Terrorism Bill

I want to finish answering my hon. Friend’s question. His second point was very important. Without any encouragement from me, the police, over a period of 10 to 15 years—perhaps since Scarman, perhaps for even longer—have been working extremely hard to transform their relations with various minority ethnic communities in particular cities. Obviously, that is patchy and there are areas where not as much has been done, but some of our great metropolitan forces have made massive strides in developing relationships between operational policing and particular communities that did not exist previously. Moreover, the major faith leaders, nationally and locally, in most of our communities—not all—are working hard to find ways to co-operate in addressing the issues on a basis of respect for different faiths. To be candid, the comparison that was made earlier with current events in France is utterly unhistorically based when we consider our achievements in the UK. I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to re-intensify our efforts to ensure that police relationships with various ethnic minority communities and faiths are substantial and real in every community in the country. Much work is already going on, but I can give him an assurance, without qualification, of the key importance of that point.