Good afternoon, and welcome to the Women and Equalities Committee. Today we are holding the first session of our inquiry into community cohesion. We are delighted to be joined by Dame Sara Khan. Thank you for coming, and welcome. I am hoping that this will be a larger piece of the community cohesion work that we are doing as the Women and Equalities Committee and it is incredibly timely, so we are very grateful to have you as our first witness.

Welcome Sara, it is lovely to meet you, thank you for coming in. A very broad question to begin with: what is your assessment of the state of cohesion in the UK both at a national and local level?

When I started my review into social cohesion, that was obviously one of the very first questions I wanted to answer myself. I realised very early on that it was difficult to answer that question because, in the absence of a comprehensive cohesion framework, it is very difficult to give a full and detailed picture of what social cohesion looks like in the UK. The reality is that there is an incomplete, an inconsistent and, at times, a contradictory picture of social cohesion, and that is a significant problem. Having reviewed some indicators relevant to social cohesion and in subsequent reports that I have published since I did the review, my view very much is that we are seeing a decline of social cohesion in our country, and the UK is also at chronic risk of witnessing democratic decline as well. Just to give a couple of examples of some of the social cohesion indicators which have led me to this view: we are seeing declining civic engagement, declining levels of volunteering—we saw that wonderful spike of volunteering during the covid pandemic, but that is against a backdrop of declining volunteering—and declining social capital. The relationship between the state and the trust that individuals have with the state has always been a very important indicator of social cohesion and, on that side, we are seeing increasing disillusionment with democracy. For example, in data from 2024 we are seeing that trust in Government is at an all-time low. We are seeing growing levels of distrust among the public towards democratic institutions—so, declining levels of trust in Parliament, in political parties, and in the mainstream media. A new trend is declining levels of trust in the police, civil service, and the courts. Voter turnout is now at its lowest level. We know that in 2019 voter turnout was 67.5%; last year it was at 64%. We are seeing increasing levels of polarisation. Data from 21 countries show that America—this is not surprising—has the highest levels of political polarisation. The UK is the second country out of the 21 countries that has the highest rates of political polarisation. When you look at the research around what that results in, it shows that countries that have the highest rates of political polarisation contribute to democratic backsliding and erosion. In a nutshell, that has led me to the view that we are seeing declining levels of social cohesion, and I fear that we are at the beginning of what is a chronic and gradual decline of democratic trust. This is not a theoretical conversation because trust and confidence are the basis of a functioning democracy. If you lose that and people lose their trust in the organs of state, it becomes very difficult for Government to function, so it is a real, serious concern. Just to end on your question: I do not know if you saw the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report, which was published in January, earlier this year, but it highlighted that in the next two to 10 years some of the most concerning global risks are to do with social cohesion, for example, the impact and rise of misinformation and disinformation. Societal polarisation was one that it identified, and another one was high levels of inequality. The 10th most concerning global risk identified was the erosion of human rights and civil liberties. So, even if you look at the global trends, they are unfortunately also painting a really worrying picture that liberal democracies are going to have to really pull their socks up to try to respond and prevent.

Yes, you are right. You paint a very worrying picture, but it is good to hear where you think the lay of the land is right now. You have called for improvements in how cohesion is measured. It would be great to hear a little about the standardised framework that you are suggesting and what it would look like. I read with interest about the social fabric index, and I wondered if you found that a helpful measurement tool.

Yes, I did. We used some of the data from there, which was very helpful, but again it does not capture everything that I would consider you would need to look at in terms of social cohesion, which is slightly different to the social fabric. As part of the review, I commissioned the Belong Network to put together what it considered would be a helpful framework to measure social cohesion. It put something quite comprehensive together and it identified—let me just pull it out because it was quite a big piece of work—a whole range of different measurements that could be used to measure social cohesion—for example, the attitudes that we have towards other people, trust, and measuring things like belonging. It identified six key areas that could be useful to measure. It is interesting because other countries are measuring social cohesion. I identified Australia—a very fascinating country where it has been measuring social cohesion for at least 15 years. Interestingly, the Australian Government commissioned a non-governmental organisation to measure social cohesion, and everybody uses that data. It looks at some 29 questions around five domains. It is interesting because there is a lot of academic work that shows you can measure social cohesion despite its complexity. Other countries are doing it. The question we have to ask ourselves is: why is it that, despite 20 years’ worth of social cohesion reviews, commissions and reports, we have still not institutionalised cohesion? We are still not measuring social cohesion. We do not know whether cohesion is improving or worsening in an area. We know Government sometimes funds local authorities to improve social cohesion. We do not know if that money is of value. Is it demonstrating the results? I find it incredible that, after all this time, we have not actually built a social cohesion and, I would argue, a democratic resilience framework. To have that would be very useful for a whole host of reasons: obviously to measure progress and the impact of interventions, but also to hold local authorities to account. It is very easy—I saw this myself on a number of occasions—for a councillor to come to me and say, “No, we’re great; we don’t have any problems; everything is wonderful here. Everything is outside; there’s no problems in my area,” and I heard that all the time. It is really important to have an objective, impartial, independent framework that can really measure social cohesion. It would also be very useful to have a framework that would provide early detection. It would be like an early warning scheme where you can start to see, “Ah, there are problems arising in certain parts of the country. The red signs are flashing; we need to do something about it.” So yes, it can be done. The question is: why have Government not done it to date, despite 20 years’ worth of reports and reviews?

That is a very good question. Again, one of the challenges we had was that Whitehall does not have that data to tell us what local areas make it resilient, what factors make it resilient to extremist or divisive activity, and what factors make it susceptible to extremism. At the moment, Whitehall does not keep that level of data. In the absence of a cohesion framework, we do not have a full understanding and picture of that. Just to give an example: I went to one area where they were measuring social cohesion quite in-depth, where they could understand certain parts of the ward, and where they could pin it down to quite detailed analysis of which wards had a problem around social cohesion. Often, there is this view that where there are high levels of deprivation and socioeconomic concerns, those areas will be the ones that have high cohesion concerns, but they found that was not the case. There is a big debate in the academic literature about whether, if you have high levels of deprivation and socioeconomic concerns, it will result in social cohesion challenges. There is a big debate about that because the academic findings on that are inconclusive. It is a very difficult question to answer. Interestingly, if you look at the summer riots that broke out in 27 towns and cities, a lot of the data has shown that some areas did have high levels of socioeconomic concerns, disillusionment, and distrust of institutions like the police, but there were other factors such as the spread of disinformation, the involvement of far-right actors and others, so it becomes really complicated. We do not have that assessment framework and we are not measuring these things effectively. Part of the framework could include things like community tensions and hate crime figures. You would then start to understand a bit more and more holistically what those factors are. I could not give you a full conclusive picture or reason for what those factors are, but it can be done quite easily.

