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Southport killer's referral to Prevent was 'closed prematurely', MPs told
The Home Office has just published the review of Prevent’s dealings with Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer. It confirms that he was referred to Prevent, government scheme to deal with people being drawn towards terrorism, the three times.
In a Commons statement to mark the publication of the report, Dan Jarvis, the security minister, said:
I can update the house that the perpetrator was referred to Prevent three times between December 2019 when he was aged 13 and April 2021 when he was 14. Those referrals were made by his schools.
The first referral reported concerns about him carrying a knife and searching for school shootings on the internet. The second referral was focused on his online activity relating to Libya and Gaddafi. His third referral was for searching for London bombings, the IRA and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
On each of these occasions, the decision at the time was that the perpetrator should not progress to the Channel multi-agency process. But the Prevent learning review found that there was sufficient risk for the perpetrator to have been managed through Prevent.
It found that the referral was closed prematurely, and there was sufficient concern to keep the case active while further information was collected.
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During the Commons statement on the Prevent review, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, asked for an assurance that the government would not make it harder to detain people under the Mental Health Act just out of “racial sensitivities”.
Philp said:
In the King’s Speech, the government announced a new mental health bill, and in the notes accompanying that on pages 83 to 85, it said that the government has plans to increase the threshold for dentition under the Mental Health Act, that is to say, make it harder to detain people, and it goes on to note concerns about black people being more likely to be detained under mental health powers.
So, does the security minister [Dan Jarvis] share my worry, especially following these six murders committed by [Axel] Rudakubana and [Valdo] Calocane [the Nottingham killer] that making it harder to detain dangerous people under the Mental Health Act because of racial sensitivities is not the right thing to do?
I’m sure he would share my view that misplaced political correctness about racial quotas definitely can’t be allowed to end up endangering the public.
In response, Javis assured Philp that the government would “always do what is necessary and what is the right thing in order to safeguard the security and protection of the public”.
Here is a Guardian video of the key exchanges at PMQs.
And here are some pictures from the Commons photographer from PMQs.
Prevent review shows too much emphasis placed on Southport killer not having 'distinct ideology', Jarvis says
In his statement to MPs on the publication of the report into how Prevent handled the Southport killer, Dan Jarvis said too much emphasis was placed on Axel Rudakubana not having a “distinct ideology”. He said:
The review concluded that too much focus was placed on the absence of a distinct ideology, to the detriment of considering the perpetrator’s susceptibility, grievances and complex needs.
There was an under-exploration of the significance of his repeat referrals, and the cumulative risk, including his history of violence.”
The overall conclusion of the review is that he should have been case managed through the channel multi-agency process, rather than closed to Prevent. This would have enabled to co-ordinated multi-agency risk management and support.
Jarvis said that the government was accepting all 14 recommendations in the report and that an internal review of the thresholds applied by Prevent in assessing cases would be finished by April.
He also confirmed that the Prevent learning review into the 2021 killing of Southend West Conservative MP David Amess will be released next week.
Counter-terrorism chief says review of Prevent's handling of Southport killer highlights need for new approach
Matt Jukes, head of counter-terrorism policing in the UK, has said the review of Prevent’s handling of Axel Rudakubana (see 3.23pm) highlights the need for a single organisation to take charge of people like Rudakubana – who are drawn to extreme violence, with mental health issues, but not categorised as terrorists. He said:
We have taken the unprecedented step of publishing the review.
It describes decisions made in line with policy in place at the time, in a system that was not equipped to deal with emerging risks that were very different to those it had been built to address.
In this case, there were at least 15 contact points with public services – health, education and social care systems, and the police.
We want to see a system where every one of those contacts counts, and where the sum total of all of them taken together is seen as the red flag that it should be.
Jukes said that cases where young people are drawn into extreme violence online, combined with mental health and social challenges, should have “a clear home” rather than being passed between organisations.
The Mauritian government has denied it claimed the amount of money offered by the UK under the Chagos Islands deal had doubled. (See 2.06pm.)
In a statement about what the Mauritian PM told his national assembly yesterday, it said:
Mauritius has never said that the financial package in the agreement between Mauritius and the UK on the Chagos Archipelago had doubled, as alleged.
The communique issued by the Mauritian government also said the negotiations had also “clarified and firmed up the unequivocal understanding that any extension would need to have the consent of Mauritius and the UK”.
