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Counterterrorism

My Lords, I agree. My noble friend has opened up an area that demands a very complex answer, but I am tight on time so I will not give one. I agree that we absolutely have to engage with these people. We have achieved things with our "Prevent" strategy. For the first time ever, we have started to identify what makes someone become a violent extremist and what causes radicalisation. We do not yet know all the answers, but 18 months ago we did not have a clue. We have done a huge amount of work, and to assess how successful this has been we have set up mechanisms by which we can learn key lessons. We have had the Pathfinder year, and the Audit Commission and the HMIC undertook a learning and development exercise. We are putting mechanisms into place to measure our success, but I would be lying if I said that it is easy to measure; it is really difficult. However, I am reassured by the fact that the vast majority of our Muslim population are absolutely on side with us on this. They absolutely abhor the violent extremists, and they do not like people who tend to lead people towards that route. That is very reassuring, and it makes me feel very sure about our success in the future.