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National Security

My Lords, I am very grateful for the work that the noble Baroness did on the task force and I hope that it is reassuring to see much of that work coming to fruition in the Statement. I agree with her on the need to support the work of the ESRC, which has the Government’s wholehearted support. I ran out of time regarding the work in Pakistan and I apologise for that. I take the point—DfID, the Foreign Office and the British Council will play a fundamental part in that and I agree completely with the noble Baroness that this is in large part about education, knowledge, support, training, opportunity and so on which are key to people being able to develop their own lives. I, too, hope that there will be many opportunities to debate this. I do not propose that we have a debate in your Lordships’ House but it is important that individual communities debate this. That is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is looking at involving Muslim women in particular in certain areas and, more generally, at communities to support the network of those who are able to help us to work out a preventive strategy.