And it confirmed that following the renegotiation under Ramgoolam “the parties had agreed on an improved agreement on mutually acceptable terms”.
Southport killer's referral to Prevent was 'closed prematurely', MPs told
The Home Office has just published the review of Prevent’s dealings with Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer. It confirms that he was referred to Prevent, government scheme to deal with people being drawn towards terrorism, the three times.
In a Commons statement to mark the publication of the report, Dan Jarvis, the security minister, said:
I can update the house that the perpetrator was referred to Prevent three times between December 2019 when he was aged 13 and April 2021 when he was 14. Those referrals were made by his schools.
The first referral reported concerns about him carrying a knife and searching for school shootings on the internet. The second referral was focused on his online activity relating to Libya and Gaddafi. His third referral was for searching for London bombings, the IRA and the Israel-Palestine conflict.
On each of these occasions, the decision at the time was that the perpetrator should not progress to the Channel multi-agency process. But the Prevent learning review found that there was sufficient risk for the perpetrator to have been managed through Prevent.
It found that the referral was closed prematurely, and there was sufficient concern to keep the case active while further information was collected.
Starmer opts not to attend international AI summit in Paris
Keir Starmer has decided not to travel to Paris for next week’s international summit on artificial intelligence, despite the presence of other world leaders including Emmanuel Macron, Narendra Modi and JD Vance, Kiran Stacey and Dan Milmo report.
Starmer claims Badenoch 'not fit to be PM' because she is ignoring chance for national security briefings
Here is the PA Media story on Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
Keir Starmer claimed Kemi Badenoch is “not fit to be prime minister” as the pair clashed over national security and energy projects in the Commons.
The prime minister responded to criticism of his handling of the deal to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius by suggesting his Conservative counterpart had not requested a national security briefing on the issue as “she’s more interested in chasing Reform”.
Badenoch accused Sir Keir of an “immoral surrender” over the Chagos Islands and questioned how anyone could believe the prime minister is defending UK interests when he “bends the knee to anyone who asks him”.
The Conservative party leader repeatedly accused Starmer of providing “weak” and “waffly” answers and challenged him to give the go-ahead to new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.
The UK government wants to give the Chagos Islands, also known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, to Mauritius and pay to lease back the US-UK military base on Diego Garcia.
It argues it must cede the islands to Mauritius after international legal rulings.
Environmental campaigners were also successful last week in their legal challenge against decisions to give approval to the Rosebank oil field north west of Shetland and the Jackdaw gas field off Aberdeen.
Speaking at PMQs, Badenoch opened by saying “when Labour negotiates, our country loses” and said of the Chagos deal: “This is an immoral surrender so north London lawyers can boast at their dinner parties.”
Badenoch then asked: “Why did the energy secretary [Ed Miliband] withdraw government lawyers from defending the case against the eco nutters who want to obstruct Rosebank’s oil and gas fields?”
On Chagos, Starmer said the military base is “vital to our national security” and the legal certainty of it had been “thrown into doubt” in recent years.
He said: “Let me be clear, and I’ll pick my words carefully: without legal certainty, the base cannot operate in practical terms as it should. That is bad for our national security and it’s a gift to our adversaries.”
Starmer said the previous Tory administration was right to conduct 11 of the 13 rounds of negotiations, adding: “I will set out the details when they’re finalised and they will of course be presented to parliament.
“But if the leader of the opposition is properly briefed on the national security implications when she’s asking these questions, which she’s perfectly entitled to do, then she knows exactly what I’m talking about in terms of national security and legal certainty.
“If, on the other hand, she’s not properly briefed on the national security implications, she’s not doing her job, she’s not concerned about national security and she’s not fit to be prime minister.”
Badenoch countered: “How can anyone believe that this man is defending UK interests when he bends the knee to anyone who asks him? His answer was so weak and so waffly, it’s no wonder he needs a voice coach, but he didn’t answer the question I asked him: why the energy secretary was not defending our country.”
Assisted dying amendment requires doctors to raise all other options first
Doctors in England and Wales will not be permitted to raise assisted dying with patients without first explaining palliative care and other support options, Kim Leadbeater has said, tabling a series of new amendments to her bill before detailed scrutiny of it begins next week. Jessica Elgot has the story here.
At the Downing Street post-PMQs the PM’s press secretary said the voice coach who worked with Keir Starmer in December 2020 was a “core part of a small team” helping helping him with statements and press conferences during Covid.
