BRITISH Muslim leaders will be asked today to assist state authorities preparing an unprecedented encroachment into mosques, Islamic schools and community organisations.

Tony Blair will emphasise that Britain’s Islamic population must act to win the argument against “the evil ideology” that drove the London bombers. Muslim leaders will be told at a Downing Street conference that they should support any new laws necessary to eradicate what Mr Blair claims is the deep-rooted extremism within their community.

The meeting comes after a deal between the political parties to rush new laws on to the statute book by December preventing the preparation and incitement of terrorist acts and the training of terrorists.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, secured backing from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to create three terrorist offences. It was intended to legislate next year, but the timetable has been speeded up in response to the London bombings. Mr Clarke has agreed to separate consideration of the hotly contested control orders for the monitoring of terrorist suspects.That will now happen next spring.

The Home Secretary said that the agreement “will enable us to address the threat we face with a unity and determination which is critical”. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “Our country has responded magnificently over the last ten days. It is up to us to do the same.” Mark Oaten, for the Liberal Democrats, said that it was vital for the three parties to reach consensus on legislation.

Longer-term measures also under consideration include forcing mosques to make criminal record — and possibly police intelligence — checks on any person given unsupervised access to young people.

Schools and children’s homes already have a statutory obligation to make these checks. Many religious groups routinely follow suit, but most mosques and Muslim community centres do not.

Ministers are understood to be astonished that no screening is done of imams, officials and volunteers in mosques, who can spend hours talking to impressionable teenagers.

Another area of concern is the role played by more than 100 independent Islamic schools operating outside the state system. David Bell, the head of Ofsted, said in January that such schools were a potential threat to national identity. He called on the Government to monitor their growth to ensure that pupils learnt “the wider tenets of British society”, such as “respect for other cultures in a way that promotes tolerance and harmony”.

There has been controversy over state-funded Muslim “faith schools”. But ministers believe that these are a better way of meeting parents’ desire for an Islamic education, not least because they have to follow the national curriculum and are subject to regular inspections.

Today’s conference will be attended by religious, business and political leaders from across a broad spectrum of British Muslims. It will be told that neither the state, nor mainstream Muslims, can afford to maintain a hands-off approach.

Muslim groups promised last night that there would be a “robust discussion” with the politicians at today’s meeting. One senior community leader, who did not wish to be named, said: “They cannot pass the buck on to the Muslim community. We are prepared to come in as partners but we are not the police, we are not security agents. We will help and assist those people but we cannot do their jobs for them.”

The Home Office is also drawing up measures to regulate the activities of immigrant imams after concerns over the activities of poorly educated radical clerics from Pakistan. Visa rules have already been tightened to ensure that they have a basic command of the English language, but they may soon have to show their qualifications, as well as face a post-entry assessment.

Mr Clarke will publish his new counter-terrorism Bill in September. It will then be introduced into Parliament in October and rushed through within two months. It will enable the police to act against people planning terrorist acts even before the precise details are known; outlaw the expression of sentiments uttered with the intent of encouraging others to commit terrorist acts; and outlaw providing or receiving training in the use of hazardous substances for terrorist purposes.

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