Algeria

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the Government should do that—but of course it is the primary responsibility of companies such as BP, which have huge resources and, indeed, almost their own diplomatic networks, to make sure that their people are safe, to work with the Governments of the countries in which they operate and to look at their security based on the present level of threat. I commend BP for the work that it does on that, but it needs to redouble all its efforts.

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

I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement. He will know that Saudi Arabia has set up a world-renowned deradicalisation centre, which was visited by the previous Prime Minister and is recognised by the United Nations. What steps are being taken to get countries such as Saudi Arabia to share their good practice with other countries on how they can tackle radicalisation and extremism?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I think that Saudi Arabia realised what a problem it had with Islamic extremism. It is now a leader in deradicalisation programmes, and I strongly encourage it to share its thinking and approach with other countries. We need to build an alliance of Islamic countries to make sure that we all back deradicalisation and condemn utterly the perverse interpretation of Islam that says that somehow it is right to carry out terrorist attacks and murder innocent people.