Terrorist Attacks

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend is absolutely right. We do not realise sometimes what far-reaching consequences the language that we use has. I am talking about all forms of prejudice or extremism et cetera. The noble Lord, Lord Singh, who is not in his place today, quite often talks in this House about religious literacy. We could all learn lessons when it comes to the consequences of the points that we make and how they might affect broader society. I also agree with my noble friend about schools being involved in some of the early education of our children. Some of the events of recent weeks have frightened children, and they are being misinformed, which may lead to them being hostile towards each other at a young age. I certainly know that after the Manchester attack, Muslim children of friends of mine felt more reticent on their way to school. Of course, local communities and local schools have worked very hard to educate in this sphere, but education starts in those early years.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, language is indeed important, and I wanted to ask about the use of the phrase “stamping out” extremism. It reflects understandable emotion, and indeed determination, but can stamping out achieve everything? Can the noble Baroness confirm that the extra staff referred to in the Statement will include psychologists, psychosocial experts and others who will work with no less rigour to approach the problem and address the issue? Secondly, I do not think that she replied, at any rate with any detail, to my noble friend’s question about the commission for countering extremism. Can she tell the House about the terms of reference and confirm, as I hope she will, that there will be wide consultation on those terms?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Baroness for that question. I did not give much detail about the commission for countering extremism because I simply do not have much detail at this point. Recommendations will certainly come back to Parliament. There was a question in the other place earlier about Parliament feeling outside what the commission does, but Parliament will be consulted and have its say on the commission’s recommendations. As for stamping out extremism, will we always stamp out all types of extremism? No, we will not, but what we can do as a society is collectively be intolerant of extremism in our society, and the cohesion of our communities will, to a great extent, achieve this.