Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the strong Statement and pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Wolfson. He made the important point that we must attack and tackle all forms of extremism. As someone who has served in government, in the Foreign Office and at the Home Office as the Minister for countering extremism, I know that there are people who hijack the faith of Islam that I—and millions, indeed billions, around the world—follow. The distinction between Islamists and Islam must be made very clearly. May I suggest dealing with the sources and looking at the philosophy that drives these extremists? The al-Banna philosophy and the Maududi philosophy embed these forms of extremist actions. While I welcome those who are involved and engaged in fighting this, we need a whole-country approach, a whole-faith approach and a whole-community approach to ensure that voices from the British Muslim community are included. In that way, we fight this at source. I am sure that the Government would find support by banning, first and foremost, preachers of hate who come to our shores and use our liberal laws to instil fear and carry out the attacks that we have seen on our streets, particularly against the Jewish community.