The government has been accused of “incompetence and complacency” in its handling of an independent review of Prevent, the programme that aims to stop people from becoming terrorists, amid further delays to its completion.
The review was first announced in January 2019 and it has been beset by delays. Its first chair, Lord Carlile, was forced to step down in December 2019 and it took four months for the Home Office to launch a recruitment campaign for his replacement.
Since then, the department has extended the window for applications from 1 June to 22 June with the final interviews not taking place until the end of July. A counter-terrorism and sentencing bill that will have its second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday seeks to remove a statutory deadline for ministers to respond to the review’s findings.
Conor McGinn, the shadow security minister, said: “The Prevent review should have finished its work and reported to ministers this month, but the government’s incompetence and complacency means it won’t even have started.
“The introduction of a new counter-terrorism bill before the Prevent review has even begun underlines just how much time the government has wasted. Ministers must ensure there are no further delays or they will risk further undermining the credibility of the review and their own counter-terrorism strategy.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Independent Review of Prevent began in August 2019 and the Government wants to see it concluded as soon as possible.
“We have launched a full and open competition to appoint a new Reviewer following Lord Carlile stepping down, and have extended the application period in recognition of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.”
Communities, activists and civil liberties organisations have been calling for a review of Prevent for years, claiming that it fosters discrimination against people of Muslim faith or background. Advocates of the strategy reject this and say it has successfully diverted vulnerable individuals from being radicalised.
The most controversial element of the Prevent programme is the statutory duty imposed on schools, NHS trusts, prisons, local authorities and other public bodies to report concerns about people they suspect may be at risk of turning to extremism.
The Home Office said it had extended the deadline for applications due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and to “ensure that as broad a range of candidates as possible have the opportunity to apply”.
The counter-terrorism and sentencing bill returning to parliament on Tuesday includes proposals to weaken the burden of proof for terrorism prevention and investigation measures (Tpims) to be imposed on people suspected of terrorist activity and remove the two-year cap on their use.
Tpims are controversial and resource-heavy measures – usually based on secret intelligence – for controlling the risk presented by terrorism suspects at large where criminal prosecution is not an option.
The bill introduces a new “serious terrorism sentence” with a 14-year minimum jail term and up to 25 years on licence for the most dangerous offences, broadly defined as featuring a likelihood of multiple deaths.
