Terror Attacks 22 June 2017 11.11 am The Secretary of State
for the Home Department (Amber Rudd) With permission, Mr Speaker, I
would like to make a statement about the terrorist attacks we have
seen since Parliament last sat....Request free trial
22 June 2017
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With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a
statement about the terrorist attacks we have seen
since Parliament last sat.
There has been no summer like it. When we rose
seven weeks ago, we left this House in the wake of
the worst terrorist attack our country had seen in
over a decade, with Khalid Masood trying to strike
at the heart of our democracy. He was foiled that
day by one of our brave police officers. But
tragically it has proved to be the first of many
attempts to bring terror and hate to our streets.
Two months later, a cowardly and devastating attack
in Manchester left 22 people dead and 59 injured
after a suicide bomber targeted children at a
concert in the Manchester Arena. On 3 June, a van
was deliberately driven into pedestrians on London
Bridge before three men got out of the vehicle and
began stabbing people in nearby Borough Market.
Eight people were killed and 48 injured. And then
on Monday, almost exactly one year after was brutally murdered
in Birstall, we woke to the news of the return of
far-right terror, with a man viciously driving into
a group of Muslim worshippers in north London. One
man who had fallen ill before the attack died, and
nine others were treated in hospital. Westminster,
the Manchester Arena, London Bridge, and now
Finsbury Park: 36 innocent people dead and over 150
hospitalised; a tragic loss of innocent life.
Last week, I met a mother and father who had lost
their daughter in the vicious attacks on London
Bridge. She had been stabbed while out celebrating
her new job with a friend in Borough Market. Just
under two weeks before, she planned to be at the
arena in Manchester where Salman Abedi committed
his heinous crimes, but she decided not to use her
ticket. She had come to London to enjoy a wonderful
trip away—a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But
instead it was the last trip she ever made. I know
everyone in this House will want to join me in
expressing our sorrow for the pain her family will
be feeling, and all those families who have lost
loved ones will be feeling, as well as passing on
our thoughts and prayers for those victims who are
still trying to recover from the trauma and tragedy
of these events.
I also know that the House will want to join me in
acknowledging the incredible efforts of our
emergency services during this difficult period.
The events of recent months serve to remind us of
the bravery, professionalism and, above all,
incredible sacrifice made by those who work to keep
us safe.
As Home Secretary, there is nothing more saddening
than standing before Parliament to deliver a
statement like this. These acts of terrorism
represent the very worst of humanity. They seek to
spread fear, intolerance and hate. Countering this
threat has always been a crucial part of the work
of this Government. That is why we introduced
measures to disrupt the travel of foreign fighters,
and why we passed the Investigatory Powers Act
2016, which gives the police and intelligence
services more powers and the tools they need to
keep the public safe. It is also why, just seven
weeks ago, we legislated to strengthen our response
to terrorist financing with the Criminal Finances
Act 2017.
We have protected overall police funding in real
terms since 2015, increased counter-terrorism
budgets and funded an uplift in the number of armed
police officers. We are now in the process of
recruiting over 1,900 additional security and
intelligence staff. The Channel programme, which
offers voluntary, tailored programmes of support to
people assessed as being at risk of radicalisation,
has supported over 1,000 at-risk individuals since
2012. Following referrals from the
counter-terrorism internet referral unit, social
media providers have removed 270,000 pieces of
illegal terrorist material since February 2010.
However, we are entering a new phase of global
terrorism, and many of the challenges that we face
are unprecedented. We now believe we are
experiencing a new trend in the threat we face.
Between June 2013 and the Westminster bridge attack
in March this year, the security services foiled 13
plots linked to or inspired by Islamist extremists,
but just since then, we have seen five plots
prevented as well as three such Islamist extremist
plots succeed and of course the appalling attack at
Finsbury Park earlier this week.
We must therefore do more. We must do more to
defeat ideologies of hatred by turning people’s
minds away from violence and towards pluralistic
British values. We must make sure that these
ideologies are not able to flourish in the first
place. We must do more to force tech companies to
take down terror-related content from their
platforms. We must also do more to identify,
challenge and stamp out the extremism that lurks in
our communities. That is why we will set up a
commission for countering extremism. For just as
the Labour Government in the 1970s set us on a
course to tackling racial inequality in this
country by setting up the Commission for Racial
Equality, we need to—and must—do more to tackle the
extremists who seek to radicalise and weaponise
young people in Britain today.
Doing more also means asking difficult questions
about what has gone wrong. In the light of the
terrorist attacks in London and Manchester,
Britain’s counter-terrorism strategy will be
reviewed to make sure that the police and the
security services have what they need to keep us
safe. In addition, there will be a review of the
handling of recent terror attacks to look at
whether lessons can be learned about our approach,
and I am pleased to announce that , the
former independent reviewer of terrorism
legislation, will oversee it.
What we have witnessed in Manchester and London are
the depraved actions of murderers intent on tearing
our country apart, but each act of hate has been
met by overwhelming defiance. In Borough Market, I
recently saw stallholders dishing olives out into
plastic pots, shoppers searching for delicious
treats and tourists flicking through guidebooks in
the shadow of the Shard. Rather than being divided
by recent violence, people seemed even closer
together. We should follow the example of the
traders and the shoppers of Borough Market.
Terrorists want us to fear and to turn on one
another, but we will never give terrorists what
they want. We will stand together, and we will make
the point that terrorists will never win, and that
our values, our country and our unity will prevail.
I commend this statement to the House.
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