Extremism

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

First, it is indeed important to reach out to and work with communities, as I have said in response to a number of questions this afternoon. I am sorry to repeat the point I made to the shadow Home Secretary, but we have changed the way that various parts of what was the last Government’s Prevent strategy are delivered. We therefore cannot look at Home Office figures and say that there has been a cut in funding, because the Home Office has changed, and we are funding activity that is much more focused than it was. Two Departments are responsible for the different elements of the Prevent strategy, and the reason for that is simple: it is precisely Muslim communities who were getting concerned about the way the strategy operated under the last Government, and its mixing of the counter-terrorism strategy with communities integration work. We responded to that.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that combating extremism and building trust in communities will work only if there is action in communities consistent with the rhetoric in this place? Denouncing organisations from the Dispatch Box is not good enough; we also have to end funding to extremist organisations in communities.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is right and that is why, as part of the revised Prevent strategy, we put in place explicit procedures to try to ensure that funding does not go to organisations that have extremists within them or that do not respect the values we all hold dear. This Government put that new strand into the Prevent strategy because we saw the importance of not funding extremism.