Manchester Arena Inquiry: Volume 3 Report

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, volume 3 of the Manchester Arena inquiry is really hard to take in, because it is shocking to hear the director-general of MI5 apologising for not preventing what seems to have been a preventable attack, even though of course the full blame for the atrocity lies with Salman Abedi. But in terms of learning lessons, one confusion that the Minister may be able to clarify is that Sir John says that he does not blame any of the educational establishments that the bomber attended, yet still concludes that more needs to be done by education providers and says that Abedi should have been subject to Prevent. I do not understand why. Does not that distract from the fact that a radical Islamist operated in plain sight of security forces post education and was not stopped?

Just to follow on about Prevent and whether we can trust it, I was glad that the Statement referenced William Shawcross’s review of Prevent, which admits that we underestimated the threat of Islamist terrorism for fear of, for example, being called Islamophobic—maybe that is part of the political correctness point. There was conflation of that kind of threat with views labelled extremist. Can the Minister reflect on how unhelpful it is at the moment to label a wide range of citizens as Nazis or far right—everybody from anti-ULEZ protesters to those worried about small boats—and that this might water down our official vigilance of security and the threat of radical Islam, in very unhelpfully labelling everybody as extremists?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises a good point. I sometimes think that the speed with which polar opinions are voiced in this country is unhelpful to sensible public debate. She makes her point well, particularly as regards the frequent application of the word “Nazi”, which is rarely appropriate in my opinion. As regards the education system, I take Sir John’s opinions at face value and have little more to add, I am afraid.