Before we come to the Home Secretary’s statement, I want to say that I appreciate that it has been most frustrating for the House that we have not been able to discuss the issues relating to this case because of ongoing prosecutions. Although the case is still technically sub judice until sentencing on Thursday, given that the accused has pleaded guilty to all charges and that there is strong public interest in the House being able to discuss these matters, I am granting a waiver so that Members may discuss it freely. I am confident that the House’s sub judice resolution has been followed correctly, and I am grateful to Members for their patience in not discussing this case substantially before now. I am going to ensure that the House’s sub judice resolution is reviewed to ensure it is fit for purpose.
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the Southport murders.
None of us will ever forget the events of 29 July. The school holidays had just started, and little girls were at a dance class to have fun, dance and sing. A moment of joy turned into the darkest of nightmares. We think especially of three little girls—Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King and Alice da Silva Aguiar—their precious smiles and the dreams their families had, and we think of their families’ agony to have that future so brutally destroyed. They are in all our hearts and prayers, as are those who survived the attack but live with the physical and emotional scars. Nothing will ever take away their trauma and loss, and we will ensure that they receive the support and care they need in the years to come.
We think, too, of the police and first responders who ran into that scene of unspeakable horror. The courage they showed and the lives they saved are public service at its very best.
Yesterday, Axel Rudakubana pleaded guilty to all charges. He stands responsible for one of the most barbaric crimes in our country’s history—the most vile and cowardly attack on little children who could never defend themselves, carried out in the most horrific and traumatic way. The Crown Prosecution Service has described him as
“a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence”
who has
“shown no sign of remorse.”
On Thursday, before sentencing, the prosecution will set out what happened that day and the nature of those offences.
Now that the conviction has been secured, the families, the people of Southport and the entire country need answers about how this horrendous attack could ever have happened. The Government have been constrained in what we could say up to this point about Rudakubana’s past to avoid prejudicing any jury trial, in line with all the normal rules of our British justice systems, because nothing is more important than securing justice, but now we can start to lay out that background.
Multiple different agencies were in contact with Rudakubana and knew about his history of violence. He was referred to Prevent three times between December 2019 and April 2021, when aged 13 and 14. Between October 2019 and May 2022, Lancashire police responded to five calls from his home address about his behaviour. He was referred repeatedly to the multi-agency safeguarding hub. He had contact with children’s social care, the Early Help service, and child and adolescent mental health services. He was convicted of a violent assault against another child at school and was referred to the youth offending team. He was excluded from one school and had long periods of absence from another.
I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement and for the briefing she kindly arranged.
First, let us remember the three young, innocent victims of this savage and senseless attack: Bebe King was just six years old, Elsie Dot Stancombe was seven and Alice da Silva Aguiar was nine years old. Their lives were cruelly cut short as they attended a Taylor Swift dance class. It should have been a time of joy, part of a precious and innocent childhood to be cherished and remembered, and yet the darkest of shadows fell over Southport that day as those girls were robbed of their young lives. Let us not forget that eight more children and two adults were seriously injured on that day as well. Many of us in the House are parents or grandparents, and many people listening today will be too. We can only begin to imagine the pain and grief the parents and family of Bebe, Elsie and Alice must now be feeling. We should recognise and thank the first responders who arrived at the scene.
We owe it to the memory of those children and to their bereaved parents to learn the lessons from this terrible incident and to take steps to make sure it does not happen again. In that spirit, I welcome and support the inquiry announced yesterday. Will the Home Secretary confirm that it will be placed on a statutory footing as soon as possible, to ensure its independence and to enable it to compel disclosure of the evidence it may need? It is vital to get to the truth about the opportunities that may have existed to stop the evil perpetrator, Axel Rudakubana, from committing those sickening murders.
Rudakubana was encountered multiple times, as the Home Secretary has said, by the police, social services, the school system and the Prevent programme over a period of several years. The inquiry will find out, I hope, whether mistakes were made or whether the law needs to change. The Home Secretary mentioned some areas that will rightly be looked at, and I support that. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the inquiry will include consideration of whether the Mental Health Act 1983 was adequate for this case?
