TONY Blair today appealed to ethnic communities to work together to prevent any repeat of the Burnley riots.

And he said co-operation between communities was vital to stop the march of the British National Party in the North West.

The Prime Minister was answering questions from Burnley MP Peter Pike when he met senior commons committee chairmen at Westminster.

He agreed with Mr Pike that measures to provide services to young people, tackle empty homes and create a more flexible system for handing out state help to families were important.

But he added: "There's a lot that can be done by getting communities to work together. There are sometimes unnecessary tensions between different ethnic groups..

"This allows political parties like the British National Party to come into it and make matters worse.

"We need to ensure that different ethnic communities talk to each other and that there are proper discussions between young people and between faith leaders."

Mr Blair also said that people must not stigmatise Muslims over the terrorist threat and that responsible leaders of the Muslim community were just as keen for the police to tackle the issue as anybody else.

And while he agreed that tensions between young people needed to be tackled, he said people had to be absolutely clear that there was no justification for it to spill over into intimidation and violence.

Mr Pike said that a variety of reports following the 2001 riots in Burnley had identified disillusionment and alienation among young people as a major problem.

He said more money needed to be invested in youth services.

Mr Blair agreed but said that new deal to get the young unemployed into work helped to ensure that you didn't have disaffected youngsters with nothing to do.

And he said making extended schools into a focus for community activities also helped.

Mr Pike said too often you had young people hanging round on street corners forming gangs which contributed to tensions and said places were needed for teenagers where there were no alcoholic drinks.

He also told Mr Blair that he had a case recently of a constituent angry that her neighbours three doors away got money for Sure Start to help their children yet she did not.