Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to bring forward legislation on end-to-end encryption, hashing or hashtags.

This Government is clear that it is essential our law enforcement and security and intelligence services have the powers they need to keep people safe. We are also committed to taking robust action to tackle radicalisation online, counter the poisonous ideology promoted by extremists, and remove harmful terrorist related material from the internet.

We have developed strong relationships with social media and internet companies in countering terrorism and extremism online. We are working closely with these companies to ensure that harmful content is swiftly removed from their platforms, and to explore options to provide appropriate access to encrypted terrorist content to law enforcement agencies.