Southport Inquiry

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 15th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, I commend the Statement made in the other place. Our thoughts remain with the families of Elsie Dot, Bebe and Alice, and with those still living with the physical and psychological scars of Southport.

The Liberal Democrats welcome the first phase of Sir Adrian Fulford’s inquiry. Its findings are indeed unsparing but, tragically, not unsurprising. How often have we stood here after inquests and inquiries, hearing once again of the same systemic failures, poor information sharing and missed opportunities?

The report describes the state’s failure as belonging to everyone and therefore to no one. In the five years before the attack, the perpetrator came into contact with almost every arm of the state: mental health services, children’s social care, three schools, Lancashire Police and the Prevent programme, three times. No comprehensive risk assessment was ever made and each agency assumed someone else would take the lead. This was a failure not only to join up the dots but to share life-saving information. As Sir Adrian warns, that culture must end—because until it does, tragedies like this will happen again.

The Government now say that they will legislate to strengthen accountability between agencies. This is welcome, but it is hard to understand why they are overlooking an opportunity already before them in the Crime and Policing Bill—a Bill which, ironically, could help deliver exactly what the inquiry calls for. The Bill proposes youth diversion orders to support young people who pose a risk of serious violence or radicalisation—precisely the cohort at the centre of this inquiry. Properly framed, these orders could address the very gap Sir Adrian identifies.

When the police apply for an order, the court should be able to see all the relevant information, from schools, social care, health services and the police, to build a complete picture of the child’s needs and risks. However, as drafted in the Bill, that will not happen. The police will consult only the youth offending team. There will be no legal duty to involve schools, health professionals or social services, and no guarantee that the court will ever hear from them. Judges will not see the full picture that could mean the difference between prevention and disaster. That is why I tabled an amendment to introduce a clear multi-agency consultation duty, which would build exactly the structured accountability that Sir Adrian said is essential.

Had such a duty existed before the Southport attack, the perpetrator’s autism might not have been repeatedly misunderstood as an explanation for his behaviour. The police might have known more about the support available, and agencies might have felt obliged to share vital information. I made these points on Report, but the Government resisted the amendment, preferring to rely on guidance. I do not doubt the Minister’s sincerity at all, but we risk once again seeing fine words followed by inaction.

It is not too late. The Bill will return to this House tomorrow. I urge Ministers to look again, in the light of the inquiry’s finding, and to act swiftly to ensure that the law reflects what Sir Adrian has so clearly set out: lives depend on joined up responsibility and real accountability.

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

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to address the Statement that my right honourable friend the Home Secretary made in the House of Commons yesterday. My thoughts and, I know, those of the whole House will be with the families of the three girls who were killed and with the victims who are still suffering the trauma of those events. The events in Southport on 29 July 2024 were completely shocking, and I welcome Sir Adrian Fulford’s report on his findings. I thank him and his team, who I have met on a number of occasions during the first stage of the inquiry. I say to the House as a whole that the Government will consider the recommendations in full, and we will respond to phase 1 of the report by the summer. I thank Sir Adrian again for his work.

Sir Adrian’s inquiry identified five main areas of failings, which the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, highlighted. Those failings are clear and are very strong criticisms, which we need to examine and address in the response to those recommendations. Sir Adrian indicated that there was a failure of organisation and ownership of risk with the perpetrator themselves. There was poor information management and sharing, there were excuses for the behaviour of the perpetrator due to the diagnosed autism spectrum disorder and there was a failure to oversee and intervene in the perpetrator’s online behaviours. The role of the perpetrator’s parents, as the noble Lord identified, was a major failure. As I said, we will consider those recommendations and formally respond to the inquiry in the summer.

I note and appreciate the comments and the pressure put on me by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, but it is important that we get this right and consider the recommendations in full. The Crime and Policing Bill is coming back tomorrow. It will potentially, subject to its passage in the Commons, complete its passage by the end of the Session. I do not want to use that week to rush to a decision, which is why we have said that we will respond to the inquiry by the summer.