Starmer believed it was not reasonably possible for her to have done the job she was carrying out from home, which is why they met face to face, the press secretary said.
But, at the Tory post-PMQs briefing, a spokesperson for Kemi Badenoch said:
The key question here is: is a voice coach a key worker who can travel from Tier 4 to Tier 3 during lockdown? It doesn’t matter if you’re part of a core team, that is the question. Now, Keir Starmer said that lawmakers can’t be lawbreakers. It is almost unimaginable to disagree that that was a clear breach of the Covid rules.
Asked if Badenoch thought police should investigate, he said: “Yes, she does.”
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing Downing Street declined to elaborate on what Keir Starmer said about how not having a sovereignty deal for the Chagos Islands could put national security at risk. (See 12.09am.) Asked what the risk was, the PM’s spokesperson said:
The legal advice, security advice, is very clear that the operation of this base will be at risk if there is not a deal which would directly impact our national security, US national security, and indeed the operation of a base that is important to regional security.
He did not say what the risk was or when or where the advice had come from.
Downing Street says Mauritian PM 'factually inaccurate' in what he said yesterday about Chagos Islands deal
Downing Street has accused the Mauritian prime minister of being “factually inaccurate” in what he said yesterday about the latest version of the proposed Chagos Islands sovereignty deal.
Navin Ramgoolam spoke about the deal in the Mauritian national assembly yesterday, and at one point he implied that his country would now get twice as much money from the UK as it would have done under the initial deal agreed by his predecessor last autumn. On the basis of what Ramgoolam said, it was reported that the final cost to the UK would reach £18bn – even though the PM himself did not use that figure.
Downing Street did not contradict Ramgoolam at its briefing yesterday afternoon, although at 11pm last night the Foreign Office finally issued a statement saying the figures being reported were wrong. (See 9.34am.)
Today No 10 rebutted Ramgoolam more forcefully. At the post-PMQs lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said:
There was some reporting on this yesterday in relation to the Mauritian prime minister.
He has got those figures, or at least the way he was characterising it, wrong.
His summary of the deal was clearly aimed at a domestic political audience, but it was factually inaccurate.
There has been no change to the cost of the deal or the terms of the lease.
It is unusual for Downing Street to contradict another prime minister quite so bluntly.
Elections scheduled for May for 9 council areas in England to be postponed for year pending reorganisation, Rayner tells MPs
Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, has confirmed that elections scheduled for May in nine council areas in England are being postponed for a year to allow local government reorganisation to go ahead, PA Media reports. PA says:
Rayner has announced six new potential devolution areas throughout England with “a view to mayoral elections in May 2026”.
These areas are Cumbria, Cheshire and Warrington, Greater Essex, Hampshire and Solent, Norfolk and Suffolk, and Sussex and Brighton.
Speaking in the Commons, Rayner said: “These places will get a fast-track ticket to drive real change in their area.
“While devolution can sound techie, the outcome is simple – it’s a plan for putting more money in people’s pockets, it’s a plan for quicker, better, cheaper transport designed with local people in mind, a plan for putting politics back in the service of working people.”
Turning to a seventh area, Rayner said: “Lancashire is already deciding its mayoral devolution options and we will look at their proposals in the autumn in parallel with the priority programme.”
Home Office to release later today review of Prevent's handling of Southport killer
Later today the Home Office will release a review of Prevent’s handling of three referrals it received about Axel Rudakubana from 2019 to 2021, the last being three years before he murdered three school girls at a dance class in Southport in July 2024.
The review is expected to be critical and Prevent, the official scheme to stop people becoming terrorists, declined to adopt Rudakubana’s case because it saw no signs his interest in violence was linked to terrorism.
Prevent learning reviews are not usually made public.
The Guardian has learned Prevent will soon face even further pressure with the government intending to also release the review into the anti-radicalisation scheme’s handling of the man who went on to murder the MP Sir David Amess as he held a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea in October 2021.
Ali Harbi Ali was referred to Prevent who adopted his case, and after working with him cleared him of being a terrorist threat in 2015, some six years before the attack of Amess in a church.
The Prevent learning review into Ali’s case may be released as soon as next week.
PMQs - snap verdict
Keir Starmer faced questions from the leaders of both main rightwing opposition to him today. Nigel Farage’s party may be ahead in the polls. But he has little authority in the Commons chamber, where ‘smooth insider’ goes down better than ‘insurgent bloke’, and where not having dozens of MPs to cheer him is a handicap, and today he fluffed his question by pausing for too long, which meant the jeering became excessive. The scripted question from Farage was fine.
