Southport Attack

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The 52 years is a minimum; it is a life sentence. Indeed, in his sentencing remarks, Justice Goose indicated that he felt that it was highly unlikely that the individual convicted would be released. That is a matter for well downstream. The concerns that we have around Prevent are things that we can resolve to stop that type of activity taking place in the future. As my noble friend knows, the reason a whole-life tariff was not imposed was because of the age of the perpetrator at the time of the event. I suspect that, if he had been older, a whole-life tariff may well have been given by the judge. My noble friend was right to add further definition to my comment, which was not meant to undermine in any way the sentence given.

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. My thoughts are with all those affected by this tragedy in Southport. I am sure that the Minister will accept that there is a big difference between the decision-makers involved in Prevent—who are referred over 19 cases a day, and therefore 7,000 cases a year—and a reviewing officer who is looking at one particular case with the benefit of hindsight. I share the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, has about the decision-makers in such cases. Indeed, I do not think that it came out clearly in the review’s executive summary on the government website that, in this case, all the procedures and policies were followed by those involved in the decision-making. Therefore,

“it is the subjective decisions that have come into focus”.

Can the Minister explain how the Government will address the issues around subjective decision-making in such cases? Also, what does he think the impact will be on the considerable number of cases that these officers have to deal with now? Prevent is apparently expanding its definition to include a fascination with mass violence, in addition to concentrating on the areas of, say, Islamist and right-wing terrorism, which the Minister said the Government want Prevent officers to concentrate on.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord and for the experience that he brings to this issue. He raised two points; I will first answer the latter one about the potential widening of the definition. We are dependent ultimately on further advice from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, downstream. As I mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, it will still mean that the focus is on Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorism, because those two issues are the most extreme areas that we need to resolve and deal with; they are where most cases come from. In the light of that, there may be—as in the first part of his question—additional pressures on case officers to look at how they work with different types of activity, which they may not be used to working with to date and on which they may need further training and support.

I hope that the noble Lord will have a chance to look at the 14 recommendations in the executive summary. The second states:

“Further training should be considered regarding the circumstances where visits to individuals during the initial assessment can be conducted”.


That further training aspect, alongside the other 13 recommendations that we have now accepted and will implement by this summer, will look at the range of issues that the noble Lord mentioned in the first part of his question.