Southport Inquiry

Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)]

I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement. It is truly heartbreaking to know that there were so many missed opportunities to stop the Southport attack. My thoughts today are with the bereaved families whose young daughters were so cruelly taken from them and with the many other victims who suffered unimaginable trauma that day. We owe it to them to make every attempt to prevent a senseless attack like this from ever happening again.

The report lays bare that agency after agency failed to step up and take ownership of the risks that the perpetrator posed. There are monumental failures across a number of authorities, from the police, Prevent and NHS mental health services to children’s social care, youth offending services and the perpetrator’s parents. That is simply not acceptable. Will the Home Secretary confirm how soon she plans to report back on whether the Government will accept all 67 recommendations? Will she commit to providing Parliament with an update on progress every six months?

Today’s report exposes serious oversights by online giants that allowed the perpetrator to collect an arsenal of weapons without effective age verification checks. Will the Home Secretary confirm whether the recently published knife crime strategy will address the ease with which knives are available for purchase online? Will it crack down on big tech companies, like Amazon, that are putting profit above protocol when it comes to the sale of dangerous items?

Finally, the Liberal Democrats have long argued that Prevent is not fit for purpose. It is deeply shocking that the perpetrator was referred three times yet no further action was taken. We understand that was because he did not possess a specific ideology—well, there should be no clearer sign of a system unable to address modern threats. Will the Home Secretary today commit to a full overhaul of Prevent within this Parliament so that future warning signs are not missed? Will she also commit to bringing forward the legislation recommended by Jonathan Hall KC in the next King’s Speech?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The Liberal Democrat spokeswoman is absolutely right; the sheer number of missed opportunities in this case is truly horrifying. That is why we must do everything we can to reform all these systems in our public services to make sure that no such incident can happen again.

There will be a comprehensive response from the Government on all of the inquiry’s phase 1 recommendations. I intend for that to come before the summer so the House will have an opportunity to debate it. As we move to delivery of the Government’s response to the recommendations, I will keep the House updated on our progress, including on where potential future legislation might be needed.

In the Crime and Policing Bill, which is continuing its passage through Parliament, we have introduced new age verification checks both at the point of sale and at the point of delivery of knives. That is a way of directly responding to some of the issues we have seen in this case, whereby the perpetrator was able to slip through the system. That should not be possible in the future once the Bill becomes an Act of Parliament and is implemented.

Let me turn to the question of the threat posed by those who are fixated by violence but do not necessarily have an ideology, by those who have a mixed ideology, or by those who flit between having an ideology and not having one; there is a developing, complex picture of the sorts of threats that we face. We have made it very clear that those who have no fixed ideology but are vulnerable to terrorism are still, and should be, referred to the Prevent programme. That remains the lead programme for dealing with the risk posed by those individuals.

The inquiry recognises that there is a gap through which those who do not have a fixed ideology and are not vulnerable to terrorism might slip. Phase 2 of the inquiry will consider how best to respond to those sorts of cases, and will make recommendations on who should take the lead on dealing with those individuals, but I want to assure the hon. Lady and all Members of the House that the Government are not simply waiting for phase 2 to report. We are already trialling with a number of local authorities a new approach for those who are below the threshold for Prevent, but who present a risk that we are concerned about and who we believe might pose a risk of harm to others. We are thinking about different ways in which agencies might handle that risk in order to make sure those individuals do not slip through the net. As we learn lessons from those pilots, we will seek to start implementing them, while we wait, of course, for Sir Adrian Fulford and the inquiry team to come forward with fuller recommendations in this area in future.