The shadow Home Secretary raised a series of points, which is obviously a substantial shift in position for him and his party from the one they took in government. He asked about the status of the inquiry. I can confirm that it will start quickly on a non-statutory basis, in the same way that the Angiolini inquiry did. However, I can also confirm that it will be given whatever powers it needs, including on a statutory basis, so that it can get any information that it needs.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Shawcross review. I can confirm that the Government have implemented 33 out of the 34 recommendations. I will gently point out, however, that the approach that the Shawcross review took was to say that the Prevent programme should be narrowed and should focus particularly on the cases around terrorism. That could have risked including fewer cases like this one, where ideology is less clear.
The shadow Minister then raised the issue about the information that was provided. He will know that the Contempt of Court Act was set out in 1981. Jonathan Hall has highlighted the problem of disinformation online, with social media actors not bound by the same rules that the police, the media and the Government follow. He refers, for example, to the name and nationality being provided, which in practice they were in this case after misinformation appeared online. Ultimately, he has also said that all that is governed by the Contempt of Court Act 1981, and the Law Commission is reviewing that. However, it is not for the Government to ignore the law or the advice that we are given when justice for families is at stake.
I will point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the previous Conservative Government did not publish information before the trial about the Prevent referral for the perpetrator who killed Sir David Amess. None of us criticised them for that because none of us wanted to put at risk justice for Sir David’s family. Nor did they publish information before the trial on the Prevent referral of the asylum seeker who killed Tom Roberts. In fact, they did not even publish that after the trial; it only came out in the inquest. Further, the Minister, who even after the trial refused to answer my questions on whether they knew that the asylum seeker was wanted for murdering two people in Serbia when he was allowed to enter the country, was the current shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick).
It has been another tough week for my Southport constituency, as I am sure that Members across the House will appreciate. I want to start by thanking the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister for the calm, diligent way in which they have undertaken their work over the last six months, and for the way in which they have been good friends to Southport.
I was clear back in the summer that I did not want people speculating online as to the motives or the background of the person who we can now say was the murderer of those three girls. We were risking prejudicing the trial, and it could have collapsed because of that speculation. In fact, it was not just speculation, but in some respects, downright lies—downright lies that were being circulated in the interests of political gain, with the interests of justice a distant second. Does the Home Secretary agree that the next stage of achieving justice for my community and for the families impacted so desperately by the crime back in July—that is, the public inquiry—should also be allowed to undertake its work and make its recommendations free of the ridiculous nonsense and lies that we have seen from public figures who should know better and which have been circulating purely for their own interests?
My hon. Friend has been an important voice for the people in his community throughout this unimaginably difficult time and has spoken for them with great dignity and passion, including in this House.
My hon. Friend is right that nothing of that sort should be done; it is part of our British justice tradition that information is produced at the trial, but not in advance for fear of prejudicing a jury, of undermining justice and of potentially letting criminals walk free. He is right that we should never do that. He is also right that his community, including the families involved, need answers now. And the answers that they need include how on earth this shocking, disturbing and barbaric attack was able to happen. What went wrong? What could have been done to prevent it? There is also the question of how we as a society face up to the rising youth violence and extremism that we have seen, with this being just one example among some very disturbing cases. That is the justice and the answers that those families need.
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. What happened in Southport last year was a horrific tragedy. Three innocent young girls—Alice, Bebe and Elsie—lost their lives to an act of senseless brutal violence, and our thoughts go out to the bereaved families and their friends, for whom this week will be incredibly difficult. We all owe it to these girls to ensure that a senseless tragedy such as this can never happen again.
It has been deeply concerning to hear reports about how, in the lead-up to the attack, warning signs were missed as the attacker fell through the cracks in the system. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s commitment to an inquiry, and, clearly, tough questions need to be asked. The inquiry must not shy away from getting the answers. This inquiry, like others, will only reach its full potential when there is a duty of candour that requires public officials and authorities to co-operate fully. I would welcome more details from the Home Secretary on when her Government plan to finally introduce the Hillsborough law to Parliament.
Our country also deserves a counter-terrorism strategy that keeps our community safe and is fit to tackle the modern challenges that we face in an increasingly complex online world that crosses international boundaries. Will the Home Secretary confirm that these concerns will be addressed in the upcoming counter-terrorism strategy? This must be a watershed moment from which we move forward by building a system that avoids future failures such as we have seen in this case. It is my sincere hope that we can work together across this House to make that a reality.
