Terrorist Attacks (Paris)

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the majority of Muslims living in this country want to defeat terrorism and ensure that they play their full part in our society, and it is right that we make every link we can with them in doing that.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

News organisations must use their independent professional judgment as to whether they reprint the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo. Although in their own eyes, many were avoiding the risk of offending some of their readers, in the eyes of the jihadis, some were undoubtedly viewed as being intimidated into censorship, which to me was reason enough to reprint. Does my right hon. Friend agree that true free speech, not just the illusion of it, includes the right to insult and offend? We do not defend free speech, if that is truly what we want to do, by casting aside those who push at its boundaries.

[Mrs May]

I absolutely agree. Freedom of the press means that the press should be free to publish what it chooses within the law. As the Prime Minister reiterated earlier, freedom of the press, which we all believe in, means that we should accept that it can publish what it wishes to publish within the law, and we should not set artificial boundaries on that.