Terrorist Attack in Nice

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord has a very good point. The values that we share are not those of separation. Students should be able to come together to debate and not feel segregated either by sex or by religion. Some of the interfaith projects which the Government run—I go back again to my previous department—certainly promote that idea of common values rather than the separation of ideology.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

I would like to ask the Minister a little about the practicalities of this. The way that the truck was stopped was by the French police shooting the driver dead. If there was a similar event in Britain, those police officers would not be armed. In a previous Question for Short Debate, the idea of the distribution of armed officers across the country was raised with the noble Baroness’s predecessor. I urge the Government to look again at the ability of the police services outside London and the great cities to deliver a response to an attack like this, because I think it would probably not be adequate.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

When we look at events around the world, particularly some of the horrors in America over the last few weeks, I personally always feel glad that we are not an armed country. I totally see where the noble Lord is coming from, but—I will disappoint him when I say this—we have some of the best policemen and women in the world. With the national asset barrier, we have ways of containing potential events such as this, but I would not like to see what the noble Lord talks about as widely available.