The HASC makes several recommendations related to the Prevent duty

Prevent Watch submitted to the HASC that it was difficult to assess levels of extremism in the UK, since the primary tool for measuring it is the Prevent duty, which is inherently flawed and biased. In response, the HASC made several recommendations related to the Prevent duty.

The full report from the HASC on New Forms of Extremism is available here.

The Committee stated that Prevent:

is becoming saturated with non-ideological cases, many of which would be better supported through health, education or community-based interventions rather than through a counter-terrorism lens.
is also poorly adapted to identify individuals being drawn into extremism online.

Its main recommendation to note was that:

“The Home Office embed Prevent within the wider safeguarding system and introduce a triage structure that sits above Prevent to ensure that cases suitable for the types of intervention that Prevent offers are funneled to Prevent and cases more suited to other forms of support are directed elsewhere, without having to first pass through Prevent. This triage system would create a single point of entry, or ‘big front door’ through which a broad range of concerns can be assessed before being offered a suitable package of support.”

This would apply to concerns relating to vulnerability, neurodiversity, mental health, violence fascination, or any form of concern around an individual’s risk and capacity to hurt themselves or others.

This triage function should sit above Prevent, ensuring that Prevent is used only for cases with a genuine risk.

Further recommendations to note were that:

The Home Office to establish a coherent, long-term research and evidence-gathering programme on new forms of extremism as there is a lack of the empirical data needed to understand where and how radicalisation is occurring, particularly online, and how best to intervene.

Young people must be equipped to analyse online material critically, recognise manipulative content, understand algorithms, and identify AI-generated or deceptive content.

The full report of the HASC is available here.