I agree with you on that point. That was something that was picked up regularly. Obviously, when we know so many local authorities are struggling financially, one of the very first things that will be cut is social cohesion efforts. Again, there is something ironic about that because, actually, in times where there are crises, whether it is the cost of living crisis or others, as we saw with the pandemic, you will find bad-faith actors and others seeking to exploit that anger and those grievances even further in an attempt to undermine social cohesion. If local authorities are then curtailing social cohesion efforts, it just worsens the situation overall. That is very much a significant concern. With local authorities, part of the challenge is that when you are fighting over budgets—as local authorities always are—when you have not been able to measure and demonstrate the cost-benefit analysis of social cohesion, which is, again, one of the policy and delivery problems of social cohesion, if you cannot demonstrate that, it is very hard to convince your council leader to spend money on social cohesion. You could say, “Look, I’ve organised five programmes; we’ve had 50 people turn up; it’s all great.” But if you cannot really demonstrate through objective and clear means how it is actually improving social cohesion, you are demonstrating outcomes rather than outputs, which is what happens at present, it then becomes very difficult to convince local authorities when they have so many other pressing issues to focus on. So that does not help the problem either. At the same time, having spoken to numerous local authorities across the country, they all recognise the importance of social cohesion. One thing that I put in the recommendations is that it cannot just be an add-on; it has to be something that is firmly embedded in your strategic approach, because everything you do affects social cohesion. If you want to improve public health, invest in social cohesion. If you want to improve people volunteering, invest in social cohesion. If you want people to be resilient against divisive or extremist activity, improve your social cohesion aspect. It has is to be a fundamental part of their strategic approach rather than what the social cohesion strategy should look like.

For me, I would say Oldham is really fascinating. When Ted Cantle did his review of cohesion following the race riots in the summer of 2001, there were clear-cut challenges with Oldham: the residential ethnic segregation, high levels of deprivation and poverty, the breakdown of relationships between the white communities and the Pakistani communities, and a whole range of other social cohesion concerns. When I visited Oldham, I was honestly really inspired by what I saw. I met the leader of the council at that time, the chief executive, lots of civil society groups. It has created what is called a Thriving Communities Index, where it is able to measure social cohesion well. It goes around and does a lot of polling to really ascertain the views of the population that it serves. It has a scheme called the Doorstop Engagement programme where every month it goes around knocking on the doors of 1,700 to 1,800 local residents asking them, “Right. What are your concerns? Any grievances?” At a time when you always hear people say that local government does not engage with them, it is actively going out to make sure that their voices are being heard, to raise any issues and grievances that they have. That level of engagement is really fantastic, and there are lots of other examples that it has demonstrated. For me, Oldham is an example of good practice. That is not to say it does not have its challenges, and this is what is so fascinating about the challenges in terms of social cohesion today because, despite the fact that it is doing all this great work, as I outlined in the review, it is facing severe challenges around conspiracy theories and disinformation, to such an extent that it is actually inhibiting its ability to carry out its democratic mandate. I was really shocked at the scale of abuse and threats that councillors and council officials are experiencing. They are, without a doubt, experiencing what I have identified as freedom-restricting harassment, which we can talk about, but the inability to respond to those conspiracy theories and disinformation is hampering all their social cohesion efforts and is almost poisoning the area. As a result of those conspiracy theories, they have said that they have seen far-right groups, neo-fascist groups, come into the area to exploit tensions. How do you deal with that? One of their pleas to me, and I suppose to Government, is, “You’re not providing us with the guidance that we need. We don’t know how to deal with these threats. We don’t want to say or do anything that could worsen the situation. How do you deal with conspiracy theories that are being shared with hundreds of thousands of people? It’s causing disruption in local council meetings; we do not know what to do.” I have to say, that was something that came up repeatedly—“We’re experiencing all these challenges. We look to central Government thinking there is going to be some kind of guidance and support and there is nothing.” It is not a Prevent problem because it is not terrorism. What does this type of threat fall under in terms of current government programmes? It does not fall under anything. Again, that was one of the findings I outlined in the review: Whitehall does not have a strategic approach to deal with this and we are leaving local authorities to deal with really complex and challenging problems, which are without a doubt undermining social cohesion.

Before I bring in Catherine, I just wanted to ask: in terms of Oldham’s good work, did it designate a certain amount of money and resources to that? Do you think that local authorities are funded in a way that enables that sort of work?

It allocates a certain amount of its budget to this type of work. I cannot tell you what that figure is; I cannot quite remember. From a central Government perspective, the last major action plan was the 2018 Integrated Communities Action Plan, which was published in 2019 by MHCLG. It only gave funding to five areas. There were five pilot areas. Those five areas received some funding; other areas did not. A lot of that work was disrupted through the pandemic. So, there is no central Government funding for local authorities to carry out social cohesion work.

Were there any findings or learnings from that pilot, or was that just completely lost in the covid disruption?

I reviewed that work; I reviewed that action plan. It was launched in 2019. Just as they were getting going, the pandemic happened. One of the other challenges was just the huge political instability where you were having constant changes of Secretaries of State at MHCLG. I was there from 2001 to 2024, and I think I had five Secretaries of State at MHCLG during that time. There was that political instability which caused a problem because some Ministers were really supportive of social cohesion efforts; others had absolutely zero interest in it. That has an impact. Unfortunately, local governments do not have that support centrally but, in terms of the review, I had a lot of concerns in terms of how you measure these programmes; how do you know they are having any impact? I spoke to all five of those local authorities, visited some as well and, again, they agreed with me—“In the absence of an assessment framework, we don’t really know whether our programmes are having an impact. We can say outputs, but we can’t necessarily say outcomes.” If I were to say, for example, as I did, “Look, you’re receiving funding for learning English language. What happens to the women,” and it is predominantly women, “who have come off those courses? You have a challenge around high levels of unemployment. Are you, for example, tracking if some people who are learning English are then progressing on to employment or further education, or even volunteering?” And they are saying, “We’re not really tracking that.” That, again, to me, is a kind of short-sightedness, but I do not think the action plan ever really wanted to look at that. One of the problems with the action plan was that it was only interested in bums on seats-type programmes as opposed to audience segmentation. There are all kinds of different people who have all kinds of different views and opinions. How do you create bespoke programmes for different audiences? You cannot just go, “Let’s all have a programme together. Despite all our very diverse views and opinions and grievances, we’re all going to sit together and have a nice cup of tea and think the world is wonderful.” It is just not going to work. Again, there was that kind of mentality which, to a certain degree, I think Louise Casey raised in her 2016 review, where she said something like, “You have these integration programmes of sari, samosas, and steel drums for the well-intended and the well-intentioned.” Six years on, after having done my review, I felt there was still that sense of, “Let’s sit down and talk about the things we agree on, rather than actually really getting down to the nitty-gritty of what do we disagree on.” When you live in a diverse democracy, tensions are inevitable; you will have conflicts. The role of social cohesion is then to address how you overcome those tensions so that we are able to live well together and celebrate our plural democracy. For me, the action plan did not address a lot of the things. It certainly did not address threats to social cohesion, again, leaving local authorities in the dark about how to address these contemporary threats that they are having to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

I want to take you back just briefly to what factors can make some areas more prone to unrest than others, including the riots that we saw in the summer. In Wales—I am a Welsh MP—we did not have any riots. Obviously, I am really pleased about that, but do we know if there is any reason for that?

