Southport Inquiry Phase 1: Government Response

On 13 April 2026, the chair of the Southport inquiry, Sir Adrian Fulford published his phase 1 report. Sir Adrian sets out five fundamental failings, and makes 67 recommendations for central Government, and a range of national and local partners to consider. He concludes that the attack was foreseeable and avoidable.

I am grateful to Sir Adrian and his team for their diligent work in producing this comprehensive report. When I addressed Parliament on 13 April, I committed to publish our response by summer. Today that response has been published. The response has been laid before Parliament as a Command Paper (CP 1623) and copies are available in the Vote Office and on gov.uk.

In the response, we recognise the five fundamental failings. We accept all the recommendations that are for central Government to deliver and set out how we are working at pace to implement these in full. There are recommendations that Government have already made progress against, or in some cases, completed. The pace of this work demonstrates the urgency with which Government are working towards meeting the outcomes set by the inquiry. I have committed to formally report to Sir Adrian again in a year’s time.

I am clear that Government expects other organisations to implement their recommendations. We have written to all organisations to highlight the findings of the inquiry and will facilitate and support on delivery as far as possible.

The Government have already acted across a number of areas.

We have published our halving knife crime plan with the ambition to halve the level of knife crime across 10 years. We have also taken the Crime and Policing Act 2026 through Parliament to significantly tighten the law on knives and other bladed articles. We have also recently held a public consultation about introducing licensing for sellers of knives and importers.

We published a youth justice White Paper setting out a comprehensive programme of reform to modernise the youth justice system, establishing a clear direction toward earlier intervention and taking action to encourage and strengthen the use of parenting orders.

The Government are introducing legislation this session to criminalise lone individuals planning an attack without an ideological motive, closing a gap and strengthening our ability to disrupt the most serious threats from violence-fixated individuals.

We have announced that we will ban social media companies from offering their services to under-16s, in addition to new action to restricting their access to livestreaming and communication with strangers on services including gaming. We will also introduce legislation to tackle extreme violence content, to create a safer online environment, particularly for children and young people.