Rudd’s pledge to spend more on Prevent strategy in bid to stop young Muslims being radicalised
The UK government plans to go ahead with pumping more money into its Prevent counterradicalisation strategy in the wake of the Manchester attack, the Home Secretary has said.
Amber Rudd said there would be an “uplift” in Prevent as she praised the programme’s “good work”. She said: “There is an industry out there that doesn’t like Prevent, but I can tell you that 150 people for instance were stopped, because of Prevent activity, from travelling to Syria last year, 50 of whom were children.
“There were 142 community organisations working in communities. I’ve been to visit some of them to stop young people
becoming radicalised. They do good work.
“We can always learn more, we can always improve and as the threat against us changes, we need to make sure that our defences change. I have been proposing and we will be going ahead with an uplift in Prevent and when we do that we will also be making sure that it has [an] even more effective outcomes in communities to protect us, to keep us safe.”
Asked if this meant more money, she went on: “Absolutely, I already proposed that a number of months ago and we will be going ahead with that I hope after June.”
David Anderson QC, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said Prevent had been a controversial strategy in some communities, but said he thought the Manchester attack “might focus some minds”.
Labour former Home Office minister Hazel Blears spoke of the importance of combating the “evil ideology” that underpins radicalisation.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, she said: “Our thoughts are with all the families in Manchester but I do think that we need to think very seriously about our counter-terrorism strategy, it has the four ps: prevent, pursue, prepare and protect and for me the most important one has always been the prevent part.
“It hasn’t always been given the kind of priority, resources and attention that I think is absolutely vital.”