Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism — House of Commons, 2016-12-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said at the outset, the Home Secretary and I strongly believe that National Action should be added to the list of proscribed organisations in schedule 2 to the 2000 Act. I am grateful for the contributions from right hon. and hon. Members to this short debate. I am grateful to the Labour party and the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) for their support, and I can assure her that we will continue to do all we can to monitor people who pose a risk, and want to link violence to their cause and to inspire hatred on whatever part of the spectrum it may be I am grateful for the support of the Scottish National party, and I can confirm that my predecessor did indeed get in touch with the BBC. I also say to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Richard Arkless) something that may frustrate us from time to time: the BBC is editorially independent. We both need to continue to press the case on the point he makes; the media have to be very careful with language in all these areas The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) rightly made the point that the media have a strong role to play. We did not take our eye off the far right. We have been making sure we watch where these people go, and when they cross from hate speech into extolling terrorism. We have all been involved. The Prevent programme has involved a considerable number of referrals of people on the far right, but the media have for a long time chosen to focus on one section of society, sometimes too much so and at the expense of others The lesson from this, as I see when I go out and about around the country, is: if you do not think this applies to your area, think again. People are being radicalised and groomed, perhaps in their bedrooms, on the internet, and this knows no boundaries, be it class, background, race or religion. The ability for the internet to radicalise people and for those behind this to manipulate the internet to do that is incredible. Tragically, in today’s society we are going to have to deal with more of that, not less. I go to local authorities that clearly do not think this applies to them, but I am afraid I know that it does What we have seen with the far right is that there are parts of this country where it is successfully recruiting people and they are part of that Prevent programme. The good news is what can happen when they get into that programme. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) mentioned the Channel referrals. I spoke to someone in the north of England recently who had referred a 15-year-old to that programme for the far right, and that child is now back in mainstream education, has gone on to further education and has built a future for himself. Prevent is there to help; it is there not only to prevent people from being radicalised into extremism and terrorism, but to make sure that people are given help and support The points the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) made about the internet are absolutely right. We use the counter-terrorism internet referral unit to work with internet providers to remove material as it comes online, and since 2010 they have removed 220,000 pieces of terrorist-related material online. That work is ongoing and constant, and we must make sure we do it. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) does not need lessons from me on Northern Ireland-related terrorism, as the people involved have not gone away and it is still an active problem that we are trying to deal with. I am afraid that they have moved with the times and used many of the smooth, slick recruitment materials that we see across the board I am grateful to the House for its support. We should also take this opportunity to remember that some people will not be celebrating Christmas this year. Some of our security services and police will be on duty keeping us safe while we are having our breaks at home. They will be making sure that hon. Members in this House who are under threat and the wider public are protected. I want to place it on the record that we greatly appreciate the work that they do. They are not allowed to shout about it. They get almost no recognition in public. I know from the job that I do how important they are to keeping us safe. Proscription is one of the measures that we can give them to tackle the threat Proscription is not targeted at any particular faith, social group or ideological motivation. It is based on clear evidence that an organisation is involved in terrorism. It is my firm opinion and that of the Home Secretary that, on the basis of available evidence, National Action has promoted and encouraged acts of terrorism. This includes the unlawful glorification of the murder of Jo Cox, committed by Thomas Mair, and the unlawful glorification of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. It is therefore appropriate for the Home Secretary to exercise her discretion to proscribe this group. The proscription of this group demonstrates our condemnation of its activities. Proscribing it will also enable the police to carry out disruptive action and ensure that it cannot operate here. It will prevent National Action’s membership growing, or help to stop those who might be vulnerable to radicalisation and possibly at risk of emulating terrorist attacks. Being drawn into the group’s extreme and distorted ideology is what we are trying to stop. Therefore, I commend this order to the House Question put and agreed to.