Southport Inquiry: Prevent Programme

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government, in light of the Southport Inquiry: Phase 1 report, published on 13 April, what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the Prevent programme, in particular its ability to prevent similar attacks.

This was a horrific attack and my thoughts remain with the families of victims. Since the attack in Southport, Ministers have taken steps to improve Prevent, including new guidance, training and assessment tools, a stronger approach to repeat referrals and new Channel interventions. We have also introduced the role of Prevent commissioner to provide independent oversight of Prevent’s effectiveness. We will respond in full to the inquiry’s recommendations by the summer.

One lesson that we could take from the Southport tragedy is that the focus on terrorism and ideology by Prevent actually distracts the police, schools and social services from dealing with a group of young adults who have different needs. Does the Minister perhaps agree that it is time to stop arresting peaceful eco-protesters and start thinking more about the violent people who do not fit into the ideological category that Prevent deals with?

The second phase of Sir Adrian Fulford’s investigation into the events at Southport includes examining the very issue the noble Baroness has mentioned: the wider, non-ideologically driven potential activity that leads to terrorist or violent behaviour. That second phase, and the terms of reference that we have given Sir Adrian, cover that point. In the Home Office we are also looking at those issues internally, through a separate working party that we have established to examine them. The noble Baroness will know my views on other forms of issues that she has raised; I will not repeat them now, for the sake of brevity.

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite her to speak.

My Lords, our thoughts are with the victims and their families, especially this week with the publication of the inquiry report, which will have brought back many sad memories. The inquiry report is very clear that, unlike with the safeguarding of children, there is a glaring hole in the joint sharing of information to ensure that all agencies are aware of the risks that a child poses to others in society. Yesterday my noble friend Lady Doocey pointed out that under the Crime and Policing Bill the police will need to consult only the youth offending team. Surely, as the report suggests, there must be one lead agency managing this information, but all the agencies involved—schools, social care, medical services—must have a duty to record and share information. Will the Government look at this as an absolute, urgent priority?

On the Statement yesterday, I responded to the request from the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, to introduce amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill. The Bill finishes its stages in Parliament this week or, potentially, next week or the week after. We have been very clear that we want to examine the recommendations in full, but we received these recommendations only at noon on Monday. I think it is fair that we give them consideration, but the noble Baroness’s point about data sharing and co-operation was a significant failure identified by Sir Adrian, and one we will respond to in full in the summer.

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that there is no suggestion that people who are demonstrating should be arrested or harassed in any way, and that the only people who are being arrested or harassed are those acting illegally?

It is a tangential point to the issue in relation to Southport, but I assure my noble friend that both Houses of Parliament have passed legislation—in this case, banning Palestine Action. That is subject to a current court case. We have taken that decision on solid advice from security services, and nobody is stopping anybody protesting about Palestine, Israel or any other issue. Under clear proscription orders from the powers that the Government have, any terrorist-related item is banned. We made a judgment on Palestine Action that it is terrorist-related action. It is subject to court procedures at the moment, but I hope we can resolve them very shortly.

My Lords, while the Government are considering the Fulford report and what they should be doing next, will they have something and somebody in place to take decisions if this happens before they have completed their inquiries?

As I mentioned, we have established a separate working group of officials. They are looking not just at the recommendations for advice for Ministers but at the type of individual and at the incident that occurred. They will test with police forces and others why and how that incident in Southport occurred. That working group is looking not at the ideological issues but at individuals who are obsessed with violence, which was the potential motivating factor of the Southport attack. We are very cognisant that, pending the recommendations being examined and reported back on, any individual at any time can undertake serious violent action motivated by their love and desire to be involved in such action.

My Lords, early intervention on those individuals who may be defined or identified as extremists is vital. Previously, as the Minister will be aware, we have had a Minister for Countering Extremism and a strategy. What work is being done in that regard to ensure that early identifiers on individuals can be put in place? Is the Extremism Analysis Unit, which was previously established in the Home Office, still active? Many of those who are coming under the influence of extremism are influenced online.

The noble Lord mentions an important point: we are very cognisant of online radicalisation, and the Home Office is looking at what steps we can take to improve the take-down of difficult sites and to look at tracing back those sites. We are continually monitoring the whole issue of counterextremism and how that works, both through my colleague Ministers and through the security services. We will continue to monitor our support and Prevent mechanisms. Prevent has helped around 6,000 people not to go into extremist activity in the last nine years. It is a good programme but, as I have mentioned, we have tweaked it based on the experiences of what happened in Southport in the very early days of this Government.

My Lords, in addition to the points that noble Lords around the House have made—about multi-agency co-operation and single-agency lead, and indeed the last comments about the internet, and about violent and misogynistic material in particular—will my noble friend also consider issues around the challenges of parenting a very troubled and potentially violent child, and around support and accountability? Will that be on the Government’s agenda as well?

One of the recommendations from Sir Adrian was on assessing the parents of the individual who is, I remind the House, now serving 52 years as a minimum sentence in prison for the assault. The failure of the parents to understand, establish and report the behaviour of the individual was a critical factor, so Sir Adrian has made a number of recommendations in that area. We received the recommendations on Monday; it is important to give them due consideration. We will report back to the House by the summer, but those are key areas where we need to look at what interventions can be made where there are difficult young people involved in activity that can escalate to the incident that happened in Southport.

My Lords, we touched on a number of issues yesterday during the Government’s Statement on the dreadful events at Southport, including the Mental Health Act. This was of course expressly designed for the purpose of limiting the extent to which autistic people can be detained and treated. Given that one of the contributing factors to both Rudakubana’s behaviour and the authorities’ failure to intervene was his autism diagnosis, will the new national autism strategy now look to change this approach? Can the Minister outline when we can expect to see that strategy?