Southport Attack

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for this opportunity to discuss the Statement on the Southport attacks that was made in the House of Commons last week.

It is hard to find the words to describe the truly awful brutality that resulted in the violent and shocking deaths of Alice, Bebe and Elsie last summer in Southport: three little girls who set off to enjoy the innocent pleasure of dancing—something which so many children enjoy—only never to return. My heart goes out to their families and friends left behind, as well as to the many left physically, emotionally and mentally scarred after the barbaric events of that day.

From these Benches, we welcome the announcement of the inquiry. A public inquiry is necessary because the Government have a duty to the families to learn the lessons from what happened. An extremely violent young man was identified, by many different people and organisations, yet he was still able to carry out these abhorrent attacks.

Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements exist to enable the police and other relevant agencies such as youth offending teams and social services to manage the risk presented by violent offenders, but many are underresourced and lack experienced or qualified participants. Can the Minister say whether the inquiry will aim to establish whether the risks presented by such cases are best managed through MAPPA teams? What are the Government doing to ensure that MAPPA teams are properly staffed and resourced?

Last September, the Committee on Statutory Inquiries of your Lordships’ House published its findings. Paragraph 46 of that report says:

“Ministers should keep in mind the option of holding a non-statutory inquiry (given its relative agility) and then converting it if witnesses fail to cooperate. Ministers should also consider selecting non-judge chairs or appointing a panel. Ministers should meet and consult victims and survivors’ groups before publishing the terms of reference”.


I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that this is in line with the approach that the Government intend to take on the public inquiry.

The announcement last week of the introduction of greater checks on age before buying knives online is to be welcomed. As the Home Secretary said last week, it is truly shocking that Axel Rudakubana was easily able to buy knives on Amazon when he was only 17. However, can the Minister clarify what is the current situation for buying knives online from an outlet based outside of the UK? Can he confirm whether it is the intention to introduce age verification for the import of knives to this country?

A great deal has been written and said about the effectiveness of Prevent and the definition of terrorism since the Prime Minister’s and Home Secretary’s Statements last week. It is welcome that there is to be another review of Prevent. I believe the Prime Minister’s Statement raised some important questions. Is a lone attacker—unfortunately, usually a young man—who is obsessed with terrorism and previous terrorist attacks but who is not ideologically driven or working within a recognised terrorist organisation, a terrorist? It is important to consider what would be the consequences of changing Prevent’s engagement in such cases.

Does the Minister agree with Neil Basu, the Met’s former head of counterterror policing, when he said last week that a “Prevent for non-terrorists” is now necessary and will require a “big bill” if we want to be safe? Will the Home Office carry out an assessment of the risks of diverting counterterrorism officers from their core task if the definition is expanded to include extremely violent, physiologically disturbed people who are clearly a danger to society but not necessarily a threat to the state?

The brutal murders in Southport raise questions about dangerous individuals and the internet, as Rachel Reeves acknowledged yesterday and as is made clear by the Home Secretary’s letter to the many tech companies appealing for a change in their attitudes. There have always been dangerous and violent individuals who pose a risk to society, but society now faces an additional threat from individuals who have easy access to radical, violent and extremist views on the internet, which can provide an incentive for attacks and sometimes an utterly misguided sense of identity and justification. Do the Government intend to take further measures to remove such dangerous content and to work with search engines such as Google to divert searches to more positive content, with signposting to organisations that can help such individuals?

The misinformation spread on social media after the attacks last summer in Southport, including from Elon Musk, was truly sickening and shocking. It did absolutely nothing to help the victims and survivors, and had much more to do with identity politics and a right-wing agenda. These are not simple matters with quick-fix solutions. We should be wary of knee-jerk reactions which result in bad legislation. However, the victims’ families deserve to know that we will ask the difficult questions and try to find workable solutions, and, most importantly, learn from the mistakes.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)]

My Lords, in addressing the Statement made by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in the House of Commons, our first thoughts have to be with the victims of this horrendous incident: Elsie, Bebe and Alice. Our thoughts are also with the people who were attacked, their parents and the brave people who ran to the defence of those young children, both those at the playgroup event and, later, the security forces, the police, the fire services and others. All of them showed that this horrendous crime will remain with us for years to come.

