Mr. Öpik:

We have had a forensic and legalistic Committee stage debate. Now, as I step back for the Third Reading debate, I can appreciate the human approach that we have taken tonight.

If the House were a person, it is a person whom I would like to meet because we have had the same debate that people have when they have been terribly wronged by someone else and we have decided to take the compassionate route forward. We have heard about bitterness and doubts about whether the other side will respond in kind, just as we feel those things when we argue with another person. However, at the end of the day, we have said that we are going to have faith in seeing the best in people and take a risk. We might get ripped off, but it is worth the risk. The human compassionate benefit of taking it is so great that it is worth being disappointed if we are wrong.

We might be wrong. It may be naive to think that the Bill will work. I feel optimistic. I surprise myself by saying this, but I assume that, if we go this far in extending the gesture of good faith, it may evoke some spark of humanity or decency in people whom we have conventionally written off as barbarians. It is a living experiment. Either they will respond in kind and we will find the remains of the people who were killed and taken from their families—in which case we were right to take the risk—or we will not—in which case we must learn from it and behave differently next time.

I came to the House very much in the spirit that I feel now. We have been human in being willing to do something for relatively few people, but it is a big statement that the House is willing to spend much time to right the grievous wrongs of acts of terrorism. I am proud of our debate and of the fact that we could discuss the matter rationally. Time will tell whether the outcome will justify this as the right thing to do. As a politician who ended up here partly because of what I experienced growing up in Northern Ireland, I am sure that we are right to show that we can make empathic decisions that affect other humans. I hope that people who read this debate, or hear bits on the radio or television, will consider that there may be something in the way in which our democracy operates that gives us some hope in respect of our politicians.