It is fascinating because I was speaking to colleagues in Luton and we had this discussion. I do not know, Chair, whether you have views on this, but, again, it was this idea that maybe Luton will have riots because there has been a long standing concern around Islamist and far-right extremism in the area, but Luton did not have riots. I know that it does a lot of good work around social cohesion and bringing different communities together and that does play a very important role, actually. It is very hard for me to tell you definitely what those factors are. I was speaking to some senior police officers from Birmingham who were saying, “Look, we didn’t have any major riots during the summer either.” But then I pointed out to them, “Yes, but if you remember the Leicester riots between the Hindu and Muslim communities back in September 2022, some of that did happen in Birmingham.” Again, for me, that is a social cohesion challenge as well, where you have a breakdown of relationship between Hindu and Muslim communities which started in Leicester, but it did happen in Birmingham. So, what is the reasoning around that, then? You did not have riots during the summer, but you did have disturbances, clashes and violence when it came to a breakdown of relationship between Muslim and Hindu communities. Again, you can measure social cohesion in one way, but then you can measure it another way and it shows that, actually, it has broken down in a particular way and among a particular group of people. This is where we need to do so much more research around those factors. Instinctively, my view would be: if you have areas that have high levels of trust and engagement with local government; if people feel they are being listened to; if you are running programmes where people do not hold suspicion of each other and are mixing with each other; if you address those wider grievances and concerns; those kinds of factors are important and you are able to measure resilience. How do you measure societal resilience to some of these issues? That is really important as well. So, it is about understanding the facts, but it is also measuring the level of resilience that people have in an area which, again, we are not doing enough of and the UK Government Resilience Framework certainly does not measure that at present.

Yes, it did not happen in Luton. It is obviously an area where people would focus their attention, given who the clashes were between in the summer riots, but it was not an accident that it did not happen in Luton. We need to explore places where we think it could have happened and it did not and the reasons for that, because there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure it does not.

I completely agree with you on that, and one thing I would say is that in the five areas that received funding through the Integrated Communities Action Plan, the Belong Network did a piece of research during the pandemic where it showed that those areas that had invested in social cohesion fared much better than other areas that did not invest in social cohesion. It found that those five areas had higher levels of trust with local and national Government. There were higher levels of volunteering, and higher levels of civic engagement. That was a very important piece of research that actually demonstrated that when you invest in social cohesion, the outcomes are positive, and there is data that demonstrates that.

You have referred to social cohesion a lot. Is there a difference between social cohesion and community cohesion, or is there a reason for using that term over the other?

This has been a debate over the last 20 years. If I am honest, some of this is academic jargon, because a lot of people who use the phrase “community cohesion” are actually talking about social cohesion. For me, when we talk about community cohesion, I would suggest it is much more at a local level. When I was doing the review, I wanted to talk about social cohesion in a much broader sense. My review very much focused on it, and it took on the work of the academics—Bottoni from 2018, and Chan from 2016—where they talk about the interactions at a horizontal and a vertical level. At a horizontal level I mean our interactions between individuals, different groups, different communities, and intra-group relationships as well. At a vertical level, I mean the relationship between the state and individuals. That, for me looking at social cohesion is slightly broader because with community cohesion you can end up just looking at a very narrow set of things where it is just the relationship perhaps between different groups of people at a local level. I personally prefer social cohesion; it is a much broader and helpful use of language in talking about it. What I would say is that the Government do not have an agreed definition of social cohesion, and that was one of the challenges that I found. When I was going round speaking to practitioners and local authorities, when I asked them what they understood by social cohesion they would give me very different answers and views where some would go really, really broad and then some would go really, really narrow. That is also part of the problem from a policy perspective because if everyone has a slightly different view on what they understand to be social cohesion, how are you going to measure it because you all have a slightly different view? So, you need that kind of consensus from Government saying, “This is what we understand by social cohesion and this is, therefore, how we’re going to measure it.”

That is really helpful, thank you.

You have mentioned contemporary threats and so this quite naturally moves us to our next question: to what extent is the dissemination of misinformation and conspiracy theories a threat to community, social cohesion and civic engagement?

Oh, where to start? It is a really huge threat. Conspiracy theories and disinformation is not anything new; we all know that. The challenge is the scale, the speed, and the reach of people that disinformation and conspiracies spread; it is just unprecedented. Just taking the summer riots as an example: two hours after the horrific murders that we saw in Southport, one Twitter—X—channel started putting out a whole load of disinformation saying the attacker was an illegal immigrant, which was clearly not true. That single tweet alone had 4 million impressions. Within six hours on Telegram, another channel called Southport Wake Up amassed 14,000 followers, again, spreading disinformation, spreading conspiracy theories. It was sharing addresses of hotels where asylum seekers were staying, locations of mosques, and putting out guides on how to carry out arson attacks. We also saw the spread of disinformation internationally. There were international activists online spreading that disinformation as well as domestic actors. A lot of this is also happening offline as well; it is not just happening online. It is the scale and speed of that that is really, really concerning and it is designed to undermine social cohesion in a way that is incredibly frightening. Again, all the local areas that I spoke to, as I said earlier, raised their concerns around conspiracy theories, around disinformation, and were able to demonstrate quite clearly the real-world harm, or the offline harm, it was having. There is this kind of narrative out there where we think that if it is online, it does not have any real-world harm, and it does. That view has to be completely dismantled because it is just nonsense; it clearly does have real-world harm. If you look at the data around conspiracy theories, people who subscribe to it are more likely to have distrust of Government. It then becomes a kind of cycle where the more you believe in those conspiracy theories, many of which are anti-establishment and promoting distrust, it makes you further believe in that. It is a real challenge and, to be very frank, when I was speaking to senior officials, they said the Government do not know how to respond to conspiracy theories and disinformation. Then, it is a real challenge when local authorities are saying, “What are we supposed to do? We don’t know how to deal with it.”