I will try to answer in detail the points from His Majesty’s loyal Opposition’s Front Bench and the Liberal Democrat Front Bench. So the House is aware, the Home Secretary’s announcement last week ensured that we will have an independent public inquiry which will look not just at what happened in Southport but at the issue of rising youth violence and extremism. It will look at the issues raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, in relation to the Online Safety Act and the importance of taking action to remove content. Members will wish to know that, on 17 March, illegal content removal comes into effect. We have written to online providers to ask them to speed up their response, as is their statutory responsibility, prior to that date.

We will undertake a learning review of the organisation of Prevent generally, which has now been in operation for well over 20 years. The situation within the terrorist community and the areas that Prevent relates to have changed in that time and we need to make sure that it is up to speed. We have appointed the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, as independent commissioner of Prevent and to review this case on a temporary basis.

We will look at knife sales in the police and crime Bill which will come before this House shortly. I will reflect on the points that the noble Baroness raised in relation to overseas sales, as well as the verification of sales that have been brought to the door.

We must remember that the individual who committed these crimes faces a life sentence, given down last week, with a 52-year minimum sentence. The issues that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned about the whole-life sentence are tempered by the fact that the UK Government have signed up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which means that we cannot currently give a whole-life sentence to somebody under the age of 18.

The House should not be confused by this regarding our commitment to the victims of this crime, which the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, spoke of. We will give them full support. That is why, taking on board the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, we will take some time to appoint the chair of the inquiry and to consult with the coroner and the victims’ families, and to look at the terms of reference for the inquiry. All the points made from both Front Benches are important to be considered by the public inquiry.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, mentioned integration. That is key to the assessment of Prevent and to how we tackle those issues generally. I remind him that the perpetrator of this crime was a British-born, British citizen. There are multilayered complexities in the issues that led to the appalling incident in Southport.

The noble Lord and the noble Baroness made points about the review of legislation generally. We have asked the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation to see whether we are up to speed at the moment. That again will be a considered process, but one which I hope will add value to the work that we need to do.

The noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, mentioned a range of issues regarding multi-agency teams and their determinations. These are all extremely important. I assure her that we will be examining all this in relation to the response as a whole.

I hope noble Lords will recognise that, for those of us who were Ministers in the first few weeks of office, this was a tremendous challenge. We have to look in slow time at how we best respond to this challenge. We have looked at the incidents that have been referred to and at the sentencing that has now happened in relation to Southport, but we have also had a review of the consequences, post-Southport, of the disorder that took place in the light of that event. As Ministers, it is important for us to get to the stage of looking at what we can do to help prevent incidents like the one that happened in Southport occurring in the future.

I hope that, as a start, the points that my right honourable friend mentioned in the Statement last week and in this updated Statement, post-sentencing, give this House the assurance that this Government will be looking at how Prevent is operating, the incidents surrounding this crime and why the multi-agency support mechanisms did not identify interventions earlier, the Online Safety Act and how we can improve those issues, and at all this as a whole, to ensure that if there are things that we can do in the future to prevent this type of atrocity, we will do them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his question and for the work that he has done in this field. He will know that 33 of the 34 recommendations from the Shawcross report have already been fully implemented. We have one outstanding recommendation. We have already launched new statutory guidance and new training for front-line professionals, including on Islamist extremism. We are overhauling our decision to take in non-Prevent referrals that enter the system. We have launched pilots to tackle online radicalisation, to support those that do not meet the Prevent thresholds. We have recruited, as I mentioned in my initial comments, the first independent Prevent commissioner.

Everything will be kept under review, but I hope that the Shawcross recommendations that are implemented will make a difference. Self-evidently, failings have happened and, therefore, we need to review those failings independently of ministerial action and, in doing that, bring forward—sadly—further recommendations to tighten and improve the system.

