Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps the Government has taken to tackle extremism in the UK.

The Government is committed to tackling all forms of extremism under its Counter-Extremism Strategy published in October 2015. The strategy sets out a programme of action to build our understanding of extremism, to challenge extremism and disrupt extremist activity and to strengthen communities and institutions so that they are better resist extremist narratives by building partnerships with all those opposed to extremism. On 19 July this year, the then Home Secretary announced that a new counter-extremism strategy would be developed for publication in 2020 when the current strategy comes to an end.

In March 2018 the Government established an independent Commission for Countering Extremism to support society to challenge all forms of extremism, to provide impartial advice to Government and to bring new drive and thinking to our efforts to tackle extremism. The Commission’s first report into extremism was published on 7 October this year.