Prevent Programme

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Written Statements

[The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)]

On Thursday 6 November, the Home Office published official statistics for “Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme from April 2024 to March 2025”. Prevent is a key part of Contest, the national counter-terrorism strategy, and aims to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. It has supported nearly 6,000 people to move away from a pathway to radicalisation since 2015 and plays a vital role in safeguarding those most vulnerable in our communities.

Key statistics

In the year ending 31 March 2025, the Prevent programme experienced a significant increase in activity, with 8,778 referrals recorded, compared to 6,922 between April 2023 and March 2024. This represents a 27% rise compared to the previous year and marks the highest annual total since records began in 2015. Of these referrals, 1,472 were adopted as Channel cases, accounting for 17% of all referrals. This proportion is notably higher than the 7% recorded last year. As set out in the full publication, changes in methodology mean that caution should be exercised when making direct comparisons with previous years.

Looking at the nature of concerns raised, 21% of referrals were related to extreme right-wing radicalisation (1,798 cases), while 10% were associated with Islamist extremism (870 cases). A substantial proportion of referrals—34%—concerned individuals for whom no specific ideology was identified.

The UK terrorism threat level has remained substantial, with Islamist extremism the most significant threat, followed by extreme right-wing terrorism. Of those concerns related to Islamist extremism, 26% were adopted into Channel for support the year ending March 2025, an increase from 13% last year. While the increased number of adoptions is welcome, we recognise that given the prevalence of this threat type, Prevent must go further to build awareness and understanding so that people can identify and refer Islamist extremist concerns.

We continue to see an increase in concerns regarding those that have a fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks. The tragic attack in Southport last year demonstrates the very real threat from non-ideological extreme violence, and the increase in referrals of this type to Prevent shows the vigilance of frontline professionals in identifying and reporting these concerns.

It is vital that Prevent remains threat agnostic so that it can deal with the full range of threats we face. As an early intervention programme, Prevent is in a position to intervene and provide support to anybody who is on a pathway to radicalisation. While the presence of ideology is clearly an important factor, Prevent must not limit its scope to cases where a terrorist ideology has clearly already taken hold.

Under this Government a range of steps have been taken to improve the ability of frontline professionals subject to the Prevent duty to spot the signs of radicalisation.

A new Prevent assessment framework was rolled out in September 2024 to support CT police to strengthen the quality and consistency of decision-making on all Prevent referrals.

In November 2024, we launched a new ideology training programme for frontline staff such as teachers and healthcare workers. This will help them to identify extremist ideologies, including Islamist extremism, and to refer people they are concerned about into Prevent for further support.

The role of independent Prevent commissioner was created in December 2024, to provide additional scrutiny and oversight of Prevent policy and delivery.

In September 2025, the Home Office issued new guidance which clarified Prevent thresholds for practitioners, following recommendations made the independent Prevent commissioner.

As the nature of radicalisation evolves, it is essential that Prevent can effectively tackle the threat we see today. The Home Office will continue to work with partners including counter-terrorism police, local authorities, health and education to ensure that Prevent can offer support to the right people, where they are at risk of being drawn into terrorism.

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