Yvette Cooper
Main Page: Yvette Cooper (Labour - Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley)Department Debates - View all Yvette Cooper's debates with the Home Office
(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs May
Of course, talks have been taking place in the G20 with a number of international leaders about Syria, what action needs to be taken about it, and its future governance. Obviously, I look forward to the outcome of those talks. It is important to ensure that every effort is made to bring about a resolution to the conflict in Syria, not only because of the impact that that could have on ISIL, but because of the many millions of Syrians who have been displaced from their homes as a result of the conflict.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement of solidarity with the people of Paris in the face of such terrible losses and this barbaric assault on all our values. I welcome the increase in resources and staffing for the intelligence and security agencies, which do so much work to keep us safe. I urge her to apply the same approach to core policing work, particularly around neighbourhood policing. She will know that the work that those teams do on prevention and local intelligence, which helped stop the killer of Mohammed Saleem, is immensely important. That is because this is a battle for hearts and minds, as I am sure she knows.
Mrs May
As the right hon. Lady says, this is indeed a battle for hearts and minds. As she will be aware, we have launched a counter-extremism strategy. We wish to work in partnership with mainstream voices in communities across the country to ensure that we promote the values that we share, and that we challenge the ideology that seeks to divide us. It is important that that work is undertaken in a variety of ways. A concern that people in many communities have had about some of the Prevent work is that it has been too much in the security space, and not enough about the integration and cohesion of communities. It is absolutely right that our counter-extremism work is done in partnership with people in communities, so that we work together to promote cohesive communities and mainstream voices.