The hon. Member makes an important point: we want to introduce the duty of candour as part of the Hillsborough law. She is also right to talk about the challenges of countering terrorism, extremism and these changing patterns of extreme violence. As the Met Commissioner has said, those with a fixation on violence and gore are also consuming different bits of terrorist and extremist material. The ideology may be unclear, but they pose a danger to the public. This inquiry needs to look at all those issues, and, as part of our Prevent work and counter-terrorism work, we need to act at pace in these areas as well.
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement this afternoon. As many Members have said, our thoughts remain with Bebe, Elsie and Alice. We can all remember where we were that late mid-morning on 29 July. I had just dropped off my two children at their holiday camp at school. When the news broke, I could feel that panic. I almost stopped for a minute to think: are my children safe? We think about the other children and the trauma that they will be feeling, and the first responders who ran towards that danger knowing that they could be harmed.
The Home Secretary has announced an inquiry, but, sadly, there is also the issue of the nature of the violence that children as young as 15 or 16 are viewing online—the nature of the violence that was used on Elianne Andam when she was tragically stabbed in Croydon on 27 September, and the nature of the violence that Axel Rudakubana used on these three girls. How will the Home Secretary ensure that the institutions which, if we are honest, failed to see those warning signs will not fail in the future? What will the inquiry do differently, so that, as a House, we will not be coming back to recount dangerous tragedies again in the future?
My hon. Friend is right to describe how every parent and grandparent will have felt on hearing those awful descriptions on that day in July. She is also right to focus on what our young people—our children—are seeing online. If we do not face up to this, the damage that we could be doing to generations down the line is disturbing and troubling. That means that social media companies need to take responsibility. The Online Safety Act 2023 will introduce stronger codes and requirements, but the companies themselves also need to take some responsibility, instead of going backwards, which they are at the moment.
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, and my thoughts are with everybody involved. The list that she set out of the points where the agencies and institutions could have intervened sooner is truly terrifying. What reassurance can she give the House that this is a cross-Government piece of work and that all agencies and institutions will be involved? Furthermore, as and when the inquiry makes recommendations, which it will hopefully do on an interim basis, will she give a commitment that she will look carefully at them and implement them as soon as possible?
We will certainly look at any recommendations that come from this important inquiry. We need to look at what went wrong in this case. This is particularly about the interactions between the different agencies. There were so many agencies involved, but, as a network, they failed to identify the risk and to have sufficient actions in place. Lancashire county council has carried out a rapid initial review, but there still has to be a statutory child safeguarding practice review and a coroner’s inquiry. However, our view is that those are not sufficient, because we need a cross-agency examination of all of the things that went wrong in this case. We have to start with the dangers that were posed to those children in Southport in such a devastating way and then see why the system so badly failed to protect them from those dangers. We need that rather than organisations working in their own silos, doing only their bit and then leaving children at risk.
I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement and for announcing the public inquiry. I want to remember Alice, Bebe and Elsie, and their families and friends. I also want to remember the other victims of the attack and the first responders, some of whom have given harrowing accounts over the last six months of what they found at the Hart Space in Southport.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we in this House should recommit to the principle that nothing that we say or do in this place or elsewhere should prejudice criminal proceedings or prevent justice from being secured? Does she agree that to have done so in this case would have been an insult to the memories of Alice, Bebe and Elsie, an insult to their families and friends, and an insult to everyone in the community in Southport who were, and remain, so badly affected by what happened on 29 July last year?
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All those agencies had contact with him yet, between them, they completely failed to identify the terrible danger he posed. How did he fall through so many gaps? It is just unbearable to think that something more could and should have been done. There are grave questions about how this network of agencies failed to identify and act on the risks. There were so many signs of how dangerous he had become, yet the action against him was far too weak. Families need the truth about why the system failed to tackle his violence for so many years.
That is why we are setting up an independent public inquiry. Like the Angiolini inquiry into Wayne Couzens, it will begin work on a non-statutory basis so that it can move quickly into action, but with statutory powers added later, as required. We will set out the terms of reference and appoint the chair once we have consulted the coroner and given the families the opportunity to comment. In addition to examining what went wrong in this horrific case, I am also asking the inquiry to consider the wider challenge of rising youth violence and extremism.