That leads me quite nicely on to a supplementary question, and you may or may not have the answer because if we had the answer, it would feel like a silver bullet: what strategies can be employed to dismantle online echo chambers that propagate the extremist beliefs and to de-radicalise individuals drawn into them? We are seeing this thing sucking in people who want to believe that, so how can we intercept?

That has become a lot harder now that Facebook, as one platform, has got rid of its fact-checkers and where Mark Zuckerberg openly said that that it is going to result in more bad stuff happening. That has become even more challenging, actually. There is some research happening that is looking at how to employ counter-narratives as a way to challenge online disinformation and conspiracy theories. There is research happening which is looking at who is the right messenger. For example, there is quite a big consensus of, “Look, if Government start putting out counter-narratives, they are probably not the right messenger,” because people are going to say, “Well, it’s the Government, isn’t it? Why should we trust anything they say?” Again, ensuring you have the right messenger is quite important. There is some good research around media literacy in ensuring they are able to counter conspiracy theories and disinformation. The issue of media, though, is really challenging because local media journalism has been completely dismantled and, actually, a lot of the research shows that local journalism was really important in countering disinformation and conspiracy theories, and helping people to engage and hold local officials to account, for example, and to report on what is happening in court cases in an open way. That has just been decimated at a local level, so there are concerns there. Obviously, educational programmes within schools are really important to teach children critical thinking skills. If you are asking me specifically about the wider online challenge, we are going to have to think much more radically about how we tackle that. I have seen some really promising work around promoting counter-narratives online, but the challenge is: how do you get western Governments to start thinking about addressing this in a way that is meaningful? At the moment it is just not really happening. There is no strategic policy to deal with that. It would be great to see the Online Safety Act 2023 and Ofcom holding the social media platforms to account, but it is going to struggle with disinformation and misinformation quite significantly. If I am being honest, I don’t know how much Ofcom will be able to challenge some of that.

It’s fine; we all scratch our heads too, but hopefully brilliant minds will come up with an answer because we have to find one. On a slightly different topic but very much related, do you think the rise of incel culture and misogynistic influence is having an impact on communities?

I am glad you asked that question because we have to be under no illusion that the incel subculture and the male supremacist mindset has been growing for a number of years. Four years ago, when I was the Commissioner for Countering Extremism, I wrote a report highlighting my concern about incel extremism. I used the E word very deliberately because there is so much information available online where incel activists are spreading the most awful propaganda about how it is justified to rape, murder and kill women. I am not talking about—I hate this phrase—everyday sexism. I am talking about horrendous acts of violence and justifying rape and violence against women. The Centre for Countering Digital Hate did a really good report where it looked at just one popular incel forum and found that 29 minutes was the average time the issue of rape was discussed. This was a forum that had 17,000 members. Unfortunately, we know that more and more young men in this country, particularly in the 16 to 24 age bracket, are increasingly subscribing to male supremacist views. I think it is something like 45% of young men between the ages of 16 and 24 have a very positive view of Andrew Tate. Just before Christmas last year I spoke to a number of senior counter-terrorism and policing experts from some of the Five Eyes countries and they all raised concerns about the growing threat of incel extremism; all of them. I remember speaking to one woman who had been a senior police officer for about 40 years and she said when she started in the police back in the 1980s, she obviously experienced a certain level of misogyny in everyday life. She said what she sees today is on a scale she has never seen before in terms of the absolute violence justified against women and that they are seeing more and more young men supporting those views. It is incredibly concerning. Again, whether the Home Office views incel as extremism or not is something it needs to clarify, but it is certainly something I wrote about four years ago and argued that it should be dealt with as part of any counter-extremism or counter-terrorism strategy.

What is your assessment of the effectiveness of Prevent in tackling extremism, and in what ways can Prevent be improved to be more effective in preventing the radicalisation of young people?

It is really important that we understand what Prevent is and what it is not because there is a lot of confusion. Prevent is part of the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy. It is often reported as being part of counter-extremism efforts. It is not; it is part of the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy, which is very different to having a counter-extremism approach. We did have a counter-extremism strategy separate to Prevent back in 2015. When David Cameron was Prime Minister, he launched the first ever CEE strategy which basically dealt with extremism that fell below the terrorism threshold. CONTEST, which is the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy and includes Prevent, deals with terrorism, but where extremism fell below the terrorism threshold, that is where the counter-extremism strategy came in. That strategy was then scrapped by the Government in 2021. So, right now there is no counter-extremism strategy to deal with extremism that falls below the terrorism threshold. That can include, by the way, far-right extremists and Islamist extremists. In one of my previous reports, I wrote about organisations like Combat 18, which is a neo-Nazi organisation. That talks about weeding out Jews from Government, about the final solution as part of its founding aims, all kinds of horrific things where you have neo-Nazi organisations promoting the same ideology, same narrative, same conspiracy theories as proscribed neo-Nazi groups but, because they do not encourage terrorism, they are lawful in this country and they are able to propagate their propaganda, recruit young people to their cause, and radicalise young people. First and foremost, it is really important to understand thresholds. So, below the terrorism Prevent threshold, you have a massive challenge of hateful extremism for which there is no framework; we do not know the scale of it. There is no strategy to deal with it; it is a massive problem. On the issue of Prevent, there are a number of challenges with it. One of the things I am most concerned about, and you raised it, is youth radicalisation. For Ken McCallum, the Director General of MI5, to say in October that in the last three years alone we have seen a threefold increase of young people under the age of 18 being investigated for terrorism is shocking. This is despite the fact that since 2015, so for the last 10 years, we have had the Prevent duty where the Government have been actively working with schools. The Department of Education has been working with schools to teach British values, to have this duty to report young people if they are being radicalised. You have all that extensive work happening. Yet despite that, you are seeing a massive rise in youth radicalisation. The question to the Home Office, effectively, is: why has this happened when your whole job is, as it says on the tin, to prevent this from happening? However, the figures are showing something quite different. So that is something that I am quite concerned about in relation to Prevent’s efficacy. The other concern, of course—which has been discussed a lot in the press and I do not know how much you want me to go into this—is when people have been referred to Prevent, like the Southport murderer, like Callum Parslow, a neo-Nazi who was convicted for carrying out an attempted stabbing of an asylum seeker, but who also had a history of stalking women and girls and was convicted for that. These were individuals who had been referred to Prevent, but did not get through into Channel. They did not receive any Channel support, so in effect they fell through the net and, because there is no other system in place to deal with those individuals, they were just allowed to wander around on our streets and do what they want to do.

Did they fall through the net because it is extremism, and not terrorism?

