Transcript of Courts minster dismisses Elon Musk's comments and insists 'these are riots, not protests'

And taking her place is the Courts Minister, Heidi Alexander, to discuss all of the latest developments. Very good morning to you, Minister. Thanks for joining us.Thanks for having me. I wanted to start with the comments Mario was saying in her first bit of analysis there about what Neil Basu had been saying, the former Capterosim Chief, that some of the worst actions of this violence in the last week should be considered under terrorism laws. Is that something that the government agrees with?

So all decisions about charging will be matters for the crime prosecution service, and there will clearly be a range of offenses that have been committed, some very serious offenses, violent disorder, rioting, I suspect, incitement to racial hatred. But those decisions are for the CPS, and as a politician, I'm not going to get involved in those and pass commentary on it. What I do want to ensure, though, is that the individuals who are responsible for this absolutely disgusting and vile and totally unacceptable behavior on our streets, and let's be honest, is racist attacks, it is racist attacks. It is dangerous extremism and downright criminal behavior that they need to face consequences for their actions. Because when somebody chooses to throw a brick at a police officer chooses to set a building alight, they're choosing to commit a criminal offense at that point.

So you're saying it's dangerous extremism, it's violence, it's disgusting, I think you said. Is it potentially terrorism?

Well, it will be for the Crime Prosecution Service to look at all the evidence, as you will understand. There'll be a huge amount of digital evidence that the police and the CPS need to be wading through in order to build the case for the prosecution, and it It will be for them to decide what the most appropriate charge is for any individual.

Is the court system ready to cope, ready to handle the potential number of cases that comes its way?

Yeah. This weekend, we stood up 70 extra prosecutors. We ran 60 remand courts in 50 locations. Back in 2011, there was also longer sitting hours in the Magistrates Court, where some Magistrates Courts sat into the evenings and over weekends. After the riot, something called the Additional Courts Protocol was set up so that we could be ready if we needed to do something similar again in the future. It's actually It's a matter for the judiciary to take the decision to invoke the additional court's protocol. What would happen is that in particular regions of the country where there was particular pressure, the chief police officer, along with the chief prosecutor in that region, would make an application to the judiciary. Yesterday, we saw that the judiciary say that they would be willing to consider that because I think we're all on the same page here. We know that not only does there need to be a robust police response on the streets, and we've already seen that with thousands of specialist trained public order officers, but we also need to be delivering swift and effective justice.

Is what you're saying, because it's been this debate, will there be 24 hours courts? Will there not be I get that you're saying it's a local decision within the judiciary and the police. What are you saying right now is that whatever is needed in order to deliver the capacity that is needed in the coming days is there already.

Correct. At the moment, all of the cases are being dealt with within normal sitting hours. If pressure builds and we need to change that, we will do everything that we need to do. I know the judiciary stand ready to do the same to make sure that cases can be processed quickly, and we are also making sure that prison places are available. So if there's anyone out there thinking about getting involved in this, they can rest assured that there will be a prison place waiting for them if they are convicted and get a a custodial sentence.

So how many prison places have you vacated or insured are available?

So one of the things that we have done in the last week is bring forward some additional prison places. And so we have made an additional 567 prison places available, a new house block at Stockon Prison in Rutland. We've also repurposed some space at a Youth Offender Institute in Cookham Wood in Kent, which could now be used for the male prison estate. And so we have got additional prison places that are available in the short term because the individuals that are carrying out this violent disorder do need to face consequences for their actions.

What about the capacity for the police at the moment? Yesterday, our Dan Whitehead spoke to Inspector Ryan Northmore in Plymouth and asked, how difficult is it to police this on the site of an ongoing protest? Test, ongoing riot? He said, It's off the scale with the resources that we've got. It's off the scale and it's difficult. Do the police need more resources immediately in a way that, as you're saying, there's perhaps the ability to add more when it's needed in the court system. Is that not the case with the police?

I think it is very difficult for the police at the moment. It's very challenging, and I'd like to put on record my thanks and the thanks of the government to all the policemen and women who are policing these riots. And let's be clear, they are riots and not protest. It's not protest, it's sheer criminality. I know that the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, speaks very regularly to the police chiefs, and she has been assured by the police chiefs that they have the powers and the resources that they need. You might have heard the Prime Minister yesterday talking about the standing army of Specialist Trained Public Order Police Officers that we made available this weekend. There's another 2,000 that are available this week, and they can be deployed to areas of greatest need. You will also know that last week, the Prime Minister very quickly established the Violent Disorder Program so that police forces can effectively share intelligence, looking at enhanced use of facial recognition technology that is used in some places. So that we can ensure that the policing response is as effective as possible.

Yesterday, the Home Secretary told me that social media put rocket fuel under what's going on. As we understand from the latest numbers, around about 400 arrests have been made so far. Are you able to tell us if any of those have been based purely on people's online activity that haven't attended in any physical way the riots that we've seen? And is that something that you expect to be a part of the response from government and the justice system in the days ahead?

I don't have that level of granular detail about the 400 arrests, but what I do know is that people who are participating in or inciting this violence, whether it's on the streets or online, they will face criminal sanction. The idea that you can sit behind a computer screen or sit behind the screen of your mobile phone and somehow think that that protects you from the law is for the birds. We will take a very robust approach to the social media companies. I know that Peter Kyle, the Secretary of State for Science and Technology, is already in conversation with them. There's been some welcome action where there's been automated removal of some force information, but I do think the social media companies could and should be doing more. They've got a moral responsibility not to be propagating and disseminating, misleading and inflammatory content on their platforms.

Just finally, I wanted to touch on something that I guess comes out a little bit in the SPAC that we've seen between the Prime Minister and Elon Musk, the head of X and other companies. One One of the tweets that Elon Musk put out was that civil war was inevitable. Everyone is shocked by the scenes that we've seen, and you've clearly captured your very firm views towards it. But is there an exaggeration of the scale? Not the severity, but the scale of it in the sense that we've had 400 or so arrests. In 2011, we had around 3,000 arrests. Any number of criminal convictions for this behavior is clearly something that we wish to avoid. But are some people, perhaps people even overseas, almost trying to enjoy this and amplify what's going on?

I think everyone who has a platform on social media needs to behave responsibly with that platform. And given that we've seen police officers seriously injured, buildings being set alight, I think everyone should be calling for calm in this situation. And so I do think the language around civil war being inevitable for is totally unjustified. I think the Prime Minister's spokesperson was right to say that yesterday. And so look, I think the online world is almost the next frontier in the fight against crime. Clearly, there's some legislation that has been brought forward by the previous government, the Online Safety, Online Harms Act. Some of the provisions of that yet come into force, but the social media companies shouldn't be waiting for all of those provisions to come into force. They should be actually doing the right thing and asking themselves what more they can be doing to stop the propagation and dissemination of this material and content online.

Heidi Alexander, thanks so much for joining me.Thank you.Thank.