Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of people referred to the Prevent programme went on to commit acts of (a) terrorism and (b) violent crime in each of the last five years for which data is available.

The first priority of Government is to keep its citizens safe. Prevent is a vital part of that. We must try and divert people away from radicalisation and violent ideologies.

Between 2019 and 2024, there have sadly, been 4 instances where somebody who had previously been referred to Prevent for early intervention support went on to commit a terrorist attack. This is a very small, but tragic number compared to the 2,800 individuals that have been supported through the Channel multi-agency programme since 1 April 2019. We have looked very closely at each of these 4 cases to identify lessons and then to deliver improvements to ensure that the Prevent programme does all it can to identify and support those susceptible to radicalisation.

The Home Office does not hold a comprehensive dataset on those individuals that have been referred into Prevent and have subsequently committed a violent crime. We are working with regional police forces and CT Police to strengthen this dataset and learn from any such incidents.