Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the police standing on the side of decent citizens. When I hear distress calls from across the country about people who are not getting the response that they require from the police, I refer everybody to the police and crime commissioner for that area, who is responsible for performance and priority in the police force in question. Happily, the right hon. Gentleman will know that 200 police officers have been allocated from the uplift to Merseyside police, as a target for it to recruit over the next 12 months or so, and there will be more to come when we settle years 2 and 3. Like him, I want to see more police officers patrolling in Birkenhead, particularly in Hamilton Square, which holds fond memories for me as a child.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Police officers are on the frontline of defeating terrorism. The Minister will join me and all others here in welcoming the news of the demise of Baghdadi, the leader of the evil, vile and barbaric organisation Daesh. My question to the Minister is this: military action alone will not defeat Daesh—in 2015, I led the campaign to get the terminology right—so what step will he take to ensure that further work goes on to defeat the idea, the ideology and the appeal, which suck in vulnerable individuals from around the world and here in the UK?

[Kit Malthouse]

I well remember my hon. Friend’s persistent questioning from the Back Benches of former Prime Ministers to get the terminology right about this mission. He is quite right that we all need to work together on a multi-stranded approach to prevent young people from being seduced into these evil ideologies and practices across the world, and the police are at the forefront of that. I hope and believe that some of the measures put in place to bind the police as closely as possible into society will assist in that mission.