Hazel Blears
Main Page: Hazel Blears (Labour - Salford and Eccles)Department Debates - View all Hazel Blears's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years ago)
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Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Prime Minister will know that the vast majority of Muslims in this country entirely reject the violent ideology of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Will he therefore confirm that in the review of the Prevent programme, he will ensure that he puts in place a series of practical programmes to build the resilience of our young people to messages of hatred and extremism? Will he also confirm that he takes really seriously, as I know he does, the challenge to that ideology, on which I believe we have to do far more work to ensure that we really make an impact?
The Prime Minister
The words the right hon. Lady has uttered have been ringing through our review of Prevent. The problem has been not so much that a minority of British Muslims actually back al-Qaeda as that there has been a pernicious ideology among a minority of some communities that has given some comfort to the stories that al-Qaeda provides about victimhood and the rest of it. We have to address that issue in order to drain the swamp in which al-Qaeda has been swimming, if I can say so without mixing my metaphors.