Tackling Radicalisation and Extremism

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The extremism taskforce was set up in the wake of the killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich to look closely at whether the Government were doing all they could to confront extremism and radicalisation. It met for the first time on 3 June, following which the Prime Minister gave a statement to the House, Official Report, column 1233. On 26 November, the taskforce convened for the final time.

During the last five months, the taskforce has considered a range of measures to confront extremism in all its forms, including in communities, schools, prisons, faith institutions or universities.

We have today published a document that sets out the conclusions of our discussions and the practical steps that we have agreed to address the gaps in our response to extremism. This includes:

placing Prevent and the Channel programme, which supports individuals at risk of being radicalised, on a statutory footing;

consulting on new legislation to strengthen the powers of the Charity Commission;

considering the case for new types of order to ban groups which seek to undermine democracy or use hate speech, and new civil powers to target individual extremists;

working with the internet industry to restrict access to terrorist material online, improving the process for public reporting of extremist content online and identifying extremist content to include in family-friendly filters;

taking steps to ensure local authorities are supporting people on the front line of tackling extremism, and intervening where they are not taking the problem seriously;

giving additional support to local communities which are on the front line of tackling extremism by supporting integration projects and setting up a dedicated public communications platform; and

addressing extremism in institutions by improving oversight of religious supplementary schools, finding trained Muslim chaplains to challenge extremist views on campuses and restricting the ability of extremist and terrorist prisoners to radicalise others.

Copies of the document are available in Library of the House and on the www.gov.uk website.