The government has emphasised that Islamist and far-right ideologies are the biggest extremist threats to the country and added that they are the priority for security forces. This comes after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer suggested potential reforms to extremism laws following the deadly Southport attack which left three young girls dead and several others injured. Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Emma Reynolds also said the government is 'absolutely intent' on enabling economic growth but admitted that it would take time. Reynolds added that the labour government 'want to put money in people's pockets and raise living standards'. The economic secretary disagreed with the children's commissioner that under 18s who participated in the Southport riots should have their criminal records cleared, stating they should rightly face the 'full force of the law'. Report by Faragt. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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NewsTranscript
00:00We're going to set out our approach to extremism in due course but we do reject the findings of
00:05this report which suggests somehow that we should downgrade our approach to Islamic extremism. We
00:11don't agree with that. Islamic extremism and far-right ideology are the two biggest threats
00:18in terms of extremism and it's something that we as a government and the security forces and others
00:24are prioritising. It is a tricky issue as you've outlined because of the horrific murders that we
00:29saw in the summer in Southport but that's why it's right that the government takes the time
00:34necessary to set out a comprehensive approach to extremism. We've been in government for seven
00:40months and we have never suggested that we were able to turn around the economic mess that we
00:46inherited in such a short time period. The budget laid the foundations, it put the public finances
00:53on a firmer footing but now we are absolutely intent on bringing down the barriers to growth
00:59which is why at the weekend the Chancellor was talking about ensuring that planning reform goes
01:04ahead at pace, that the answer is not always no and that it shouldn't take years to get infrastructure
01:10plans through and this morning we're also announcing plans to enable pension schemes,
01:16defined benefit pension schemes, to have more flexibility so that that can unlock billions of
01:22pounds worth of investment into companies, into productivity. So we're very excited about driving
01:28economic growth, we're very positive about the economic fundamentals of our country, the talent
01:34that we've got, the wealth creators, the entrepreneurs and that's what we're doing, getting on with the
01:39job as part of our plan for change to drive economic growth across the country and why is that
01:43important? It's important because we want to put money in people's pockets and we want to raise
01:47people's living standards. Inflation is down, real wages are increasing at a fastest rate for
01:54three years. PWC said only last week that global chief executives had found that the UK is the
02:00second most attractive country in the world to invest and we've had the International Monetary
02:06Fund upgrade our growth forecast. So we think the economic fundamentals are strong, we are very
02:12positive about the future and we hope that investors, pension funds, businesses get on and invest in the
02:19UK economy because there's great potential that we've got to realise here. What we saw in the
02:24summer was terrible riots which took up police time, a lot of resources, created fear in communities,
02:33I had that in my own constituency. I don't think and I respectfully disagree with the
02:39Children's Commissioner that if people took part in those riots that somehow their
02:44criminal record should be wiped. I don't agree with that. The Prime Minister was very clear at the
02:48time of the riots that if people engage in these riots they will face the full force of the law
02:54and that remains our position.