As the House will know, we have also established phase 2 of the inquiry, which will begin immediately. We have issued terms of reference for phase 2, which will look at whether multi-agency systems are fit to assess and address the risk posed by young people who are fascinated by extreme violence. I expect to receive the recommendations from Sir Adrian in due course. It is certainly important to look not just at the case of the individual—who, I remind the House, faces a 52-year minimum term sentence in prison for his horrific crimes—but at whether there are other systemic issues that need to be examined. The inquiry has made 67 recommendations in full, and we will respond to those. With due respect to the noble Baroness, I do not wish to rush those responses today.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, also mentioned Prevent. Since the attack, we have already made improvements to the Prevent programme. This was the most likely framework that could have addressed the risk that the perpetrator posed. To strengthen Prevent, we have launched a new Prevent risk assessment tool, changed the approach to repeat referrals, looked at new guidance to individuals working with people under the Prevent framework and expanded the range of interventions available. We have also introduced the role of the Independent Prevent Commissioner, which was initially held by a colleague—a noble Lord in this House—but has now been approved on a permanent basis, with Tim Jacques being appointed as the Prevent commissioner.

The Government will examine those issues in detail and continue to learn, and will look at the responses to the recommendations in due course. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, who holds that role at the moment. I welcome his contribution to date in helping us to improve the Prevent response.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, mentioned the question of autism. That was identified by Fulford’s initial recommendations. The perpetrator was autistic and clearly this increased the risk he posed to people in the community. However, autism itself did not necessarily cause the events that happened on 29 July 2024. Risk needs to be assessed on an individual basis. In the case of the Southport perpetrator, autism spectrum disorder clearly added to the risk he posed. The inquiry found that too many professionals were willing to excuse his behaviour because of this. We will make sure that practitioners, particularly those working in Prevent, understand that a referral should not be dismissed and that action should be taken. This behaviour should not have been excused because of autism. The inquiry highlights serious concerns.

For the noble Lord’s information, independently of this inquiry, the Government are committed to developing a new autism strategy following recent House of Lords reports on the Autism Act 2009. Work is under way to develop a cross-government national autism strategy. The inquiry’s findings will be carefully considered as part of this proposal.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, mentioned the parents. The inquiry examined the role of the perpetrator’s family and has been extremely critical of them. Sir Adrian makes clear findings on moral failings that should have been reported regarding the perpetrator’s behaviour, his collecting of weapons, and his approach to family life and the community around him. It is a matter ultimately for the police whether any criminal action is taken in relation to the parents. The parents are British citizens and have the right of abode in the United Kingdom, as does the perpetrator. There are certainly lessons to be learned from that and we will respond to the recommendations in due course.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned the question of race. In this case, that may be a factor, where people have not taken the action that they should have because of the individual’s race. However, I want to make it clear to the House that the action taken by the perpetrator, who is now serving 52 years in prison, could have been taken by anybody, regardless of race. I do not want to bring the issue of race into this, but I understand the point that the noble Lord has made—namely, that professionals need to ignore race when they look at the actions of an individual. That is the important point that has come out of this report.

Finally, the Government have already taken further action to ensure that we establish an internal working group to look at the recommendations that have been made. As I have said to the House, we will report back by the summer on those initial recommendations. Phase 2 has begun now and it has our full support. As the Minister sponsoring the inquiry, I will continue to meet Sir Adrian to ensure that he has the resource and support to achieve his final recommendations.

It is clear to the House that the individual concerned undertook appalling acts. Our thoughts remain with the families of the victims. It is our duty as the Government to look at where failures existed that contributed to this attack. The responsibility lies solely with the perpetrator, but there are factors that contributed to the attack. With due respect to all Members of the House, we need to reflect on the recommendations. We will bring back government proposals in due course for phases 1 and 2.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

That is an absolutely fair point. Again I put to the House that Sir Adrian’s recommendations are clear. There are five areas of failing. We are looking at those recommendations and will report on them in the summer. The second phase is looking at the wider picture. We will look at those recommendations in due course.

However, the Home Office is not complacent. We have established a violence fixation taskforce, which is looking at a range of issues in the Home Office: the recommendations, the Government’s response and the development of the very issue that the noble Lord mentions, which is identifying individuals at risk who are fascinated by violence, managing that risk and looking with other agencies at what we need to do, pending a formal response to the recommendations in due course.

It is very difficult sometimes if individuals appear from nowhere. We cannot necessarily legislate against that, but it is important that we review now what the priority approaches are to make sure that, if there are people in the system, we examine that very clearly and quickly. The Home Office taskforce is now being commissioned by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to establish some general examination of the very issues that the noble Lord mentions. I hope to report back to the House in due course.

[Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families and Southport. In the immediate days after this unspeakable tragedy, additional resources were put into Southport in terms of policing and counselling for young people in the local community and local schools. The support provided by the local community after this tragedy was immense: the local authority, schools and the voluntary sector. Can I ask my noble friend the Minister what his plans are to ensure that this support is continued to a community in Southport that is still in mourning and in shock?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

My noble friend makes the valid point that the whole community in Southport and in Merseyside, and the religious community in the area, came together to give support to the families. This happened two weeks after the general election. The local MP, Patrick Hurley, had just been elected. I pay tribute to him for the way in which he has helped support the local community in Southport. The churches, the imams and the local Jewish community have all come together to give that support. The Government recognised the needs of Southport by putting additional resources into the local council and the local community and will continue to monitor that.

This is a major, traumatic event for the families and for the community as a whole. It is important that we do what we can to maintain community cohesion and support the local community. The Government stand ready to continue to give help and support where required, during both the second stage of these recommendations and the whole process of Southport healing and remembering the victims of this despicable crime.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I cannot imagine what it is like for the parents of those three little girls and the other injured children to hear the key word that was used in relation to the inquiry: that these events were “preventable”. That is the most chilling idea: they could have been stopped. The butcher behind the slaughter was hiding in plain sight—a known risk since 13—but, somehow, state bodies did nothing, zilch. So how will those state agencies that failed here be held to account? Will people be sacked? Surely, there must be some consequences. It cannot just be a vague, “Lessons must be learned”.

The Minister said that we should not bring race in to this. I do not think anyone did, except the state agencies that said action should not be taken because of the race of the individual. I am referring as well to the ongoing Nottingham inquiry—I am sure the Minister is following it—where Calocane also murdered three innocent people. Nobody wants to talk about race but, as Emma, the mother of Barnaby, one of the murdered people, said, “I don’t want to talk about race”, but mental health treatment was not given to him because it might be seen as being because he was Black. A bastardised anti-racism has not helped us here and will not help us hold people to account, either. We must be honest and frank. We are not bringing race into this; the institutions and state bodies did.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I hope I was clear and I thought I made it clear to the House when I talked about the issue of race and said that the characteristics that led to the individual perpetrating this awful attack were mental health issues, obsession and a range of other issues that were identified in the report. There was an element of people using the issue of race to not necessarily follow through on some of the points that they could have done, but the race of the perpetrator is an issue that we need to be very careful about examining per se. There are obviously issues within that.

When we look at Adrian Fulford’s recommendations in due course, there are obviously failures around the management of the individual. We will look at those recommendations. On the individuals who have been criticised, I am sure there will be discussion with local authorities and others about how they improve that performance. But I say to the noble Baroness that we had this report yesterday at noon. It is important that we look at and assess the recommendations. I have given a commitment that we will report back by the end of the summer, and that is one thing that we will do. So, if she will allow me, I will not comment on the issues she has raised pending the examination of the inquiry in detail.

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

My Lords, after what happened in Southport, is it fair to say that the parameters within which Prevent operates are too narrowly drawn? What I mean by that is that the perpetrator’s obsession with violence was drawn to the attention of Prevent three times, but Prevent’s response was, “Well, because he doesn’t fall within these narrow parameters, there is basically nothing we can do”.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for making the very important point that there are issues that we need to examine in relation to obsession with serious violence that may be outside the Prevent programme but need to be examined as part of the characteristics of somebody referred to Prevent. Part 2 of Adrian Fulford’s inquiry has very clear terms of reference to look at the issues of how individuals are being radicalised and how they are becoming obsessed with violence. Sometimes that violence obsession is not linked not to an ideology but to the whole principle of, “I want to be involved in violence”. That is a new element that we need to examine, and part 2 of Adrian Fulford’s report is designed to look at that very issue.

We have already reviewed the Prevent agenda and widened its scope. The Independent Prevent Commissioner has already produced a report for us on those issues, and we are going to continue to look at how we improve Prevent. I say to my noble friend that Prevent has been a significant intervention in almost 6,000 cases to date and has turned many people’s lives around. It has had cross-government support and support from all parties, and I want to continue to use it. But there are certainly lessons to be learned, which is what we will do in relation to our examination of these issues.

