Counter-terrorism and Security Bill

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Hazel Blears]

The hon. Gentleman has a proud record of having pursued these issues with such determination and tenacity that he has, perhaps, had no small influence on the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister in talking about the long-term generational struggle and the need to deal with ideology.

I want to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) about resilience, as that is the second issue that I am concerned about. I have read the guidance very carefully and the first mention of building community resilience is in paragraph 175 of 178, on page 39. It is about the police and it states:

“The success of Prevent work relies on communities supporting efforts to prevent people being drawn into terrorism and challenging the extremist ideas that are also part of terrorist ideology. The police have a critical role in helping communities do this. To comply with the duty, we would expect the police, working with others, to build community resilience”.

There is no objection to community resilience in principle in the guidance, yet it takes us 175 paragraphs before we talk about the need to do that. The Home Secretary is looking at me quizzically, but this is the guidance as we see it now and when it is revised, as I hope it will be, I hope that there will be a stronger emphasis on families, parents and communities. I have made those points consistently and I asked the Home Secretary to reflect carefully on that.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Within those communities, there is a hunger to be engaged and a worry that at the moment the terms of engagement seem to be determined completely by the police and not sufficiently by families. I had a meeting with a group of Muslim mums in my constituency who asked for better education on how they could understand what was going on on the internet. We need a non-police-led element to this Prevent work as well.

[Hazel Blears]

My hon. Friend makes a point that is based on experience and it is all the more authentic and powerful for that.

These issues are not mutually exclusive. The police have a role to play and have an important security role, but other agencies and people in the community can equally make a big contribution.

The second point that I have raised consistently is about ideology. I am more reassured about ideology and paragraph 4 of the guidance, right at the front of the document, states that one of the objectives is to respond to the ideological challenge. Paragraph 17 talks about the need to train front-line staff so they are aware of the ideology and what they can do to push it back. I have asked again during the passage of the Bill how much resource will go into the area. We have £120 million to deal with the increased threat, but how much will go into the Prevent agenda? It is very important for people out there to know that. There is a hunger for training, support and capacity building among all the agencies that will have to carry out that duty. We need to offer some reassurance that that capacity and guidance will be in place.

My final point is about freedom of speech. I know that many Members have made their points on that already. The noble Lord Bates made a neat attempt to try to make the division between having due regard to and having particular regard to. I am not sure that I would envy him the prospect of litigating on that basis, because it seems to me to be a bit of a philosophical exam question. I know that the Home Secretary will look at that guidance again and make it as practical as possible, but reconciling those two formulations seems to me to be intrinsically difficult. I do not think for one moment that I am capable of reconciling that; that would require a greater philosophical brain than mine. Perhaps it will eventually come to judges. If the Home Secretary could say a little more about that, that would be very welcome.

Finally, will the Home Secretary publish all the responses to the consultation? That would help us all significantly in seeing the direction of travel. She has said that this is an ongoing generational struggle, as indeed has the Prime Minister. He said last week that the shadow will hang over our generation for many years to come. We are all engaged in trying to ensure that we tackle the problems we face. I will certainly seek to make whatever contribution I can to this agenda now and in future.