What role her Department plays in tackling extremism.

My Department leads across Government on the prevention aspect of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy. We also have responsibility for promoting community cohesion, including ensuring that extremists who promote hatred are marginalised. My Department has particular responsibilities for working effectively with local government and engaging with communities to acknowledge and tackle violent extremism at grass-roots level.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer and I am sure he will agree that one of the best ways to stop extremists spreading their corrosive poison in our communities is for every decent person to reject the ugliness of extremism with their vote at the ballot box. What is my hon. Friend's Department doing to raise awareness of the importance both of voting in elections to defeat extremism and of getting into communities to stop that poison at the roots?

I commend the work that my hon. Friend has done in his Constituency to tackle this difficult problem. My Department has a funding stream of about £5 million, which is available to local authorities to help them to put together strategies to tackle those who promote violent extremism. My Department is in conversation with my hon. Friend's local authority in Stoke-on-Trent.

What lessons did my hon. Friend learn from the visit to Leicester he made with the Minister for Women and Equality about the way in which a city such as Leicester, where the local authority has worked with the local community for many years, is able to combat racism and extremism?

The most important lesson from Leicester is that a strong inter-faith dialogue, talking and agreeing joint action and involving young people—as Leicester has done—makes an investment in the community that reaps rewards for many generations. Indeed, the rest of the country looks to Leicester to lead on the issue.