Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children were referred to Prevent in each year from 2015 to date by age.

Prevent aims to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It works to ensure that people who are susceptible to radicalisation are offered appropriate interventions and support, and that communities are protected against radicalising influences.

The number of referrals to the Prevent programme that concern children, grouped by age for the financial year 2024/25 has been published in the latest annual Prevent statistics publication: Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme, April 2024 to March 2025 - GOV.UK. Data can be found on Table 4 within the annual data tables accompanying the publication.

The number of referrals to the Prevent programme that concern children, grouped by age and financial year since 2016/17 has been published in the annual 2023/24 Prevent statistics publication: Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme, April 2023 to March 2024 - GOV.UK. Data can be found on Table 4 within the annual data tables accompanying the publication.

For the year 2015/16, the official statistics publication reports that there were 4274 referrals for individuals under 20 years old (56% of all referrals). A break down specifically of referrals for children is not available for this year. The statistics can be found here: Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme, April 2015 to March 2016.

The number of referrals reported includes individuals who had been referred more than once during the year. The number of individuals referred is not routinely reported in the official statistics.