Speeches by Kohler.

“So, the large percentage of false positives on referrals is a real danger, is it not?”

“In his review, Lord Anderson recommended that Prevent be connected to other safeguarding and violence prevention strategies. Dr Horton, you have already mentioned that that is happening in the informal pre-Prevent stage. Is there more to be done there?”

“Does it require a strategic approach where you work out which of these strategies are being used so they are not counterproductive?”

“What can we do to stop that? Do educational professionals, teachers, have the skills to work out who they should be referring?”

“So, they know how to do a referral, but not why, a lot of the times?”

“I can say this as a lawyer myself; lawyers do not always help the process when we are talking with something like that. Why is ‘advice’ not sufficient? Why would it have to be ‘legal advice’ that might become overly legalised—the whole process?”

“Is there an argument for not having counter-terrorism for that stage—one recognises a child that is vulnerable and not bringing in this Prevent approach at that point—or is that naive?”

“What percentage of children who do go to the channelling point, engage with it? Do we have figures on that?”

“On that point, I have heard one defence of the Australian model: it is a nice binary, it is simple—as with do not talk to strangers—and teaching nuance at an early age is a fool’s errand and you need that simple rule that gives parents something to say, “You cannot do it”. Are you resistant to those ideas? I might be a…”

“That is the view?”

“In broad terms, do most engage?”

“Picking up on what Chris just said, events promote hypervigilance. Do they also, though, promote more people into extremism?”

“Four-fifths of referrals do not make it to a Channel discussion, and five-sixths do not get a Channel intervention. Is there a formal process as to what happens with that vast majority?”

“Dr Horton, do you want to add something?”

“Excuse my ignorance but can you give me in broad terms what a social cohesion strategy would look like?”

“Could you ever do that? Could you ever prove that what didn’t happen was due to Prevent?”

“One of my colleagues will ask in detail about the internet but I want to ask a preliminary question on com networks. Some of the evidence we have had has said that com networks should be treated as extremism. Others have said, “No, don’t treat it as extremism, it is different”. What is your view on that? Secondly, do y…”

“Given that there will always be the issues with time for training and teachers have a huge number of responsibilities, and being risk-averse of not making a mistake, is there something we can do with the referral system so that it does not stigmatise in the way you are telling me that it does?”

“Really you have anticipated my question. Lord Anderson recommended that Prevent be brought into a broader safeguarding process. What we are talking about is identifying vulnerable children and diverting them to the best solution and what I think you are telling me is Prevent is being used somehow to do that in a not ut…”

“Do you know what factors influence whether the child engages?”