I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that issue. We have more experience now of the different paths that people take towards extremism, but it is still very complex. It is different for different people, but one key issue is emotional vulnerability. The analysis suggests that there are key points in people’s lives when they feel lonely or isolated and are more vulnerable to a message.
The first year at university is often a difficult phase for people. They do not have a friendship group and can easily be drawn into activity that is glorified, that represents an adventure and that is full of passion and idealism. Some of us will no doubt have experienced similar circumstances in our own politics, and I was certainly fired up to go and do something about the injustice and
inequality I found around the world. Luckily, I was not being groomed by extremists—at least, I do not think I was.
One of the other causes for the 7/7 bombers was the possibility of being drawn into forced marriage. Those young men wanted to fall in love and to do so on their own terms and in their own way, and they found the prospect of forced marriage very difficult. Many emotional issues and transition points are key in young people’s education, as well as the messages that are put out.
I am grateful to places such as the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s college, as well as other academic institutions, for the work they are doing on this issue. As the shadow Home Secretary said, we must follow the evidence where it takes us and not simply our own prejudices and views.
I welcome the provisions in the Bill as a whole. Many are common sense. I have no doubt that the judicial involvement in the issues to do with temporary exclusion orders will be contested. The measures on aviation and rail security are simply common-sense approaches to matters that we need to take seriously.
I want to focus on the issues to do with the Prevent strategy set out in part 5. I have a number of questions for the Government. Obviously, I welcome the fact that Prevent will be put on a statutory footing, as that is important in getting the appropriate resources in place and ensuring a consistent approach. A crucial part of this will be the evaluation of its effectiveness. When the Government did their review of Prevent three and a half years ago, they said that there were not sufficient measures of effectiveness, that there were no metrics, and that they were not able to measure the impact. What progress have the Government made in measuring the impact of the Prevent strategy, because I have seen no metrics, no valuation and no evidence on that score? If we are going to spend significant amounts of public money, as we have done and as I hope we will continue to, we must ensure that it is making a difference. Evaluation is therefore important.
The duty that will be placed on schools, prisons, probation providers and local authorities is very welcome. The explanatory notes stated that the guidance would be published in tandem with the legislation, but I think that the bicycle has got a little bit ahead of the guidance. I hope that the guidance will be published as soon as possible, because it will be a key part of the debate. We need to see how effective it will be, how it will operate in practice and what its parameters will be. I urge the Minister to make that a top priority.
My concerns about that agenda—I know that the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) shares them—relate to counter-ideology. Where is the work, in the way chapter 5 is set out, on counter-ideology? Where is the work on tackling the narrative and ensuring that both online and offline there are positive messages that expose the poverty of this mediaeval ideology, which is about sharia law and establishing a caliphate, which is absolutely inimical to the right of women and girls, which does not believe in education, which is backward-looking, reactionary and does not provide a forward-looking view of what it means to be a Muslim in a modern, free and liberal democracy? It is all very well putting that duty on those organisations, but where is the work on counter-ideology? I want to hear from the Minister on that.