Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent progress the Government has made on steps to reduce the risk of radicalisation of British Muslims.

Since the Prime Minister’s Extremism Task Force (ETF) made its recommendations in December 2013, we have made considerable progress in tackling extremism and
reducing the risk of radicalisation. This Government has excluded more hate preachers than ever before, and has regularly disrupted events which feature extremist preachers. We have restricted access to online terrorist material, the majority of which is hosted overseas: since December 2013 we have removed from the internet over 32,000 pieces of unlawful terrorist-related content, taking the overall total to over 51,000 since 2010.

We have seen a significant rise in referrals to our multi-agency safeguarding programme, Channel, which provides tailored support to people identified as at risk of radicalisation, including from Islamist extremism. The Association of Chief Police Officers reported a 58% increase in the past year. Since April 2012 there have been over 2000 Channel referrals. Hundreds have been offered support under the programme.

We have made progress with our ‘Workshop to Raise Awareness of Prevent’ (WRAP), a training tool which teaches frontline workers how to identify and support those at risk of radicalisation. Since the revised Prevent strategy (June 2011), we have trained over 100,000 frontline public sector workers to identify and support those at risk. We are currently rolling out new, updated training.In the 2013/14 financial year, Prevent practitioners in our 30 priority areas worked with over 250 mosques, 50 faith groups and 70 community groups. We have delivered over 180 community-based Prevent projects since 2011, and are currently supporting over 70. All of our current Prevent projects are focused on the current threat, including Syria and Iraq. Since early 2012, these projects have reached over 45,000 people.

In September the Home Secretary announced that the Home Office will now assume responsibility for a new Extremism Strategy. The strategy will aim to build up society to
identify extremism, confront it, challenge it and defeat it. It will cover extremism in all its forms, including Islamist extremism.