To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the answer by Lord West of Spithead on 11 November (Official Report, House of Lords, col. 801) indicating that when the Terrorism Act 2006 was passed they laid down a requirement for police to make records of when they shut down a website but such records they have not fully been kept, why the records have not been kept; and when they will be kept. [HL276]

Records of the removal of potentially unlawful terrorist content by informal contact between the police and internet service providers have not been kept until now due to low awareness of this aspect of the administrative guidance concerning Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2006. I understand the police have not yet found it necessary to use the formal powers given under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2006 to close any websites. That decision is, of course, an operational decision for the police to take.

The Home Office is working with the Association of Chief Police Officers (Terrorism and Allied Matters) to update the guidance on the use of Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2006. The guidance will be made more accessible with clearly explained procedures and be drawn to the attention of senior officers in all forces. This guidance will be available in January 2010.

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the answer by Lord West of Spithead on 11 November (Official Report, House of Lords, col. 801) indicating that they are in negotiations about police forces not keeping full records about websites they have closed under the Terrorism Act 2006, what are the negotiations to which he referred; to what those negotiations are likely to lead; and when they plan to have a reliable form of (a) reporting, and (b) collating data relating to the number of websites closed under the Terrorism Act 2006. [HL277]

The Home Office is working with the Association of Chief Police Officers (Terrorism and Allied Matters) to update the guidance on the use of Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2006, which sets out advice on keeping records when websites are closed using this legislation. The guidance will be made more accessible with clearly explained procedures and be drawn to the attention of senior officers in all forces. This guidance will be available in January 2010.

To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the answer by Lord West of Spithead on 11 November (Official Report, House of Lords, col. 801), what assessment they have made of the effect of the absence of full records of websites closed under the Terrorism Act 2006 on the United Kingdom's counter-terrorism effort, in particular on efforts to tackle the use of the internet as a tool for radicalisation and other forms of terrorist activity such as attack planning. [HL299]

We do not consider that the absence of full records concerning closure of terrorist sites reflects any lack of activity in this area.