[Lord Beamish (Lab)]

My Lords, the Intelligence and Security Committee showed in its 2022 report, Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism, the toxic nature of how online extremism is affecting young minds. I accept what the Minister said, that there rightly has to be a threshold for something to be deemed terrorism, but does he agree that the real gap is that, for those individuals who are affected by these images and propaganda online, there is nothing currently in the mental health services that they are referred to for dealing with that?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend raises an important issue. This is an important part of the process that we need to review now: if individuals are being radicalised in their bedrooms in whatever way—right-wing, Islamist or just for the purposes of enjoying killing—we need to try to find a mechanism to remove the content that is leading to that radicalisation. Equally, if people come into contact with social services, the police or other agencies—as indeed the perpetrator did in this case—that needs to be sensitively picked up and support, whether mental health, directional or another form, needs to be given to help change that behaviour. That is the purpose of Prevent and of the regime that both Governments have had in place over a long period of time. Self-evidently, in this case, it failed. The purpose of our public inquiry is to look at why it failed and at the interventions that happened, why they did not work and why they were not picked up and developed further. We need to ensure that, from whatever background violent behaviour is being directed, we take action to mitigate against it.

[Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I accept what the Minister is saying but, on this Holocaust Memorial Day, the Times reports the findings of a Channel 4 survey which found that 52% of young people aged 13-27 said that they thought

“the UK would be a better place if a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”,

while 47% agreed that,

“the entire way our society is organised must be radically changed through revolution”.

Not only did the internet apparently incentivise or motivate the Stockport murderer, it is producing wider, very worrying, attitudes. What will the Government do to counter these dangerous ideas; for example, by supporting the production of positive content?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

We have to do two things. First, we have to look at where there is material online that breaches criminal thresholds and then work with the hosts of that material to take it down. That is what the Government are trying to do with the Online Safety Act. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary and the DSIT Secretary, Peter Kyle, will be looking in the longer term at that type of illegal material which fosters, for example, ideas of using ricin, promoting potential attacks or encouraging violent behaviour. That has to cross a criminal threshold.

There is also a wider point about promoting a decent society and the values of tolerance, understanding, respecting differences and allowing people to live their lives with tolerance. My parents’ generation saw great loss fighting fascism in the Second World War—members of my family died. I grew up in the knowledge that my family and their generation had fought fascism in the Second World War. The Holocaust memorial services today remind us of where fascist ideology leads. We need, in my view, to gain an open, tolerant society. That is the second half of what I hope all of us can do to make sure that we respect and celebrate our differences.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

Does the Minister agree with me that, leaving aside our obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it would be unwise of us to use an incident as extreme and horrifying as this as a ground for changing the law to enable a judge to impose a whole-life sentence on an individual aged under 18? The problem is that if the law is changed, it is changed generally, applying over a wide range of cases. It would not capture, without a very difficult definition, a case as extreme as this. It would be wiser to leave the matter as it is and of course go along with what the convention tells us.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord speaks wise words. He will also note that Justice Goose indicated in his sentencing that it was likely to be a whole-life term, even though he could give only a 52-year sentence. The perpetrator will not be considered for any form of parole, at any stage, until he is 70; he is currently 18. That is a severe sentence, for which I am grateful for the work of Justice Goose and the judiciary in dealing with this difficult case in a sensitive way.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, on the Statement’s points on contempt of court, will the Minister comment on the CPS’s refusal to release full background details about Rudakubana, even after his guilty plea? This led the Crime Reporters Association to note

“a worrying pattern whereby forces wanting to provide information to the press have been instructed to stay silent”.

I raise this because I want to know what the Minister thinks about the information vacuum that followed the incident. Yes, some bad-faith players stirred the pot, but most of the people who were speculating and asking questions about, say, terrorism were parents who were just sickened by the carnage of those little girls, and I think felt resentful, frankly, at being called out as either far-right or somehow the problem themselves. Can we have more openness and information, not less?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Government have tried to be as open as possible at every stage of this process, which is why we made Statements to the House of Commons when the incident occurred, on sentencing and now. I hope the noble Baroness will recognise that the Government have a duty also to make sure that information does not prejudice a trial and/or a sentencing result, even after a guilty plea.

If information that the Government held, or were party to, or had already prepared to begin to promote ideas that we are acting on now, had been put into the public domain at a time when the Government either became aware of that information or acted upon it, we may have had a situation whereby a trial would not have been a fair and open trial; a conviction may not have happened in the way it has happened; and, even after the guilty plea, which the Government were not expecting on that day, we may have had the sentence subject to potential appeals because of anything the Government had said.