It fell through the net because it did not meet the very high threshold of terrorism, which is what it needs to be for a referral. Again, if you look at the definition of radicalisation that the Home Office uses, it is a very narrow definition where it says it is people who are interested in the use of terrorist violence. So, it is not extremist violence; it is terrorist violence. They fell through the gap because they did not meet that very high threshold. Even if you hold mass violence views, it does not necessarily mean you are going to do it. If it is not a terrorism concern, it does not mean you will necessarily get Channel support. As there is no other counter-extremism approach, they will just fall through the net. I remember when I was at the Commission, I had constant numbers of schools saying to me, “We’ve got so many young kids who are displaying extremist views. We’ve referred them to Prevent, but because it’s not meeting the high threshold for terrorism, the Home Office has said there is nothing it can do.” But then, “You know that this is the case, so what are you going to do about it?” And then we seem surprised that we are now hearing that there is a threefold increase in the last three years of youth radicalisation. So, there is a whole range of problems with Prevent, which we could spend all day talking about, but those are some of my biggest concerns about it.

I am just going to ask a quick question about Prevent specifically and then come to David. When it comes to those thresholds, would you say that they are not at the right level at the moment to be effective? Are there certain groups of young people who are being targeted more than others because of the threshold?

Answering your second question first: it just cuts across the board. I see young people being radicalised from all kinds of different groups. I see neo-fascist groups specifically targeting young people. I see Islamist groups in this country deliberately targeting young people and seeking to radicalise them. Then, obviously, you have young people growing up who are being exposed to violence online. There was a poll that showed 73% of 16 to 24-year-olds have all viewed terrorist, extremist, or extreme violent content online. Unfortunately, this is becoming part of their norm. You are seeing almost a thirst for violence—not necessarily terrorism, but a thirst for violence, where the young people are self-radicalising in their own bedrooms. So it cuts across the board, but it is really important to understand that extremists have always targeted young people. It is a key part of their tactics; they have always done this because how do you make sure that your message continues down through the generations? They always target young people, so that is something that is important to bear in mind. I cannot quite remember the question on thresholds.

Whether the thresholds are in the right place, basically. Are they currently too high to be effective for Prevent?

Again, it depends what threat you are wanting to address and, therefore, which thresholds. I will give you an example: I always hear the security Minister say that the Islamist threat is the greatest threat in this country—he said it last Tuesday in the House of Commons. My first question to him would be, “But which threat are you talking about? If you are talking about the terrorist threat, absolutely right.” There is no doubt, and MI5 have made it clear that around 70% to 75% of their workload is dealing with the Islamist terrorist threat. However, if you are asking me if the threat is what I call a hateful extremist threat, then we do not know what that threat picture looks like because no one has collected data on it, which is something I have argued for a long time. I do not think it would be the Islamist extremism challenge just in terms of demographics. I think Muslims make up something like 3.5% to 4% of the population. There is a real significant far-right hateful extremism threat that we are not dealing with effectively, and then a whole range of other challenges as well. Again, it depends on which threat you are talking about, because once you understand what threat you are talking about, then you can start talking about thresholds. If you want to deal with extremism that falls below the terrorism threshold where evidence has shown a lot of these extremist groups are not engaged in terrorism, what other harms are they causing? They are contributing to an erosion of social cohesion; they are actively promoting the denigration of certain groups of people they despise, whether it is women, gay people, Muslims or Jews, for example. That is a completely different challenge. We know that in some cases extremism contributes to a rise in hate crime, but we do not know the scale of that. So it depends what threat picture you are looking at and then where the thresholds are. With Prevent, it should probably be focused on dealing with terrorism, but then there is a question of what you do around dealing with, for example, Rudakubana. Or other individuals who may not necessarily hold an ideological viewpoint, which has always been a fundamental part in describing terrorism, but have some other kind of extreme, or mass violence. My own view is that the Channel scheme should be broadened to capture all these different types of people: extremists that fall below the terrorism threshold that need intervention and support, and individuals who have some perverse fascination with mass violence and terrorism concerns. What you should do is broaden Channel and have a triage system where you then funnel them through the right scheme where CT policing will deal with those individuals who have terrorism concerns and so forth because they will require different approaches. So, Channel needs to be expanded. Whether it should be part of Prevent is another question, because again, if Prevent is about counter-terrorism, it feels like you need to create a separate safeguarding scheme that deals with all these other issues and then that ensures no one is falling through the gap.

I am really glad that you used the phrase safeguarding schemes there because these are children.

Yes.

As you say, they are being targeted and it is really shocking to hear that there are certain groups that are just completely falling through the net on that. David?

In addition to what I have said, I would say you cannot expect a counter-terrorism strategy to fix what are also societal problems. People do not wake up one morning and then decide they are going to carry out acts of terrorism; it is not what happens. I have always seen it as three related areas: you have counter-terrorism work, you have counter-extremism work, and you have social cohesion work, and they are all joined up. I remember when I was at the Commission, I used to have a lot of meetings with people inside the security intelligences or with counter-terrorism policing, and they would always talk to me, funnily enough, about social cohesion; they would not actually talk to me about terrorism. They would talk to me about social cohesion because, from an operational perspective, they understood how and why social cohesion matters in that. It is literally: Prevent, social cohesion. It is that early intervention work where you are building resilience, where you are addressing concerns that people may have, whether they hold extreme views about women or about other groups of people. You have to build that social cohesion approach; you also have to have a counter-extremism approach; and they cannot be siloed off either, but often they are. You must have a much greater joined-up approach which, again, is just one of the problems inside Whitehall; everything is disjointed. The Home Office might do a counter-extremism strategy, MHCLD might do a cohesion strategy, but it is just done in a disjointed way. Sometimes I feel over the last couple of years that successive Governments have just been so focused on Prevent and counter-terrorism, without just stepping back and saying, “Hang on a minute, we also have to bolster our social cohesion effort. We also have to ensure that we have an effective approach dealing with counter-extremism more broadly to ensure that we are able to live together well and deal with those tensions that inevitably are going to emerge.”

I apologise that I was late to this sitting, and thank you for your time. How do you think public figures such as politicians can best use their platforms to promote social cohesion?