I have been deeply disturbed at the number of cases involving teenagers drawn into extremism, serious violence and terrorism—including Islamist extremism, far right extremism, mixed and confused ideology, and obsession with violence and gore. In just three years, there has been a threefold increase in under-18s investigated for involvement in terrorism. Some 162 people were referred to Prevent last year for concerns relating to school massacres; the Met Commissioner has warned about
“young men who are fixated on violence...grazing across extremist and terrorist content”;
and Five Eyes counter-terror partners have warned about growing radicalisation of minors, happening as so many of our children and teenagers are being exposed to ever more disturbing materials online. An online ecosystem is radicalising our children while safety measures are whittled away.
The Online Safety Act 2023 illegal content codes of practice come into force in March and the child safety codes should be in place this summer, but companies should take responsibility before then. The prosecution will provide more detail on Thursday about material Rudakubana searched for online, but I can tell the House that the Government are this week contacting technology companies to ask them to remove the dangerous material that he accessed. Companies should not be profiting from hosting content that puts children’s lives at risk.
Let me set out four other areas where we are taking action in advance of the inquiry. First, on Prevent, the Government and counter-terrorism policing jointly commissioned an immediate Prevent learning review during the summer, and I will publish detailed findings following the sentencing. The three referrals took place between three and four years before the Southport attack, including following evidence Rudakubana was expressing interest in school shootings, the London Bridge attack, the IRA, MI5 and the middle east.
On each occasion, Rudakubana’s case was assessed by counter-terrorism policing, but in each instance there was no onward referral to specialist Channel support. The learning review has concluded that the referrals should not have been closed, and that cases such as these, given the perpetrator’s age and complex needs, should be referred to Channel. It concludes that too much weight was placed on the absence of ideology, without considering the vulnerabilities to radicalisation, or taking account of whether he was
“obsessed with massacre or extreme violence”,
and that the cumulative significance of those three repeat referrals was not properly considered.
The Prevent programme is vital to our national security and its officers work with huge dedication to keep us safe, but we need it to be effective. Some changes have already been made since 2021, including new Prevent duty guidance, new training for frontline workers on radicalisation and stronger policy on repeat referrals. In September 2024, a new Prevent assessment framework was launched, supplemented by robust training for all Prevent police officers, but those changes do not go far enough.
Given the importance of the programme, I cannot understand how it has been allowed to operate for so long without proper independent oversight. That is why I announced before Christmas the introduction of a new independent Prevent commissioner with power to review cases and ensure standards are being met. I am today appointing Lord David Anderson KC as the interim Prevent commissioner, to start work immediately. His first task will be to conduct a thorough review of the Prevent history in this case to identify what changes are needed to make sure serious cases are not missed, particularly where there is mixed and unclear ideology.
I have also tasked my Department with conducting an end-to-end review of Prevent thresholds, including on Islamist extremism, where referrals have previously been too low. We are looking at cases where mental ill health or neurodivergence is a factor, and developing new arrangements with other agencies for cases that may not meet the threshold for Channel counter-extremism support, but where violent behaviour must be addressed urgently.
Secondly, two shocking facts around knife crime have emerged from this case. The Prevent learning review found that Rudakubana admitted to having carried a knife more than 10 times, yet the action against him was far too weak. Despite the fact that he had been convicted for violence and was just 17, he was easily able to order a knife on Amazon. That is a total disgrace and it must change. We will bring in stronger measures to tackle knife sales online in the crime and policing Bill this spring.
Thirdly, as the Prime Minister has set out this morning, we need to ensure our laws keep up with the changing violent and extremist threats that we face. It is for the police and CPS to decide whether individual cases meet the definition set out in the Terrorism Act 2000 when making charges, but given the growing number of cases where perpetrators are seeking to terrorise, even without a clear ideology, we need to ensure that the law, powers and sentencing are strong enough to cope. I have therefore asked the independent reviewer on terrorism powers to examine the legislation in this area in light of the modern threats we face.
Finally, let me address the issue of contempt of court. The British way of justice means that information is presented to the court by the police and CPS with restrictions on what can be said beforehand, so that the jury does not get partial or prejudicial information in advance, and to ensure the trial is fair and justice is done. Social media puts those long-established rules under strain, especially where partial and inaccurate information appears online, and the Law Commission is reviewing the contempt of court rules in that light. But let me be clear that where the police, Government and journalists are given clear advice from the CPS about contempt of court and about not publishing information in advance of a trial, if we did not respect that and a killer walked free, we would never be forgiven.
