Southport Inquiry: Prevent Programme

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon Excerpts

Thursday 16th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

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.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

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.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

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.