Abu Qatada (Deportation)

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

It is indeed the case that other individuals were on the plane with Abu Qatada. I am sure that my hon. Friend will appreciate that having reached this stage we wanted to ensure that the deportation did in fact go ahead and went ahead successfully.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

When I was an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland we spent a lot of time trying to drain the water from terrorists—in other words, the people with whom they lived. However, they were coerced and frightened. Such people may well be replicated on the mainland. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to try to identify terrorists and get them away from the society which sustains them and allows them to operate in England?

[Mrs May]

We do of course have a strategy for dealing with terrorism. The officials at the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, which is based in the Home Office, work with the police, the Security Service and the other security and intelligence agencies to make sure that we can, where possible, prevent terrorist attacks from taking place in the United Kingdom. Sadly, in the past couple of months we have of course had the incident of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich. Prior to that, we had seen a number of plots by terrorists to do harm and to kill people here in the United Kingdom thwarted by the very good efforts of officials, police and members of the Security Service.