[Baroness Spielman (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister say what advice he has given or is planning to give to the Secretary of State for Education about managing the risk that, sadly, some young people present to their peers and to adults? I ask this because I read the Southport report and all the shocking findings it lays out immediately after reading a recently published Ofsted document on its areas of research interest, where there is an explicit statement that it is aligned with the Department for Education’s areas of interest. They are overwhelmingly about how to include more children who face additional barriers and need extra support and how to support them better. There is not a single question in the whole of it that acknowledges the risk that sometimes exists for other children when high-risk children are included, yet there are, to touch on points that others have made, a number of questions that express concern about stereotyping. It feels as though some departments are still going headlong down the route of what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, referred to as a sort of bastardised anti-racism and failing to be honest, open and transparent in the interests of all children—who can no longer include, sadly, the children who were murdered at Southport, but should include all their successors.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for those comments. Self-evidently, there are lessons to be learned by the health service, education and other agencies of government and at a regional level from the failures that occurred that Sir Adrian has identified. As part of our task force examining the recommendations, we will certainly be involving other government departments and discussing with them how we can help them to improve their performance. There may be lessons to be learned, as the noble Baroness said, in relation to education. I expect that when we respond to the recommendations, that will be a cross-government response. It will not just be a Home Office response. It will include the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Education and the Department of Health. I will, if she will let me, reflect on the points that she has made and feed them into my colleagues in education. We will continue to look at that as a cross-government approach to the recommendations that Sir Adrian has made.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, this has been one of the most horrendous cases that we have witnessed. I believe that the public have lost confidence in so many authorities which should be looking after our children, and all of us, frankly. I recall the Victoria Climbié case and the many children over the years who were murdered and tortured, and there were always lessons to be learned. This is not pointed at just one Government by the way; it is just a fact of life. Latterly, we had the Manchester Arena bomber and all those children who were murdered, and we have had rape gangs, a situation that has gone on for the past 20 or 30 years. Here we are now in Southport. My view is that the public have lost confidence because nobody is ever held to account. This is not about just pointing a finger and wanting to see somebody in authority end up in court, but the cover-ups that have gone on in some of these awful circumstances, with nobody brought to account or feeling the full force of the law, cannot continue. Until this is dealt with in a far more open manner and those who are accountable feel the full force of the law, I do not think we are going to get any further forward, and there will be no lessons learned because we will probably be having this sort of conversation in another year or two’s time. I know that the noble Lord is a good Minister and very thorough and that all of us in this House want to resolve these awful issues. He has our full support, but we need to regain the confidence of the public.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Baroness that we need to give confidence to the public, and the purpose of the inquiry that the then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper launched was to ensure that we drew out some lessons. There will always be, in the cycle of any Government at any time, things thrown up that show failures. This inquiry has found that no single agency, or multi-agency arrangement, took ownership of the risk; that is unacceptable. There was poor information recording management and sharing of agencies and professions; that is unacceptable. The behaviour of the individual was excused based on his autism; that should not have happened. There was a failure to understand and intervene in online behaviours, both at home and at school, and his parents in particular had major failings in excusing his behaviour.

Can we make changes on those things? The recommendations that Sir Adrian has made are guidance for us. In answer to the earlier question of the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, we are going to reflect on those in due course. A range of issues might come out of that, including how we hold individuals to account. The key thing, having had those recommendations at 12 noon yesterday, is that the Government have time to consider them properly, and to bring back a plan for both Houses of Parliament. As soon as those recommendations were received by Government, we brought them to this House, and the House of Commons, to share them in an open and public way, so that colleagues will know that we share those concerns. We have, I hope, the full support of the House to address them, and will do our best to ensure systemic failures are addressed and, if need be, individuals are held to account.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I do not usually call for bans, but I would like to call for a ban on the phrase “lessons must be learned”. That is what makes the public feel cynical. I have been here for a few years, and “lessons must be learned” has been said so often to me, but none has ever been learned, as far as I can see. Can we just stop saying that phrase, because everyone just rolls their eyes? That was a joke.

[Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)]

Excuse me, but it is not time for a joke. Statements should be about questions to the Minister.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Let me give the noble Baroness an answer. If she thinks that we are not going to take this issue seriously, bring forward a plan, respond to the recommendations and, yes, learn some lessons, then she is dealing with the wrong Minister in the wrong place. My job is to make sure that we respond to this in an effective and constructive way. I am trying to reach out to the whole House to say that there is, I hope, a unified approach to these recommendations. I will report back and, if lessons have to be learned—I will use that phrase again—the whole purpose of the Government’s actions will be to prevent this happening in the future as far as possible. That is what this Government are trying to do.