My Lords, I declare an interest in that I conducted the first Prevent review in 2011 and started what became the Shawcross review, which I strongly support.

I thank the Government for the remedial steps that have been taken, as described in the Statement, following the loss of a valued colleague with whom I too was in the House of Commons and had many happy exchanges. Can we now be a little bit more positive about the future?

Does the Minister agree not only that there have been successes, as he just described, but that some of them have been quite remarkable in turning young men and women from becoming potential terrorists, and that we should not let up in enhancing the effectiveness of Prevent in what is an extremely challenging and difficult area of work, which is sometimes underestimated?

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s typically generous remarks about my former colleague Sir David Amess, who was a personal friend and a fine and decent public servant.

The city status of Southend-on-Sea and the Children’s Parliament, which he helped to found, are fitting tributes to a good life and one well spent.

Having represented a constituency which was 16% Muslim, I know the difference between those who follow the Muslim faith and those who follow the pernicious poison of Islamism.

On the latter, can the Minister reassure the House that the Islamist proselytising that we have often seen across the prison estate, in madrassas and in some mosques in this country will be part of the review, and that the Government will take those issues seriously?

If Prevent is in a position to intervene early with some individuals in those settings it may head off some of the much more serious criminal activity.

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s comments. The loss of Sir David was felt keenly across the House, but particularly by those who shared his political party or were close to his region.

He will be forever remembered for the Adjournment debate, now named the Sir David Amess Adjournment Debate, in the House of Commons. For those who do not know, Sir David was always first up in every Adjournment debate to raise about 46 issues to do with Southend.

Of those, 42 or 43 ended up in some positive outcome for his constituents. I should mention that, before Southend, he was the Member of Parliament for Basildon. The noble Lord raises extremely important points.

There is a criminal threshold for individuals who promote Islamist or neo-Nazi terrorism, or terrorism related to any other form of hate, such as misogyny. It is extremely important, if evidence is brought forward and the threshold is crossed, that the police take action via the CPS.

The Prevent strategy is particularly about younger people being radicalised by those who have criminal intent and have provided criminal material, or individuals who have crossed that threshold and are having their own grievances or immaturities exploited by individuals for the purpose of terrorist activity.

The Prevent strategy is about helping people who are going down that route. I think the noble Lord is referring to the criminal threshold, which is for the police and the CPS to determine. They have my full support to prosecute anybody who encourages terrorist activity.

The noble Lord brings a lot of experience to this topic. He is right that a very small number of individuals are currently on TPIM orders. For the House’s information, I publish on a regular basis the number of those on TPIM orders.

A Written Ministerial Statement on this was published in, maybe, the last two weeks. From memory, the latest figure is certainly low. I cannot remember the exact figure, but it is under 10. There is an argument to be had but, in a sense, it is not for Ministers. The TPIM legislation is there.

If the police and the courts have severe concerns about individuals who may have previous prosecutions, but in this case do not have a prosecution in the specific area, TPIMs are a tool that can be used. It comes with a cost and potential further risks, but it is a valuable tool.

Throughout my time in this field, TPIMs have been a way in which individuals who have not committed a crime can be monitored because of the danger they pose, and action can be taken in the event of them moving towards potential terrorist activity.

The noble Lord makes a valuable point, but I cannot, at the moment, give him a plan on resources. However, his point is noted and I will take it back to officials.

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. Again, he brings a perspective that is helpful to inform government policy as a whole.

I am not aware of anybody having their reputation slurred by political correctness, but I say genuinely to him that I have a great admiration for all individuals, in the police and elsewhere, who work to help the Prevent programme have the successes that it has.

There are failings in these cases—again, every individual can fail at different times. Are they systemic? That is what we are asking the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, to look at. Are there suggestions for improvement? Yes, there undoubtedly are.

Are there suggestions for future legislation? Probably.

But the question for me is: is it still worthwhile investing in support for professionals to undertake diversionary work for younger people who are coming into contact with neo-Nazis and Islamists, or indeed who are forming views which will lead to terrorist action downstream?