Certainly, the Government’s role is to now have an inquiry, for all the reasons I have mentioned, and to look at all the issues that noble Lords and noble Baronesses have raised today. But the Government also have a responsibility to make sure that members of the judiciary fulfil their job appropriately.

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

Further to the answer that the Minister has just given, Jonathan Hall, the Government’s independent reviewer of counterterror legislation, said, in the aftermath of these heartbreaking killings, that

“if there is any information you can give, put it in the public domain, and be really careful that you don’t fall into the trap of saying ‘we can only say zilch, because there are criminal proceedings’”.

He continued:

“Quite often, there’s a fair amount … that can be put into the public domain”,


and that

“just saying ‘there’s a charge, we can’t say any more’, is not going to cut it these days”.

I appreciate, as the Minister says, that the position is very difficult, and one does not want to prejudice a trial. But will he reflect on what the independent adviser said, and did he agree with it?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the way in which the noble Lord has put his question. We have now charged the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation to examine the lessons from this case. He is responsible for the comments he has made. But he will present a report, which this Government will publish and present to both Houses in due course, on the issues that he thinks are relevant; we will respond, and that is the right and proper way to do it. I am not about to make policy now at the Dispatch Box, nor is my right honourable friend, on issues which demand and need reflection, and I hope the noble Lord understands the reasons I have responded in that way.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg the indulgence of the House, as I missed the opening statement from the Minister. I recognise the difficulties that he faced. Although, obviously, as the previous speaker said, a fair amount can be put into the public domain and, equally obviously, everyone wants as much as possible, nothing would have been more disastrous than if Ministers had put information into the public domain that put the trial in jeopardy and this man got off completely. May I say to the Minister in solace that whatever criticism he and the Government have had for the actions they have taken or not taken, it is as nothing to the criticism that he and his colleagues would have received if they had put that trial in jeopardy and this murderer had gone scot free?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend has faced decisions such as those that we have faced in these past few months, and he knows the difficulty of dealing with incidents such as the one that happened in Southport in the summer of last year. I understand and take his point, and I am grateful for his support. I hope the House will understand that the Government not commenting on certain issues is not about them trying to cover up or be secretive or not divulge information; it is about ensuring that that information is divulged at a time when it is most effective to secure convictions of individuals such as the one responsible for an atrocious act that took three lives.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, I have two quick questions for the Minister. First, obviously, the state has failed with horrific consequences here. The Minister mentioned a review. Can he set out what the timeline is? How fast can it be done? How thorough will it be? Will the Government undertake to accept any recommendations or changes that are suggested? Secondly, there have been a few comments about the rights of a child, which are obviously important, but there are also the rights of the victims to consider. If there are, sadly, future incidents such as this, and if the Government go ahead and lower the voting age to 16, does that then mean—and this is not a political point—that a 16 year-old is considered to be an adult, or is a 16 year-old who is able to vote still a child?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

On that latter point, the Government’s legal binding for this potential area of policy is signing up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We are determined by the convention that is signed, so that any change in the voting age would not impact on the convention unilaterally by the United Kingdom as a whole.

The noble Lord mentioned the inquiry. I hope he understands that this relates partly to the speed of the events of last week, with a guilty plea and the sentencing on Thursday. With the sentencing having taken place, we want to establish the inquiry that my right honourable friend has mentioned, but we want to take time for three reasons and in three areas. We want to take time to consult the families to ensure that they understand what is happening and that they are brought onboard, because the victims are not just the children who died but their relatives. We have a coroner’s inquest, which is ongoing, and we need to consult the coroner on these matters. We have to ensure that the chair has the right skills for this inquiry, and that is not going to be a quick, easy fix. Therefore, much as I would like to give the noble Lord an easy answer on the timescale, I say to him that I will bring back to this House at some point, in a Written Statement or on the Floor of the House, the details of that inquiry, but as yet we are working through those things. We want to make sure that we get it right. We want the families not only to feel ownership of the inquiry but to understand its objectives and terms of reference, to have contributed to them and to have confidence in the chair that we ultimately select.