This has been an issue that has been raised consistently in terms of the last 20 years’ worth of reports. It was something that I raised in my review because it was an issue that was raised all the time when I went up and down the country. I do not need to say to you here that politicians have the ability to bring people together; but at the same time they have the ability to divide people. They have the ability to use language that brings people together; they have the ability to use language that divides and polarises people. That is the reality. At the end of my review, I came to the view that there is an inherently uneasy and difficult relationship between politicians and social cohesion. It is not easy to talk about it, but I have seen with my own eyes examples of fantastic efforts by Members of Parliament and local councillors who were willing to stand up and address bad-faith actors or even extremists in their own area—certain community leaders who have no interest in social cohesion—and to say, “No, that’s not acceptable; that’s not right,” even if it meant that they were going to experience abuse and backlash, which they did. I was really impressed and recognised how difficult that was. But at the same time I also saw examples of parliamentarians, councillors and others who were just in complete denial, or they were more concerned about winning the votes of their constituents, particularly as they were heading towards a general election. I am the first to say that that puts Members of Parliament in a really difficult situation, but from a social cohesion perspective, how do you tackle that? It is a real, difficult challenge, and I do not know whether I have the answer to that. You only need to look at statistics around how the British public are increasingly losing trust in politicians. They feel that politicians are using culture wars to deliberately divide and politicise issues in a way that is not helpful. Again, leadership really matters. At the heart of social cohesion, a lot of this is about leadership. If people are not willing to stand up and challenge extreme views or really inciteful, hateful views, believe you me, from what I have seen over the years, extremists will come and fill that void and spread their own narratives and exploit local tensions. So that leadership is really important, but I do not necessarily have the answer to that. I spoke to a whole range of different people, but it is a challenge, and there is something about how you hold politicians to account and their ability to engage. I suspect it is more to do with a local level where constituents are much more engaged and they are able to hold their politicians to account. I would like to see more cohesion panels where parliamentarians and councillors are able to be held to account. Things like that are really important, but it is a real difficult challenge because I have seen first hand how Members of Parliament and even Cabinet Ministers have used language and behaved in a way that has absolutely legitimised the language of extremists.

We have seen an increase in those deliberate culture wars entered into by politicians, whether that is targeted at certain communities or at trans people. Do you think that directly leads to hate crime?

I have been to certain parts of the country where local police forces have told me that they have seen a correlation between the language that politicians have used and a rise in hate crime. The particular target group that the politicians had been talking about resulted in a rise in hate crime against them literally a few days later. The statistics themselves demonstrate that, so there is a correlation.

How do you think the Government should respond to those prominent figures using their social media platforms to purposefully destabilise social cohesion or destabilise community relations in this country?

It is very important that political parties themselves have rules about how they expect their candidates, their Members of Parliament, to behave and that they set a very clear standard. There are the seven Nolan Principles, although I have always thought there should be an eighth around politicians ensuring that they are upholding democratic rights and freedoms, which obviously includes non-discrimination—ensuring that you do not undermine the rights and freedoms of other people or engage in language that does that, but in a way that does not curtail legitimate freedom of expression.

I just want to dig a little further on that, if I can. There are now elements within the political mainstream, who we work alongside, who would pride themselves on having to be held to those principles and not meeting them. As you said, it is because they feed off a mistrust that people have of Government and democracy at the moment. This is about how you get that balance right. If it is left up to parties—possibly we do not have any input in that; there is not a say on that.

Yes.

How do we make sure that there is some independence in that? The ICGS is very much about complaints of behaviour rather than standards of conduct, in protecting democracy. Do you see a space for something like that?

There probably has to be, and again, I genuinely struggle: I do not have an answer. It requires a lot of thinking around this; where politicians are held to account for what they do and do not do, particularly when it is about denigrating a particular group of people or the language that they are using. The challenge is that sometimes it is very hard to prove. So if somebody says something about one particular ethnic group, you may not see the consequences of that until maybe five or six months’ time, when somebody maybe was inspired by what that particular individual said and then decided to go and stab somebody. It is really hard to prove correlation or even causation. It is very difficult, and that is why it is just so complicated. Having spoken to the former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, this was something that certainly concerned him too, and it just feels to me that this needs to be looked at more closely. It is a matter of priority. When I have seen politicians engage in almost conspiratorial narratives, arguing that there are cover-ups, all they are doing is just undermining democracy and feeding this distrust. It might be a short political gain for them, but like I said, they are just feeding into this really dangerous wider climate of distrust and disillusionment with democracy, and that is really concerning. Obviously I talked about leadership, but another point I would make is that one of the bigger difficulties now than when Louise Casey wrote her review back in 2016, for example, is that in this climate of freedom-restricting harassment I have spoken about. Nobody wants to put themselves out there. They know they are going to get death threats and abuse. I have spoken to a number of Parliamentarians who said, “Look, if I say the right thing and do the right thing, I am going to be hounded and get loads of death threats.” I spoke to councillors, and one told me that she receives thousands of death threats; another told me that she makes her two-year-old daughter sleep by a fireproof blanket: that is the state of discourse in our country today. I have a lot of sympathy with that. If Parliamentarians want to do the right thing, even if they clearly want to say the right thing in terms of upholding social cohesion, the climate in our country today makes it very difficult for them to do that. What cost are we expecting Parliamentarians and others in public life to bear? I spent a lot of time talking about freedom-restricting harassment in the report because I could see how it is poisoning the lifeblood of our democracy.

Have you had any involvement with the Modernisation Committee at all, and have you been invited in to give your views on this?

No.

That might be a good recommendation. Coming to Kirith now.

You have talked a little about thresholds, particularly around extremism and the Prevent programme. I want to know what your assessment is of the current definition of extremism.

The 2024 definition of extremism, which was published in March last year, is definitely better than the 2015 definition. I did a public consultation in 2019 when I asked the public their views about the then definition, the 2015 one, and there was no support for it at all—something like 75% of people did not find that definition helpful. It was great for a politician to stand behind a lectern and say that extremism is XYZ, but actually it was not helpful from an operational perspective. The new definition that the previous Government put forward is much better—it is much tighter—but it has not had the chance to be implemented properly because obviously we had the general election. It is important to ask the question, “Look, what is the ultimate purpose of a definition? You have a definition now—what did the then Government plan to use it for?” I do not think that plan had necessarily yet been developed, or if it had it was not made public. So again, it is a lot better and it tries to show that you can protect freedom of expression, but that is just a small part of a wider counter-extremism approach that is needed.

How important do you think it is for the Government to commit to defining Islamophobia or anti-Muslim hatred and prejudice?

