Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that university authorities co-operate with the Prevent programme.

The Office for Students has delegated responsibility, from the Secretary of State for Education, for monitoring compliance of the Prevent Duty in the higher education (HE) sector. The latest Office for Students monitoring report shows high levels of compliance, with over 97% of universities and other HE providers having due regard for the duty.

Under this delegation, the Secretary of State asked the Office for Students to move towards a more risk based monitoring approach, ensuring resources are targeted where most needed. The Office for Students updated their monitoring framework to reflect this, which took effect in September 2018.

The Government provides direct support to the sector on implementation of Prevent through a network of ‘further education / higher education’ (FE/HE) regional co-ordinators who work directly with higher and further education institutions, and provide them with the advice, support and training they need to build their and their students’ resilience to extremism and radicalisation. There is also published Government guidance for the sector on Prevent implementation. The Home Office has regular discussions with the Department for Education on the implementation of Prevent in the higher education sector