Home Affairs Correspondent
Green Party members have proposed abolishing the UK’s controversial Prevent programme as new Home Office figures show referrals reached their highest annual level since the current series began in 2015.
The motion, drawn up by the party’s Crime and Justice Working Group, calls for Prevent to be abolished and funding redirected away from policing, prisons and surveillance.
It will go through the Green Party’s internal policy process ahead of its annual conference in Brighton from October 2 to 4. The proposal is not yet party policy, although the Greens pledged in their 2024 manifesto to scrap Prevent.
Home Office figures published August 6 show that 10,293 referrals were made to Prevent in England and Wales in the year to September 2025, involving 9,957 individuals. Referrals rose 39% from the previous year, reaching the highest annual total since the series began in April 2015.
Of these, 2,159 referrals, or 21%, were discussed at a Channel panel, while 1,810, or 18%, were adopted as Channel cases. A total of 8,079 referrals, or 78%, were deemed unsuitable for Channel before reaching a panel, with 4,944 signposted to other services.
Education accounted for 3,496 referrals, or 34%, while police accounted for 3,208, or 31%. There were 3,655 referrals involving 11- to 15-year-olds and 1,379 involving 16- and 17-year-olds.
Concerns about extreme right-wing activity were recorded in 2,103 referrals, or 20%, compared with 860, or 8%, involving “Islamist extremism”.
The figures come as the Children’s Commissioner for England calls for changes to how children are referred to and dealt with under Prevent.
Her report found that referrals involving children rose from 2,918 in 2016–17 to 4,715 in 2024–25, when children accounted for 54% of all referrals.
Some 71% of child referrals had no specific identifiable extremist ideology, while 79% were closed without progressing through Prevent. The commissioner said: “A referral should be the start of understanding a child’s individual circumstances, not the end of the process.”
Dame Rachel de Souza said there was a group of children “becoming intoxicated by extremism, radicalisation or a desire to harm others” who needed interventions that Prevent was not able to provide.
She described the existing process as “a merry-go-round of referral and inaction”.
Her central recommendation is for children referred to Prevent to first be assessed by local multi-agency safeguarding teams, including Counter Terrorism Policing where necessary, before being directed towards Prevent interventions or other support.
The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee made a similar recommendation in April.
Its report said: “Prevent is becoming saturated with non-ideological cases,” adding that many should instead receive health, education or community-based support “rather than through a counter-terrorism lens”.
It also said Prevent was “poorly adapted to identify individuals being drawn into extremism online”.
The committee recommended embedding Prevent within the wider safeguarding system and creating a broader assessment point before cases were directed to Prevent or other services.
An independent review by Lord Anderson also examined failures in two high-profile cases.
Anderson reviewed the Prevent histories of Ali Harbi Ali, who murdered Conservative MP Sir David Amess in 2021, and Axel Rudakubana, who carried out the Southport attack in July 2024.
Both had previously been referred to Prevent by schools.
Ali was adopted into the Channel programme, but Anderson found that his mentoring “was allowed to peter out when it had hardly begun”. Rudakubana was referred three times but did not reach Channel.
Anderson said: “The objective of Prevent is to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.”
He added: “But it can work, and sometimes it does.”
Anderson made 10 recommendations for reform but did not recommend abolishing Prevent.
The Government accepted all 10 recommendations in July 2026 and has introduced measures aimed at people who pose a risk of serious violence without a clear ideological motive.
Amnesty International UK has backed the Green Party proposal.
Rebecca Barnes, Amnesty UK’s racial justice campaigner, said on August 24 that discussion about scrapping Prevent was “long overdue”.
She said the programme “stigmatises and disproportionately targets racialised and Muslim communities”, as well as children and neurodivergent people.
Amnesty cited Home Office figures showing that 80% of referrals in the year to March 2025 were not deemed suitable for Channel. The latest figures, covering the year to September 2025, put the proportion at 78%.
The Green Party said only motions passed by its annual conference become party policy.
The proposal must therefore pass the party’s internal prioritisation process before it can be debated and voted on in October.
