Smith focuses on tackling web extremism

Jacqui Smith has set out how the government intends to crack down on people using the internet to promote extremism.

The home secretary used her first major speech on terrorism on Thursday to call on the industry to do more to prevent radicalisation through websites.

Measures already used against online paedophiles would be employed, she said, with experts tracking and removing illegal material.

Stressing the need to protect "vulnerable people" from radicalisation, Smith said she would be meeting members of the communications industry to discuss what can be done.

"If we are ready and willing to take action to stop the grooming of vulnerable young people on social networking sites, then I believe we should also take action against those who groom vulnerable people for the purposes of violent extremism," she said.

"In the next few weeks, I will be talking to industry and critically, to those in the community about how best to do this, how best to identify material that is drawing vulnerable young people into violent extremism.

"Where there is illegal material on the net, I want it removed."

The home secretary added: "Counter-terrorist policing is not just about the sharp end - the disruption of those who seek to attack us - crucial though that is.

"It must also be about stopping people becoming or supporting terrorists. "We can't, after all, simply arrest our way out of this problem."

She also told the launch of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence conference that the internet was "not a no-go area for government".

"We are already working closely with the communications industry to take action against paedophiles and together, we have improved the way that instances of possible abuse can be reported by internet users," she said.

However, the Conservatives claimed the announcement came "much too late".

"The government started talking about tackling radicalisation as far back as 2003, but since then we have had the July 7 terrorist attacks and as far back as 2004 the prime minister's delivery unit said that 'forward planning is disjointed or has yet to occur'," said shadow security minister Baroness Neville-Jones.

"Why has it taken so long for the government to organise its response to this serious issue?"

Calling on ministers to ban Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, she said: "Gateway organisations draw the young and vulnerable into extremism.

"It is no use just targeting websites when such groups are free to undermine British society and values."