Prevent Strategy
Debate between Baroness Stowell of Beeston and Lord Noon(13 years ago)
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Baroness Stowell of Beeston
My Lords, I hope noble Lords will find it helpful if I remind the House that the next debate is a time-limited debate and, with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Noon and my noble friend the Minister, speeches are limited to four minutes. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford has also requested to speak in the gap.
Lord Noon
My Lords, the Government’s revised Prevent strategy was presented to Parliament in June this year. It is an integral part of the broader fight against terrorism and I welcome the opportunity to have this short debate about the implications of this strategy, and of extremism and integration. The thinking behind Prevent was that there needed to be a proactive response to the threat of so-called home-grown terrorists. I do not want to speak about the merits or failure of the original strategy. Other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Carlile, who provided the important independent oversight for the review of Prevent, are much more of an authority on this issue than me.
I am not a policy man, I am a businessman and I like to speak my mind in a straightforward way, which, in business as in life, is usually the best way. You may be aware that I have been a victim of deadly terrorist attack not once but twice. The extreme fear that I and my family experienced, the shocking uncertainty of being sandwiched between life and death, brought home forcefully the grief and devastation of the families who suddenly, unexpectedly lose loved ones. We have seen this horror here in the UK with the 7 July terrorist attacks in London. What is worse is that the 7/7 attack was carried out by young men born and brought up in the UK. The Prevent strategy is supposed to stop people from ever going down this path. It is about confronting people at an early point so that they do not become extremists.
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists all have the right to practise their religion freely in Great Britain. The strong civil rights movement here ensures that we can express our religious and political beliefs freely. At the same time, there is a thousand years of tradition of the supremacy of the law—we must abide by the law even as we practise in private the faith of our choice. What has gone wrong is that a tiny minority refuse to accept that. Instead they wish to impose their beliefs on the majority. Noble Lords will agree with me that the majority of Muslims are law-abiding, peaceful and patriotic citizens, as was reported in the Sunday Times on 20 November. I see no conflict between practising Islam and abiding by the rules of the law of this country, and I speak as a Muslim.
I have expressed my views many times, in speech as well as in print. People who do not accept the British way of life should find another acceptable country where they can live happily, and leave us alone. Often they come here as economic migrants and then oppose our common values. In many cases, they are running away from harsh regimes that do not permit dissent. I am a staunch supporter of the British values of democracy, decency, fairness and integration. I say, live and let live. We should give a robust retort to those who oppose integration: we cannot have small, independent enclaves within our country that are a law unto themselves. I agree with the Prime Minister’s words in Munich earlier this year that we have not done enough in standing up to those who oppose our way of life.
I find it confusing that the Prevent strategy makes a distinction between two things. On one hand, the strategy says that having a strong sense of belonging and citizenship makes people more resilient to extremism. Then, on the other hand, it states:
“Policy and programmes to deal with extremism and with extremist organisations more widely are not part of Prevent and will be co-ordinated from the Department for Communities and Local Government”.
Could the Minister tell me what these wider policies and programmes are that are not part of Prevent? Surely these are things that promote cohesion, interfaith dialogue and citizenship. If the success of the programme depends on our sense of belonging—which is what I call integration—then how could this not be a part of Prevent? By separating integration and extremism, the Prevent strategy will create its own pitfalls. How do local councillors know what to do? Where is the guidance that explains how to know the difference between an extremist acting against our country and others who need support and direction to become more integrated? Where is the line drawn between dealing with extremists and promoting integration? Surely these are two sides of the same coin.
What about young people? How will the youth worker or the teacher know what to do? We need a strong initiative for the youth; after all, it is the youth who get lured into extremism at youth clubs and universities. The hunting fields for fresh recruits to terrorism are the stamping grounds of young people. That is where we need to be: to reorient them into a life of decency; to give them a sense of belonging; to make them proud to be British; and to make them see that using religion as an excuse for violence goes against its very tenets.
What about the police? I often speak to them on this issue. I ask them why individuals or groups who are violently opposed to our way of life and the laws of this country are allowed to be here. The police say that their hands are tied; they often have no case. It seems that the human rights of criminals outweigh those of the rest of us law-abiding citizens. Even when they manage to bring such a person to court, the Crown Prosecution Service tells the police that the criminal is the one who needs protection. It strikes me that in trying to make Prevent more focused, the Government have risked making it less effective. Even more seriously, I believe that this fudge makes things much worse. It risks further alienating those communities that feel the most stigmatised and targeted by Prevent, especially the Muslim community.
The danger of focusing only on a certain religious group was made clearer to us by the terrible events in Norway in July this year, when a right-wing extremist not only set off a bomb in the city, killing eight people, but then went on to shoot and kill 69 innocent children and young people who were taking part in a summer school. Such acts of extreme violence are not restricted to ideology, whether religious or political. Rather, these terrible acts are born of hatred, racism and ignorance. We ignore these risks at our peril.
In summary, I have a very simple bottom line, which is that preventing terrorism depends on strengthening integration. In my straightforward way of looking at things, there is definitely a problem because the strategy actually causes confusion about this issue. I welcome the idea that we need to confront people more when they express extreme ideas such as threatening to burn poppies, abusing our brave soldiers returning home from the front line in Basra or asking for Sharia law in this country. Let us not forget honour killing, although I do not know what honour there is in killing. Surely this is not acceptable. We need to go further. We need to ensure that we not only confront these people but that we actually deal with them in order to protect the citizens of this country. We need to be clear that this is about anyone who opposes our way of life, anyone who does not clearly stand up for democracy and freedom of choice. Integration is our greatest strength and we must not allow our resolve to protect it to be weakened by a muddled approach to extremism.
I am sure that noble Lords will have many further issues that they wish to bring to this debate, and I look forward to hearing them.