Extremism Definition and Community Engagement

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I start by thanking the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, and for his briefing yesterday.

Hateful extremism threatens the safety of our communities and the unity of our country. Everyone, across the House, can agree that it is a serious problem which demands a serious response, so let me say from the outset that when it comes to our national security, when it comes to the threat of radicalisation and when it comes to the toxic scourge of Islamophobia, neo-Nazism, antisemitism or any other corrosive hatred, the whole House can and should work together. The way the Government do this work matters, and the language that we all use is important. I welcome the Secretary of State’s opening comment that it is our diversity, and our values, that make our country stronger.

The Secretary of State is right to raise concerns about the dangers facing our elected representatives. We must be free to represent the views of our constituents. We all have a responsibility to work to extinguish the flames of division, and never to fan them. While it may be part of the nature of our politics for passion sometimes to take centre stage, and while we may challenge and probe these plans today, if the Secretary of State wants to engage going forward, he has my word that we can do so in good faith.

I say challenge because I believe that the Secretary of State has made a mistake in the way in which this policy has been trailed in the last week. I am glad he has now come to the House to give clarification, but it is not right that we have spent the last few days poring over a possible new definition in the papers; it is not right that the Department has leaked the names of groups that may or may not be covered by this definition when, as he rightly says, this work should be based on due diligence; and it is not right that each stage of the recruitment of a new Islamophobia adviser has been mired in controversy. Can the Secretary of State confirm that he has now appointed an adviser?

On today’s announcement, we will scrutinise this new definition, and it will be crucial to see how it is applied in practice, but will the Secretary of State set out how the new centre of excellence will operate and how it will be resourced? How will this new definition work in practice? How exactly will it restrict the Government’s engagement? Will these restrictions relate only to Government engagement, or will they later be extended to other public bodies such as the police and universities?

Given this new definition, the public will rightly be alarmed by the idea that Ministers could have already met extremist groups. Can the Secretary of State shed some light on that? Renewed vigilance and diligence are welcome, particularly in the current climate, but if his own Department now needs to cut ties with extremist groups, that begs the question of why it was working with them in the first place. He said in his statement that the new definition

“will not affect gender-critical campaigners, those with conservative religious beliefs, trans activists, environmental protest groups, or those exercising their proper right to free speech.”

Can he explain which groups it will affect, and where the Government have chosen to draw the line?

This is not the first time that the Government have identified this risk or promised to act. As the Secretary of State mentioned, back at the beginning of 2011 the Conservative Home Secretary told the House:

“ If organisations do not support the values of democracy, human rights, equality before the law, participation in society…we will not work with them and we will not fund them.”—[Official Report, 7 June 2011; Vol. 529, c. 53.]

That prompts another question: why has it taken the Government 13 years to address this? The Secretary of State says that organisations that are clearly extreme have benefited from Government engagement, endorsement and support, and even suggests that those groups have exploited Government engagement. Can he understand how deeply concerning that is to hear? He must explain exactly how it has been allowed to happen.

We know there has been a huge surge in online extremism. Can the Secretary of State give assurances on how that will be dealt with? What action is he taking to work across Government to assess and confront online hate? We know that extremism does not exist in a vacuum, and we need political leadership on this, but a quality of good leadership is to empower others. The Secretary of State says that the Department has been working with faith groups, civil society and local councils, and I agree that they all have a crucial role to play in tackling extremism, but what form has that consultation taken, and will he publish its findings?

On the wider work that is now needed, will the Secretary of State set out whether it will be underpinned by a new cross-Government counter-extremism strategy, given that the last one is now nine years out of date? Will it include action to rebuild the resilience and cohesion of our communities? He mentioned new funding; how much will it be, how will it be allocated, and how will it interact with other funding streams, including those relating to multi-faith dialogue?

I also want to raise a point about hate crime, and how important it is to tackling extremism. We have seen an appalling surge in antisemitism and Islamophobia in recent months, and the previous strategy is now four years out of date. When will the Secretary of State have an updated hate crime action plan? Have Ministers abandoned plans to introduce a new hate crime strategy? Why are the anti-Muslim hatred working group and the antisemitism working group no longer meeting?

We need much stronger action to tackle the corrosive forms of hatred that devastate lives and corrode communities, but today’s statement does not go far enough. Regardless of how workable and effective the new definition and the centre for excellence may be, this announcement will not be enough.

Let me end by echoing the words of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, who have warned that, against the backdrop of growing divisions, it is for political leaders to provide “a conciliatory tone” and to

“pursue policies that bring us together, not risk driving us apart.”

I look forward to working with the Secretary of State on this.

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for the constructive, detailed and consensual approach that she is taking to what are inevitably challenging and difficult issues. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk to her and other Labour colleagues yesterday, and I look forward to working together in the future. I know it is the role of the Opposition to challenge, and I wholeheartedly welcome the constructive way in which that challenge has been issued today.

I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that the danger to elected representatives is growing, and my right hon. Friend the Security Minister has invested time, care and money to countering it. Passion, vigour and determination are all part of the meat of our politics, and nothing that we have said today should take away from our desire to see free speech exercised as energetically as possible.

The shadow Secretary of State mentioned the leaking of some information relating to our work on this issue. I deprecate that leaking, which is a fundamental challenge to the effective operation of government, and a leak inquiry has been commissioned in order to see how some of the information about today’s statement was shared. As a result of my having given the statement, however, there is an opportunity for all of us to scrutinise the detail.

The shadow Secretary of State asked how the centre of excellence will be staffed and funded. Impartial civil servants with training in this area will be supplemented in their work by studies by academics and academic bodies, and we will work with the existing expertise in the homeland security analysis and intelligence unit within the Home Office in order to ensure that all our work is rigorous. We will make sure that if a decision is made to list an organisation as extremist, we will show our working and the evidence that leads us to that conclusion, and the judgment that we have made will be there for everyone to see.

The shadow Secretary of State asked why the Government or arms of the state have unwittingly engaged with extremist organisations in the past. Although the previous definition of extremism was well intentioned and drawn up with care, it was perhaps insufficiently precise and insufficiently policed, so we thought it was appropriate to update it. This follows the Shakeel Begg case, William Shawcross’s independent review of Prevent, and other examples that were brought to the Government’s attention. Having been told by independent figures, the courts and William Shawcross that we needed to look again at our approach, the real sin would have been not to do so and to have stuck to a course that had led to mistakes in the past.

The shadow Secretary of State asked about the wider work on resilience. We will publish a more detailed action plan, which will include funding commitments to support organisations on the ground that build up a greater degree of community resilience, and I look forward to working with her and others in local government to achieve that valuable end.