The answer to that question is a resounding “Yes”. As the Government, we have to give full support to those professionals who are making judgments that I do not have to make on a daily basis, but they do.

They deserve our full support, but that does not mean that we do not have to learn lessons when things have gone wrong—and in this case, and in the case of Southport, things have gone wrong and lessons need to be learned.

My Lords, I have heard the passion and fury from Katie Amess, David Amess’s daughter, over recent weeks, demanding a full inquiry. I would just like to say that she is very much her father’s daughter and he would be so proud of her. She feels that the Government are ignoring her.

I ask the Minister whether he will please look seriously at her common-sense suggestion that the Axel Rudakubana Prevent inquiry is expanded to include Katie’s father’s murderer, Ali Harbi Ali, because, as she says, it is wrong to pick and choose which murders Prevent failed to prevent should be investigated.

Also, does the noble Lord agree that both cases have a lot in common, not least that politicians can get distracted by some bizarre blame games. When Sir David died, there was a swathe of people discussing online civility—anything but discussing radical Islamism.

After the Southport killings, what have we been discussing? Selling knives on Amazon. It does not feel too serious to me. A full inquiry into both together would be helpful for everyone.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the very gracious and moving tribute he paid to the late Sir David Amess. I was fortunate to be elected on the same day as Sir David, 42 years ago. All of us will never forget the day the news came through of his tragic murder.

We owe it to him, on all sides of this House, to make sure that we get this policy right.

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I know he was elected in 1983 in North West Norfolk. It does not seem like 42 years ago. I went down in flames in Eddisbury on that day. I pay tribute to the fact that he won his seat, as did Sir David on that day.

Again, from my perspective, we have a lot of political knockabout in both Houses at times, but you can also spot and respect integrity, and Sir David had integrity. It is important that we recognise and celebrate that.

While we will always have political differences, including with the noble Lord now, we must recognise that behind the politician is a person with a family and a commitment. Whatever drives us into politics for our own values, this is the place to debate them.

We should be able to debate them outside, in our constituencies and in public, without the fear of attack or death by those who disagree with the principle of democracy, and not least with the individual who is the face of their ire.

It is not just Sir David but my former colleague in the House of Commons, Jo Cox, and many people from Northern Ireland who have stood their ground, put their views forward, been in the public domain and found themselves subject to violence as a result.

That is not the way we should be doing things in this United Kingdom.

My Lords, I too want to thank the Minister for what was not just a kind and generous tribute to Sir David but also an immensely sensitive Statement, and on point in terms of how to address the issue. These things affect us all.

David was a neighbour of mine and was one of the first people to welcome me, a Yorkshireman, down to Essex, and to make me feel at home. We are about to debate the Holocaust.

A Holocaust survivor once said to me a few years back that the thing that she noticed most coming to Britain after the war was that the policemen smiled, and that it was easy to meet councillors and officials. What happened to David threatens that.

That ease that we have in this country is very much central to what makes us tick and we need to be able to hold on to that.

Absolutely. The noble Lord and I were elected on the same day—9 April 1992—to the House of Commons.

One of the great joys I had as a Member of Parliament, was, yes, debating in Parliament, but actually it was having face-to-face surgeries where I walked into a room and did not know who was going to walk through the door and I did not know what problems they would bring; or I would go to a fête or a factory; or I would walk down the street and be stopped by individuals who asked for help and support or sometimes wanted to make a vigorous point about a particular aspect of government policy.

That is the essence of our democracy. The noble Lord has reminded us that the murder of Sir David was an attack on that democracy.

For those who have witnessed the growth of authoritarian regimes such as those who will be the subject of the debate shortly on the Holocaust, this democracy of ours is open and should be willing and transparent.

We should be held to account for our views and our actions, but we should do so in a way that is with peace, tranquillity and fair and open political debate.

The murder of Sir David and the murder of Jo Cox in the political context were horrendous attacks on them and their families, but also on our democracy.