UK Citizens Returning From Fighting Daesh — House of Commons, 2016-04-19
Topic: International Affairs
John Henry Hayes (Conservative, Centre-right): We know roughly the number of people who have travelled to Syria, some of whom initially went for humanitarian reasons. Many have returned, but some have been killed. As both my hon. Friend the Member for Newark and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, all those who go also face the risk of being captured and used as hostages. The strong advice is, "Don’t go, because you don’t know what you are going to encounter. And you certainly don’t know what the consequences may be." That is precisely the point my hon. Friend the Member for Newark made in his opening remarks, and it is an important signal to send out from this place I would not want to suggest that the Government are inactive in this respect, so let me deal with what we are doing. The work we are doing on providing humanitarian aid is well documented. We have pledged more than £2.3 billion in vital life-saving assistance to Syria, and this is our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis. We remain one of the largest donors to the Syrian crisis response internationally. Of course it is important also to emphasise that those engaged in terrorism blight lives, provide bogus legitimacy to the worst extremes of human behaviour and tear communities apart. This activity cannot ever be justified, and it will never be justified by this Government, wherever it takes place or whoever commits it. I also understand the desire to confront our enemies, but the struggle for what is right is not, and cannot be, left to individuals; it can be devised and delivered only through the proper exercise of Government authority The second point I wish to make is that we are, of course, part of a military response to the threat posed by Daesh; the UK is making a strong military contribution. RAF Typhoon, Tornado and Reaper aircraft have flown more than 2,000 combat missions, and about 1,000 UK personnel are supporting their operation in the wider region. Our aircraft also provide effective close air support to Iraqi and Kurdish forces taking the fight to Daesh on the ground, with recent successes coming in Ramadi and Sinjar. It is through the global coalition, to which we are making such a significant contribution, that we will defeat Daesh. Although it is understandable that individuals should want to add to that, their effort is better expended in supporting what we are trying to do as a nation to get this right, both militarily and in humanitarian terms This is also about challenging the propaganda that I have mentioned, as has the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. Challenging that, in communities up and down our nation, is a job for all of us. If people want to fight Daesh, they can do that on the streets of our capital city, London, and in cities and towns across this kingdom. All of us have a job to do in countering that poisonous narrative, which is delivered partly, but not only, through the internet. That is why the Government have invested so much in the Prevent programme and in our Channel programme, which deals specifically with people at risk of radicalisation We introduced a Prevent duty for a range of public bodies, including schools, prisons, local authorities and health services. This communal task of challenging the narrative is ongoing. It is highly dynamic, for the very reason that the threat we face is dynamic, and that requires us to redouble our efforts. I say to individuals who want to take on Daesh that there is a job to do in all those ways. For example, we take 1,800 pieces of terrorist propaganda down from the internet not every year or every month, but every week. That task is vital, as is supporting those community organisations and others that are putting forward the counter-narrative. These are important pieces of work, because the effect on individuals, particularly young people, who are corrupted by that poisonous narrative could not be more devastating Of course young people are targeted, because they are particularly vulnerable. They are susceptible to the kind of propaganda that I have described. It is important to know that last year alone, we referred 2,000 young people to our Channel programme, because they were vulnerable to that kind of radicalisation. In some cases, no further work was needed, but in others, intervention by social services was required. More than 200 such young people received support through that Channel programme At the end of last year, I saw at first hand, in Portsmouth, Hackney and elsewhere, the work that was done by our Prevent co-ordinators. I have met many of those who are on the frontline of this battle, and that is the frontline on which I want people to fight. I am talking about working in this country, taking on those who wish to corrupt our young people. This is no less than a safeguarding issue. The methods used by those who want to radicalise young people are not dissimilar to those of other kinds of exploitation. There is often a grooming process, which may take place face to face or online. It is often about picking on those young people who are particularly disadvantaged in some way. It is certainly about turning them from the cause of virtue to the cause of wickedness There should be no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Newark has done a service to this House by drawing our attention to the matters that we have debated briefly tonight. I end with this thought, which I hope he will broadcast to the people of Newark and elsewhere. If anyone should be in any doubt, let it be dispelled tonight: this Government and this Minister can outmatch our enemies in respect of our certainty, our determination and our commitment to winning this battle for the very heart and soul of all we are as a people Question put and agreed to.