Aviation Security Incident

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises an issue that has been mentioned on a number of occasions. That approach has been adopted by others. We are looking at all the techniques that we should be using to ensure that we provide the maximum protection for people in the UK. In relation to passengers, we are enhancing our ability at the borders to ensure that those who are a threat to the UK do not travel here.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and commend the security and intelligence services for their great work. Sadly, however, she will be aware that the bomb at East Midlands airport was not the only bomb to be planted or found at a British airport this weekend. A bomb planted by IRA dissidents was found and defused at Belfast City airport. It would have caused casualties, injuries and even death, and I commend the security forces on locating and defusing it. This illustrates the fact that British citizens are subject to attack from a range of sources. Will the Home Secretary give a guarantee to all our citizens, wherever they live, that resources and efforts will be put into combating all kinds of terrorism? The focus is rightly on the incident in the east midlands at the moment, but the people of Northern Ireland are still facing the threat of dissident republican terrorism.

[Mrs May]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to remind us of the fact that terrorism comes from a number of sources, and not just from al-Qaeda. I commend the security forces and the Police Service of Northern Ireland, not only this weekend but over recent months, for the increasing amount of work that they have done to prevent any incidents of terrorism in Northern Ireland from taking place. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman will have seen in the national security strategy that we published two weeks ago that we have clearly identified the threat from dissident republicanism as one that we need to address. We are conscious of the fact that the number of attempted attacks in Northern Ireland has been increasing in recent months.