Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Debate between Keith Vaz and Luciana Berger

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I along with others in the House completely support the Minister’s decision to proscribe this organisation. Ministers obviously have important and sensitive information that they are unwilling to share with the House on such occasions, but the Minister has gone a long way to reassure the House that the information he has is more than sufficient to take the action he is proposing today.

National Action will be the first extreme right-wing organisation to be banned, which is a very welcome step. We certainly need to be very strong in dealing with right-wing extremism and we need to be very concerned about it. I raised the issue of what was happening in Europe. The world can never forget the 77 victims of Anders Breivik in 2011. The Minister mentioned the words of the organisation in question when it praised the killer of our colleague Jo Cox. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) was right to remind us of what the Home Secretary said only this week: that this group has no place in our country.

The shadow Home Secretary—for whom I have enormous respect and who has campaigned all her political life against right-wing extremism and extremism of any kind—has visited the counter-terrorism unit, as she said. I am sure she will join me and the rest of the House in praising those who are part of that unit, who day after day, day and night, work so hard to keep us safe. Under the incredible leadership of Mark Rowley, they ensure that many of the plots that we do not know about are dealt with and prevented before they come to fruition. Mark Rowley has recognised that increasing numbers in the United Kingdom are “gravitating towards extremism” and has talked about 60 to 70 cases each month. This is a very large figure indeed.

It is important to recognise what has happened since the referendum this year. The number of hate crimes, especially against Polish and other eastern European citizens, has increased by 41% since 2015.

[Luciana Berger]

I note what my right hon. Friend has said about the number of people of concern. Does he share my concern that the latest figures from Prevent show that around 300 young people under the age of 18 have been identified as posing a threat of extremism from the far right? That figure should concern us all and should embolden the Home Office to do even more to ensure that the next generation embraces equality, not division.

[Keith Vaz]

I am astonished at those figures, but I think they are witness to what the shadow Home Secretary has said about access to the internet and social media. Individuals who may be very young could be operating from their homes, involving themselves in this kind of hatred. It is very easy to disseminate hatred, as my hon. Friend will know—she has been one of the victims in this House of hatred coming from social media and the internet. She has behaved with absolute dignity in the face of it. She is right to raise these figures. These are issues of enormous concern. The younger the people who get involved in these activities, the more difficult it becomes to turn them around once they become ingrained with them. There has also been a spike in anti-Semitic incidents across the country—11% higher than last year. We should thank the police and the counter-terrorism unit for the work they do in trying to combat this.

Oddly, just before this particular debate, the House unanimously endorsed without any debate the Government’s decision to opt into Europol—one of the very few organisations in Europe that we are joining at the same time as we are leaving the rest of the EU. Europol has an extremely important role to play in ensuring that we combat far-right extremism and extremism in general all over Europe. It has an amazing head in Rob Wainwright, who is a Brit, and it is able, through the capacity that we have helped to build as part of Europol, to ensure that we deal with these organisations.

I end by asking the Minister the question I asked a little earlier, as I think he may have misunderstood it. I asked how many organisations had been deproscribed since July. I think the People’s Mujaheddin were deproscribed several years ago—not since July. The Minister is right to prescribe that we should keep on monitoring the deproscription process. On numerous occasions when these orders have been discussed, I have raised the situation of the LTTE—Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam—and my Tamil constituents, who still feel stigmatised by the fact that the LTTE is banned, even though it no longer exists. We need to be very aware of the need to look at the issue of de-proscription and keep it under review, while of course welcoming what the Minister has done.

The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson, had made it very clear that he thinks there should be a time limit. In the case of this particular organisation, I think we are all agreed that the Minister has come to this House and made a powerful case. The House will speak with one voice in supporting what he has done absolutely. We look forward to this organisation being monitored very carefully indeed, so that none of its evil tentacles are passed on to other organisations, perhaps bearing a different name, but with the same personnel involved, who will seek to poison and destroy the minds of the people of this country.