowder at the ready, as they twiddle their large moustaches. However, if that obscure concept must be the way and if it achieves a correct result, we should not quibble over the odd way of providing a new offence.

The leading case of the Board of Trade v. Owen, which my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne mentioned in his opening remarks, was decided in 1957, when I was a law student. The case involved a conviction for conspiracy to defraud, but the victim was in Germany. The Legal Committee of the other place said that, with very few exceptions, the law of this country was concerned only with preserving the Queen's peace--an old and legalistic term under the common law. It concluded that even cordial relations with another, friendly, country could not extend the Queen's peace, and in that case it could not extend it to Germany. It therefore followed that the conspiracy to commit an offence abroad was not indictable here because it was not triable here. There was a small move later, in the case of R. v. Sanson in 1991, when the court held that if the crime was committed here, indictment would lie here if the conspiracy took place abroad.

That legalistic common law nonsense has been largely with us until now. There was a breakthrough in the Sexual Offences (Conspiracy and Incitement) Act 1996. I disagree with the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), who wondered whether it was a close enough analogy. I think that it is. It showed how the law could be changed--it has not yet been challenged--and how it could overcome limits otherwise imposed by the concept of the Queen's peace.

We should remember what happened in the years before the introduction of the 1996 Act. People were enraged by the abuse, especially sexual abuse, of children. Those who commit such offences are rightly shunned by other people, especially other convicted prisoners in our prisons. Until last year, there was a huge gap, but it has now been plugged. The sexual exploitation of children in other countries--by a minority of individuals who go to that country for that purpose--is now indictable.

Of course, there are bound to be difficulties with the 1996 Act. Introducing legislation that could be difficult to enforce in this country is not something that we, as legislators, undertake lightly. We do not undertake a prospective possibility of conviction with enormous enthusiasm, but sometimes something has to be done. There are problems of proof, of obtaining evidence from victims, of getting witnesses into this country and of extraditing alleged offenders from some other countries. There is also the concept of dual criminality, and that, too, is a safeguard.

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I believe that the 1996 Act has shown the way. It now covers the offences that we then wished to cover. In my view, there is no ground for doubting that this Bill will do the same.

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