Southport Attack

Chris Murray Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The former Home Secretary makes an extremely important point because, from the point of view of the families and the community, the attack was intended to terrorise the community, and their real concern is about the scale of the harm. They saw the loss of children’s lives and the impact on the community.

The law is set out in the Terrorism Act 2000, and there is serious consideration for different agencies about the nature of the response. If there is an ideological attack or motivation, it may be that a counter-extremism response—the kind of support that the Channel programme provides—is targeted at the extremist ideology that needs to be challenged, tackled and taken down. Alternatively, if the issue is around mental health or an obsession with violence and gore, it may need a different kind of response. But the right hon. Member is right that the threats from the point of view of the community will feel the same. That is why the law needs to be looked at again, but it is also why we need to have this inquiry, which can look at where the gaps are in the way that different state agencies respond, because we have seen those growing gaps—obviously, in the most traumatic of ways in this case.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. In her statement and in the Prime Minister’s speech this morning, they painted a terrifying picture of how terrorism is changing in this country and how the threat we face is evolving, especially with the proliferation of extremely violent online content, which is having an effect on mixed ideologies and ideologies from across the spectrum. Clearly, part of the response will be from the intelligence services. Will the Home Secretary tell us how the intelligence services will be responding to this evolving threat and what the Government are doing to prevent the growth of extremism through extreme online content?

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right that we seem to have cases where there is extreme violence, or where obsession grows around extreme violence, and then young people cast around to consume different kinds of terrorist or extremist material, but at its heart it may be an obsession with violence. Different circumstances will require different kinds of responses, but the scale of the growing obsession with violence should be a serious concern to us because it makes us think, “What are we allowing to happen to our kids and teenagers if we see this kind of obsession grow?” That is why we need action. Clearly, the focus of the intelligence and security agencies is on those cases where there is organised ideology and radicalisation, as well as state threats, but we have to deal with the kinds of threats that our society faces much more widely, and that means everyone needs to be part of it.