Andrew Stephenson
Main Page: Andrew Stephenson (Conservative - Pendle)Department Debates - View all Andrew Stephenson's debates with the Home Office
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mrs May
I have answered quite a few questions in responding to this. [Interruption.] Opposition Members can ask the question as many times as they like, but they will get the same answer. I also have to say that it is a bit rich getting so many questions about special advisers from the party of Damian McBride.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
Does the Home Secretary agree that her reforms to split Prevent funding between Departments were essential, as the only result of the previous Government’s attempts to promote integration through the prism of counter-terrorism was to stigmatise law-abiding Muslim communities in constituencies such as mine and give succour to the British National party?
Mrs May
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the problem with the way the previous Government dealt with the Prevent strategy was that the integration part—the inclusion and communities work—became, in the eyes of many people in Muslim communities, tainted by its relationship with counter-terrorism. That is why it was absolutely right to split those two parts of the strategy and have them addressed under two Departments—the Home Office on counter-terrorism and the Department for Communities and Local Government on communities and inclusion.