Algeria

Patrick Mercer Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not believe that the only answer, or the right answer on its own, is security and military action. As I said, and as I think the Leader of the Opposition said, we need to use all the elements at our disposal: a political response, a development response, and working with partners. However, that does not mean that a tough security approach is not part of what is required.

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

No one can have forgotten that on 21 July 2005, a lethal attack—which mercifully failed—was mounted against the London tube by a mixture of north Africans, including Algerians. The French, of course, have increased their domestic security. What is the Prime Minister’s assessment of how much more we are threatened at home as a result of these incidents, and what are we going to do about it?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me say first that my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue of extremists from other parts of the world who are based in the United Kingdom and who threaten our security. The Government are doing everything that they can to ensure that we are secure from those people. We also need to address the issue of being able effectively to deport people when they threaten our country.

On the specific question my hon. Friend asks about the threat to the UK of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the principal threat it poses is, as I said, to those countries in the region and to the people of those countries in that region, and to our interests and our people in that region. But there has been a history with the al-Qaeda franchises whereby they become magnets for terrorists from elsewhere, and pretty soon we find that their ambitions and the risks that they pose go wider.