What do I say to 25,000 constituents in Clacton, including 99-year-old Jim O’Dwyer, who flew a full set of missions on Lancaster bombers as a tail-end Charlie, as they’re losing winter fuel allowance, feeling the pinch, while at the same time they’re willing to give away a military base and pay £18 billion for the privilege of doing so.
But Starmer replied:
He talks of panic, the only panic is people using the NHS who know that under his policy he wants to charge them for using the NHS.
What he should say to the people of Clacton – when he finally finds Clacton – is that they should vote Labour because we are stabilising the economy.
And this worked better.
As expected, Kemi Badenoch started by talking about the Chagos Islands, which she claimed was “an immoral surrender so north London lawyers can boast at their dinner parties”. But this was almost a feint because she ended her first interention with a question about “the eco nutters who want to obstruct Rosebank’s oil and gas fields” and then, for the rest of the session, she carried on with Rosebank before widening that to ask about Great British Energy, AstraZeneca and potential job loses. It was punchy – there were references to taking the knee and the voice coach stories, two rightwing obsessions – but it was unfocused and, while it may have delivered okay soundbites for social media, none of them sounded like a clinching argument in the chamber.
Starmer was more interesting because he rolled out what seems like a new attack line against Badenoch. He may even have been inspired by Badenoch herself, because last week she seemed to joke about claims that she is lazy. In response to the first question, which included a reference to the Chagos Islands, Starmer went into a lengthy answer that implied, if Badenoch had attended a security briefing on privy council terms, she would know that the UK had no option other than to hand over sovereignty because – well, he couldn’t say, because it’s secret. (See 12.09am.) And then, in response to the second question, he made the point again.
She didn’t say that she was briefed about the Chagos issue. This is important. When she became Leader of the Opposition, I said to her that I would give her a briefing on any national security issue if she asked for it – that’s very important to the way we run our democracy – she has not asked for a briefing on the Chagos Islands.
Later Starmer made further references to Badenoch not being properly briefed on other issues.
In one respect, this was just Starmer throwing an accusation against Badenoch that she has used against him. But when Badenoch accused Starmer of not knowing the details of the schools bill or the employment rights bill, that was never particularly convincing because, while Starmer has plenty of flaws as a politician, not doing the work and not knowing the detail is not one of them.
It is easier to believe that Badenoch can be cavalier about detail. And Starmer is not the first person to suggest she has missed a crucial national security briefing. In his column in the Sun last week, Harry Cole said she has skipped a briefing on the Southport attacks. He wrote:
The leader of the opposition was invited by the PM on Monday to a briefing on the Southport attack, yet sources say she did not attend.
The top-level update, done occasionally on secret privy council terms, was due to be given by the deputy national security adviser – pointing to how serious No 10 was about keeping the opposition in the loop.
This line of attack may have seemed a bit obscure to non-politicos watching, because lots of people don’t know much about how privy council briefings operate. But MPs understand all of this, and believe they matter, and Starmer’s claim that Badenoch is neglecting this side of her job may have concerned some of her MPs.
Badenoch is also getting negative write-up from Tory commentators this afternoon because she did not say more about the claim that Starmer broke lockdown rules when he got his voice coach to help in person. The rightwingers are also claiming it is significant that Starmer chose not to answer yes when asked if he was confident his staff did not break the rules. (See 12.31pm.) But this is probably just the sound of a dead horse being flogged yet again. Despite their best efforts, the Tory papers have not been able to find any evidence that Starmer broke the rules and, if he did not reply yes, it might have been because the answer he did give was better.
What Starmer says about need for Palestinians to be allowed to return home to Gaza, and for two state solution
This is what Keir Starmer said in response to Ed Davey when asked about President Trump’s Gaza plan. (See 12.21pm.)
The most important issue on the ceasefire is, obviously that it’s sustained, and we see it through the phases. And that means that the remaining hostages come out, and the aid that’s desperately needed gets into Gaza at speed and at the volumes that are needed.
I have from the last few weeks two images fixed in my mind. The first is the image of Emily Damari reunited with her mother, which I found extremely moving.
The second was the image of thousands of Palestinians walking, literally walking through the rubble, to try to find their homes and their communities in Gaza.
They must be allowed home. They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild, on the way to a two state solution.
