Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I hope the whole House will join with me in sending our deepest sympathy to the friends and family of James Furlong and to the staff and pupils at the Holt school in Wokingham where he taught. He was by all accounts an inspirational teacher who always went the extra distance for his pupils and was a very kind man who will be sorely missed. The community is obviously very shaken today by this news.
Will the Home Secretary intensify the efforts of the intelligence service, the police, law forces and the others as we have had too many of these mass murders in recent years and we want some reassurance we can get on top of this and save the lives of others for the future.
Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel): My Right Honourable Friend is absolutely right and I too pay tribute to the shocking events that have happened and pay my respects as well to Mr Furlong. These are absolutely appalling events and attacks and all our sympathies and thoughts are with his family and his friends.
My Right Honourable Friend is absolutely right in terms of the intensification of the work that is taking place. This is crossing cutting across Government covering a range of measures – police, intelligence, security. The Right Honourable gentleman also mentioned our borders and the work we are doing in terms of moving our borders, dealing with criminality checks – that is all ongoing work and it will, of course, be intensified.
June 23, 2020
The police and others who might defend against such attacks can never be in place to do so; it therefore comes down to ourselves. We need to be allowed some measures to facilitate that. We are not even allowed to carry a pepper spray, which might provide defence against a knife attack, let alone a firearm necessary to disable a gunman or bomber.
We need a serious debate about this before others are killed and a mandatory death penalty for such attackers, not just so they cannot repeat the offence, but so others will not be encouraged by them.
June 25, 2020
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