I suppose it goes back to this point of asking what the purpose of defining it is. Having clarity about what is and what is not anti-Muslim hatred is important. We are seeing, and have seen over the years, a normalisation of anti-Muslim hatred attitudes in this country from all different age ranges. That is really concerning. You only need to go online to see how horrendous and awful it is, including the levels of abuse that Muslims in public life and others experience. I have seen how anti-Muslim tropes are used very blatantly and obviously, including by politicians—“Tick, tick, tick,”; those are definitely anti-Muslim tropes—and then go, “Oh, it’s not anti-Muslim,” when it clearly is. So there is a confusion around that. But at the same time I have seen others who will exploit the language of Islamophobia to shut down legitimate debate. So some people will say, “Oh, look, we want to talk about Islamist extremism,” and others will argue, “Oh, you cannot talk about that because you’re an Islamophobe.” Talking and countering Islamist extremism is a legitimate policy area, and you can see how it gets used and abused. I am from a Muslim background, I have done work speaking about countering Islamist extremism. I have lost count of the number of times I have been labelled an Islamophobe, ironically. So again, this discussion is very important. But just to be very clear, we cannot fall under this pretence that all the problems are going to be fixed by having some kind of definition. We have had the IHRA definition of antisemitism for a good couple of years and that has been adopted by a lot of universities, institutions and local authorities, but the scale of antisemitism now is really concerning. So just having a definition is not going to fix the problem; enabling us to clarify what is and what is not anti-Muslim hatred is definitely needed.

I just have a quick question about the response to the summer riots. Have you met with the new Government to discuss your review and what happened during the summer riots at all?

No.

Is that planned for the future at all?

I have not been contacted by any senior officials or any Minister from MHCLG to discuss the review.

How good you think the Government are at identifying and mitigating potential risks to community cohesion?

Not good at all, and the summer riots highlighted that very clearly. I, for one, was not shocked at all by the riots that we saw over the summer. I have written some case studies that I used for the review, but there are smaller but very similar case examples that we have seen happen across the country for a number of years—so, places such as Sunderland and Barrow-in-Furness, as well as other places where tensions have emerged for whatever reason. There have been a whole range of disturbances and protests, you have seen disinformation being propagated, you have seen the involvement of extremist actors. The fact that Whitehall was in effect on the back foot of the summer riots just shows you that it did not have an early warning system. It should have done that kind of preventative work at a much earlier stage to really identify those challenges; to be able to have monitored and picked up on those tensions and done something about it. So that system is not there and the Government are not very good at detecting early warning signs, which by now they really should be able to do. From my perspective it is just unacceptable that they have not developed an approach. They could do that quite easily but they have not, and I am afraid that is why they are now on the back foot.

Do you think mechanisms such as the national resilience framework, the National Risk Register and Defending Democracy Taskforce can be utilised to help identify and address threats to community cohesion?

That is a difficult question. My instinct is that that is where you think it should sit because you have that infrastructure inside Whitehall and inside Cabinet Office. But if you look at the National Risk Register—I noticed that the Government updated and published the latest version in January—the risks that they look at are at a particular threshold: cyber-security threats, terrorism, foreign state interference and threats to infrastructure. These are incredibly important and there is a lot of work that needs to be done at that level. So that is the level that they are looking at, but these kinds of threats to social cohesion, even if done by foreign state actors, which they often are, will not be addressed via the National Risk Register or the national resilience framework. If you have threats to our democratic way of life—threats to our institutions or you are seeing a decline in democratic resilience in our country and a weakening of democratic resilience—that is not addressed by the national resilience framework or by the Defending Democracy Task Force; they have very narrow remits of looking at foreign interference to Parliamentary elections and so forth. So it does not get caught by that but then that is probably right because their threshold is high. What probably needs to happen is you need to now develop a similar framework sitting inside Cabinet Office where the remit is to look at strengthening social cohesion, pushing back against contemporary social threats like conspiracy theories and disinformation and building democratic resilience, which we know is worsening. That is a different problem to dealing with the challenges that the National Security Secretariat is dealing with, but we do not have that. When I spoke to the National Security Secretariat and the Cabinet Office they were saying, “Look, we don’t deal with it because we believe and assume that the Home Office and MHCLG are dealing with it.” But when I looked at their work they were not dealing with it, so it is a clear gap in the system.

Is that the gap that you think could be filled with an office of social cohesion and democratic resilience that you have talked about? Is that where you see that fitting in?

It could be done in two ways: you either outsource it to an independent body like the OSCDR that I suggested or, if Government are not keen on that, they could build an approach and a directorate inside Cabinet Office that could build up this kind of comprehensive assessment framework and analytical capability. So there are two options, but something has to be done. The current status quo is just untenable.

I apologise for being late. You have talked about the need for a social cohesion and democratic resilience body and a strategy and action plan. Have you had any indication at all as to whether such a strategy is forthcoming or is being considered?

I am a bit in the dark because I have not had any response to my review and, as I said earlier, I have not had any meetings. I have heard that MHCLG are working on a cohesion strategy of some kind, but I have no idea how broad or narrow it is. I am afraid that is a question you will have to put to them.

If it is forthcoming, what would you say would be the key aspects of a strategy?

It would be what I have outlined in the report. I said that it should have three main objectives: to promote and protect social cohesion, with active attempts to promote and protect democratic freedoms when they are under threat; to identify, pre-empt and prevent threats to social cohesion which are seeking to erode and undermine social cohesion; and then to respond, recover and to repair relationships as well. I put forward seven priorities which are quite encompassing. That is what I would hope to see. There is obviously a certain amount of work that needs to be done in terms of regeneration such as housing, for example. All these bread and butter issues of social cohesion are really important. There is work being done on looking at things around that—I suppose that was what part of the levelling-up strategy approach was—which is very important because they are all linked. Looking at that kind of wider improving socioeconomic factors, regeneration and all these important issues, looking at how you improve social cohesion more generally between groups of people, and improving democratic resilience but also having to deal with threats—for me, these are the key aspects. The challenge we have is that, even if you do all this fantastic, great social cohesion work, it can just go to pass if you are not dealing with the threats, as I saw first-hand in my visits across the country. Those threats are so serious, like with Oldham even, that you can put all that great effort in, but it comes to a point where it is just not having the desired effect. Those threats are posing such a serious risk and danger that they undermine social cohesion as a whole.

From everything you are saying, I am hearing that even if we are aware of where social cohesion is breaking down and the problems, we are not recognising our own role in that, if you like. Politicians are continuing to undermine democracy, not just by the culture wars but by the way we speak to each other and the attitudes we take. In some ways are we actually making the situation worse?

As in, politicians are making it worse?

Yes.

It is quite difficult to answer that question in a room full of politicians.

It is all right, we are used to it.

