Steve Baker
Main Page: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)Department Debates - View all Steve Baker's debates with the Home Office
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Brandon Lewis
The hon. Gentleman makes a very generous but very correct statement, and I absolutely echo that. I am very fortunate and often humbled in this job on a daily basis in seeing the work that our counter-terrorism police do, in partnership with local police and indeed our agencies. I would argue that we have got the best in the world, and day after day they keep us safe.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I hope Ministers have had a look at Policy Exchange’s paper titled, for better or worse, “Extremism Rebellion”. Although we may defend people’s right to hold views about green anarchism, eco-socialism and radical anti-capitalist environmentalism, I want to make sure that there is no tacit approval from either Dispatch Box for what the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) called “disruption”—I would say it is a deliberate policy of disruption. Will the Minister reassure me that the Government know what they are dealing with?
Brandon Lewis
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I suspect he is also referring back to some of the difficult situations the police had to deal with not that long ago, but he is right that it is separate. As I have said, Extinction Rebellion is not considered an extremist group under the 2015 definition of extremism, and we are clear on that.