Terrorist Attacks

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

My noble friend brings up a very good point about the balance that we have in place to preserve our human rights—we will not be leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, as the manifesto makes clear—while also bringing perpetrators of terrorist atrocities to book. When we look forward, we will certainly consider whether we have got that balance right.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I express my heartfelt condolences to those who perished in the terrorist attacks and all those who remain in a critical condition. I add my own tribute to the emergency services; they showed tremendous courage in all its forms, and we are very grateful to them. I also take this opportunity to say that I knew PC Keith Palmer and I am delighted that he has received the honour that he has.

I want to make two points to the Minister. She mentioned looking at Channel, and my noble friend made a point about reviewing the Prevent programme. First, with regard to Channel, will the Minister write to me with details, or perhaps make them available in the Library, about the categories of Channel referrals? What are those categories and what are the criteria for referral?

Secondly, on the Prevent review, the Minister may not know that I was involved in Tony Blair’s preventing terrorism task force. That group worked for maybe 18 months, as I have no doubt the commission for countering extremism will, but it resulted in the Prevent programme, which was very far from all the discussions that emanated from it. The Prevent programme in its entirety has been a failure because it missed out working in partnership with communities. What will the Minister do to ensure that the new commission will be broadly representative and contain men and women who do not just speak with the Government’s tongue and make the Government feel comfortable?

My final point relates to division. It is time that this House and the other place rooted out from their language the term “Islamic terrorism”. It is unforgivable. We are blessed with language to describe murder and mayhem, and we should stick to that. There has been an enormous amount of coming together of the community, but such language consistently divides and makes young people scared. I have four grandchildren, and my grandsons, who are four, five and nine, are scared to go to school because of such language, which alienates them from their friends. I urge the Government to reconsider the way in which they describe the utter brutality of terrorism, mayhem and murder.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I say to the noble Baroness that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary’s Statement on Monday was met with great praise, certainly from the Muslim community in Greater Manchester, because it expressed the same horror with regard to what went on on Monday as to what had gone on in previous terrorist events. I think that might be what the noble Baroness was pointing to.

I cannot go through the criteria for Channel, but broadly speaking it is a voluntary mechanism that is in place for people who are at risk of radicalisation. It does not target people who are at risk of radicalisation; it tries to protect them. That is the most important aspect of the Prevent programme. There have been 1,000 Channel referrals over the last few years, 25% of which, by the way, related to the far right. I am confident that Prevent is working. We have disrupted people from going abroad to fight foreign fighters.

On the noble Baroness’s point about language, I have already said this to my noble friend but I will reiterate it: we have to be careful about the language that we use. I can speak most of all for Manchester because I was there in the aftermath of the attack. The coming together of communities is our strength. There are things that government can do, but communities are very powerful bodies. I stood in Albert Square while we had the vigil and I saw people from all races, creeds and colours. The Sikh community were giving out water to people, and there was a great sense of coming together. Afterwards I stood with Afzal Khan at the British Muslim Heritage Centre in Whalley Range. For me, that immediate response from communities and that coming together are among the most powerful things that have come out of the attacks in Manchester.