Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Home Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Mick Whitley Excerpts
Monday 28th September 2020

(3 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Priti Patel Portrait Priti Patel
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I fundamentally agree that we need safe legal routes, and that is part of the work that the Home Office is currently looking at and working on. The fact of the matter is that too many individuals are coming to the United Kingdom and, it is fair to say, to other EU countries, because over recent years we have seen the mass movement of people. People are being exploited and that exploitation is fundamentally wrong. We owe it to everyone, including those individuals who are being trafficked, those who are vulnerable and those who are being exploited, to ensure that there are safe legal routes, but at the same time we have to go after criminals—the perpetrators of illegal migration and exploitation—and it is right that we do. We want to ensure that our asylum system is not abused by those who, quite frankly, are not genuine asylum seekers.

Mick Whitley Portrait Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
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What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on tackling online hate speech and extremism.

Julie Elliott Portrait Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
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What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on tackling online hate speech and extremism.

James Brokenshire Portrait The Minister for Security (James Brokenshire)
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As a Government, we are committed to vigorously countering extremist ideology by making sure that every part of government is taking action. That includes ongoing conversations between the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Home Office on the implementation of the online harms framework to tackle hateful content. We will continue to work across government to challenge extremism in all its forms.

Mick Whitley Portrait Mick Whitley
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At a Home Affairs Committee session last week, the national lead for counter-terrorism, Neil Basu, warned of growing numbers of young people being drawn towards right-wing terrorism. During this pandemic, social media have done much to amplify hateful extremism. What steps will the Minister take to prevent young people from being drawn into extremism?