There are times when something so unfathomably terrible happens that whatever words we find feel grossly insufficient, and that is how it feels over the Southport attack. Let there be no doubt: responsibility for this outrage lies squarely with the perpetrator. Equally, in the wake of such a monstrous atrocity, we have to ask every question, no matter how difficult, and where change is needed, we must act. That now is our task. We owe that to the victims and their loved ones, and we owe it to the country, because protecting the public is the first duty of the Government and the shared purpose of this House. I commend this statement to the House.
The Home Secretary has rightly referred to Prevent. A review of Prevent was conducted by Sir William Shawcross and the last Government responded to that in February 2024. Will the Home Secretary now commit to implementing all the recommendations of the Shawcross review?
I now turn to what happened after the murders and to the importance of openness and transparency. First—this is a serious and important question—will the Home Secretary confirm that the inquiry will also cover the Government, police and CPS response to the murders and especially the handling of public communications and the appalling riots that followed? It is a very important question, and I will be grateful if the Home Secretary answers that directly in her response.
The Prime Minister this morning acknowledged that he knew about the background to the case and to Rudakubana himself, including that he had been referred to Prevent on three separate occasions and that he had been found to be in possession of ricin—a highly toxic chemical—and a manual detailing al-Qaeda terrorist methods, which is itself an offence under the Terrorism Act 2006. The Prime Minister also said this morning that he did not disclose any of that to the public in the days and weeks after the murders for fear of prejudicing the subsequent murder trial.
It is, of course, important for journalists, politicians and this House to do nothing that might prejudice a trial. However, Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said this, in the context of the case, on the “Today” programme in October:
“The Government has to be aware…that if there is an information gap…then there are other voices, particularly in social media, who will try and fill it.”
He went on,
“if there is any information you can give, put it in the public domain, and be really careful that you don’t fall into the trap of saying ‘we can only say zilch, because there are criminal proceedings’.”
He continued:
“Quite often, there’s a fair amount…that can be put into the public domain”.
Jonathan Hall concluded by saying that that police realise now
“that just saying ‘there’s a charge, we can’t say any more’, is not going to cut it these days.”
The independent reviewer is therefore saying that the Government and police can put some material into the public domain without prejudicing subsequent trials.
In fact, on 29 October, Rudakubana was charged with possessing the ricin and the terror manual, and that was then made public. If that can be made public in October without risking prejudice of the murder trial, it follows that it could have been made public in August without prejudicing that same trial. Background facts on other cases over the years have been made public after arrest and before trial without prejudice—the shields relating to two of those cases are in this Chamber. Why, therefore, did the Prime Minister not make public some of that background information in August when he knew it, when later disclosure of that information in October demonstrated that such disclosure could be made without prejudice? Why, too, did the Deputy Prime Minister, on 31 July, dismiss as “fake news” those saying that there may be further facts to come out?
Briefly, before concluding, let me explain why that is important. As Jonathan Hall said, if there is a void, misinformation can fill that void, especially online. That appears to be what happened here and some of that information, it is said, originated overseas from hostile states. It is possible—indeed, even likely—that that misinformation that was put into the void fuelled the totally unacceptable riots we then subsequently saw. Will the Home Secretary therefore accept, given what Jonathan Hall and I have said, that there should and could have been more openness and transparency, as I just set out, without prejudicing the trial, and that disclosing more of that truth openly and transparently would have helped combat the damaging misinformation that circulated and which, arguably, fuelled the riots? Will she confirm the inquiry will look at that aspect of events?
This was an appalling tragedy: young girls, murdered, with their whole lives ahead of them. Let us all learn the lessons from this tragedy in honour of their memory.
We have been keen to publish the information on Prevent referrals from the start, but the advice to us has been clear throughout. If we had ignored the advice that we were given about the case that was put to us and about the information that the police and the CPS were working through in order to get justice, and if, as a result, a killer had walked free, no one would ever have forgiven the Government or anyone else. The most important thing is to get justice and then, once justice is secured, to make sure at this point that the questions are answered about what went wrong and why three young girls’ lives were lost. That is the question the shadow Home Secretary should be focusing on right now.