Counter-terrorism

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The House will understand and accept the Home Secretary’s concerns about interfering in a live police investigation, but she must surely accept that the information that is already in the public domain risks undermining public confidence in the police bail system. She or somebody in the police service today or some other time will have to give the information to the public to assure that there is no risk as a result of the operation of that system. The videos that we are concerned with today are—it is almost trite to say it—abhorrent and horrific, but they are merely the symptom of the wider disease of radicalisation. It is believed by many people that the radicalisation process is funded from sources in Saudi Arabia. Will the Home Secretary undertake today to investigate whether that is the case and, if it is, will she undertake to do what is necessary to shut off that source of funding?

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point about looking at the source of funding for extremism and terrorism here in the United Kingdom. There is a specific piece of work that we will be undertaking, which the Prime Minister referred to when he gave his statement to the House in November in relation to Syria. That will be done through the extremism analysis unit that has been set up in the Home Office, looking specifically at the funding of the extremism here in the United Kingdom.