Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the operation of the Prevent programme in schools.

Schools have a statutory duty to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. This includes referring individuals susceptible to radicalisation to Prevent, for support.

In the most recent departmental survey, 98% of school leaders responsible for Prevent were confident in their school’s ability to train staff to recognise and refer radicalisation concerns. 94% were confident in their school’s ability to deal with a safeguarding incident related to terrorism or extremism.

Schools are already highly experienced in safeguarding children, and the department has confidence in the professional judgement of teachers if they decide a referral is appropriate.