Murder of Lee Rigby

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are some worrying instances in the report. Some delay is inevitable, because, as I have explained, when a huge range of cases is being covered, from the highest-priority cases to those that are given a less high priority, and more high-priority cases suddenly arise, people have to be removed from something, and that sometimes results in delays. However, I think the report shows that there are sometimes delays that are over and above what is normal in such cases, and that is clearly not acceptable.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that we are facing a struggle with an ideology—the ideology of violent Islamist jihadism, which, although it is only a small minority ideology in the Muslim community, is linked to the phenomenon of the self-starting terrorist? Does he agree that we need not just our state institutions but the whole of our society to challenge, confront and defeat that ideology?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with every word that the hon. Gentleman has said. I think we sometimes make the mistake of looking at a particular area of the world and thinking that that is where the problem is coming from when the problem is actually extremism itself, which manifests itself in the parts of the world with the greatest amount of civil war and trouble and so forth. The problem is the extremist ideology, and, as the hon. Gentleman has said, we do not defeat that just by military means. We defeat it by ensuring that we drive it out of universities, colleges, prisons, schools, community centres where appropriate, and mosques, because some of them have been taken over by extremists on occasion. That is why this public duty, and the funds that we are providing, are so important.