The answer to that is yes, and I am quite open about that in the review. I am certainly not the first to have said that, and I definitely will not be the last. I suppose it comes back to this question of, how do you hold politicians to account? It feels like it is one of those things where we do take our democracy for granted; it is a precious asset and it is also very fragile. You need constant vigilance to protect our plural democracy and to ensure that we can protect it. It feels like we take it for granted and I do not think you can ever take it for granted, particularly in this day and age. It is something that does require protection and the role of politicians is absolutely crucial in that regard. There needs to be much more public and political discourse about this chronic trend of democratic decline in our country. What is our country going to look like in five, 10 years’ time? To be honest, this is one of the things that genuinely gives me sleepless nights. I really worry about the state of our country. If you look at the global trends that we are seeing, global migration is not going to go away anytime soon because of global instability, that is a massive concern for people in this country, and obviously there is the economic crisis. Everything is on a downward trend in terms of disillusionment with democracy and distrust. One of the things that struck me after the summer riots was how we reached a point where we were discussing whether we needed to get the Army out on to the streets. I know that is a broad jump to make, it seems quite far-fetched and people may be laughing at me, but for me there comes a point where, if that social contract breaks down, if no one trusts, believes or listens to the organs of state, the Government’s ability to control and run the country becomes a difficult challenge. That is something we need to have much greater public and political debate about.

You have basically summed up why we are holding this inquiry, so thank you.

I know there is no silver bullet, Sara.

I wish there was.

Obviously we would all have done it if there was, but you mentioned democratic decline and mistrust several times. What do you think about votes for 16 and 17-year-olds? Do you think that could help? We have extended the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds in Wales in the last few years and it is something the current Government have said they are going to do. Do you think that could help with the democratic decline and getting people more involved from a younger age? How about making it a legal obligation to vote like in Australia? Could that help?

The age issue is a very difficult topic but my instinct is to probably say yes, in the context that we should introduce children to democracy much earlier. I know children are taught about it through British values but it needs to be something that is much more embedded in the national curriculum, where we really talk about what it means to live in a plural democracy, why democracy matters, why we are different to authoritarian states and why we care so much about living in a democratic society. So the two have to go hand in hand. If you want 16 and 17-year-olds to vote, the introduction of talking about the importance of democracy has to go together, so young people then feel more empowered in understanding the democratic process and why voting matters, and have a more informed view about some policy areas and the challenges that they will see and have to deal with. A legal obligation to vote is a very difficult one. Instinctively, I would probably say no, just because individual liberty is a very important aspect of our country. If we reach a stage where we are forcing people to vote, I kind of feel like we have lost the debate already. You want people to vote because they know their vote matters. If they have reached a point where they feel their vote does not make a difference and it does not matter, that is where the problem is. It is not about forcing them to vote, we should be making sure that people feel so engaged and so passionate about their country and how they want their country to be, that they will go out and vote. We do not need to force them to vote, they will go out and vote because they care enough. So my instinct is probably not to have a legal obligation to vote.

I just want to come back to the office for social cohesion and democratic resilience that you have proposed. Did you get pushback from Government on this at all, or have you had any response?

There is always some kind of pushback if anybody suggests an independent body or an arm’s-length body. But again, I published my report and two months later it was the election so we did not have that much conversation. What I would say to the Government is that one of the reasons I suggested this office was because, as I said earlier, having worked with five Secretaries of State when I was doing the review at MHCLG, I saw first-hand how political interest sways and how entire programmes can be disrupted because of other crises or other issues. You can see how social cohesion will just fall off the agenda whereas if there was an office with a mandate, it does not matter what the political winds are or issues or crises that are happening, it will continue its work. It will produce that framework, continue measuring social cohesion, keep on producing a yearly report of the state of social cohesion and democratic resilience and continue the research and building on what works to improve tensions or to counter conspiracy theories. That work has to continue but I just fear that if you leave it inside MHCLG, dependent on which Minister is in charge, it could just fall off the bandwagon. It is too serious an issue to not outsource it so that particular office has the mandate and can demonstrate and keep progress moving on social cohesion, and help to institutionalise it, in effect, in a way that we have not been able to do so to date.

I want to move on to your work on freedom-restricting harassment. Could you just give a really brief summary or definition for those in the audience and at home who are not aware of what that means?

I came up with this definition, and believe you me, it was not easy coming up with three words like that; we had all kinds of strange wordings. There is a phenomenon in our country where people are experiencing severe levels of harassment, abuse and intimidation, resulting in them censoring themselves. We have obviously talked a lot about how Parliamentarians first and foremost are experiencing this in the public domain, but actually this is a much wider phenomenon that is affecting all aspects of society. We can talk about that, but from a definitional point of view I described it as when people experience or witness threatening, abusive, intimidatory harassment online and/or offline, which is intended to make people or institutions self-censor out of fear. So, it is not just looking at harassment or self-censorship on its own, it is how people are being targeted for and experiencing harassment, which is then leading them to self-censor in a whole variety of different ways. That phenomenon is something that is not really being captured by existing harassment legislation, but it is very much about bringing those two phenomenon together.

In your opinion, how does that particular thing directly impact social cohesion?

It affects social cohesion in a number of different ways, as I showed in the report: it is an attack on parliamentary business, forcing parliamentarians to think about whether they should vote or work in a certain way. This in effect restricts the ability of parliamentarians to work as freely as they have been given the mandate to do. It is affecting journalism and the free press in this country. If seven out of 10 journalists are too scared to report on certain stories because they fear harassment and abuse, that is an attack that is poisoning the lifeblood of our free press. If you have nine out of 10 councillors telling you that they have experienced harassment, abuse and threats; 27% are saying they are unwilling to take office again and 68% of those 27% are saying it is because of the abuse that they are experiencing, that is going to curtail the diversity of councillors that we have in this country. They feel too frightened to take part in public life. I spoke to NGOs who told me that they are experiencing freedom-restricting harassment where they have to change their routes to work; where they and their staff members have experienced death threats; where people are leaving that area of work because of freedom-restricting harassment. So, it is affecting civic society and we know civic society is a very fundamental part of our democratic society. If you have 80% of the arts sector saying that they are being ostracised because of the work that they put out; 45% then saying they experience harassment, abuse and threats; then 44% of that 45%—so almost all them—saying that as a result they have changed what they put out, that is affecting the arts and culture sector. Freedom-restricting harassment is affecting and poisoning every aspect of our democratic way of life. It is really insidious in that way, because it is not something acute like a terrorism act where everyone can see what is happening. It is where people are forcing themselves to self-censor because of this growing and horrendous climate of abuse and threats. One of the things I wanted to do was understand the scale of this because there were no real figures. So when we commissioned a national representative poll it showed the extent to which people are experiencing freedom-restricting harassment: 60% of the population believe it is more prevalent than five years ago; 85% of the population believe it is happening in our country; two in five, so 44%, said that they had witnessed it online but equally offline, which completely discounts this myth that this is only some kind of online phenomenon; 27% said that it had left them fearful and caused them to alter their way of life, where people have taken security measures and even left their homes or their jobs. That is a serious consideration on our so-called free society. One of the things I found most interesting was how the public felt about freedom-restricting harassment: around 7 in 10 people said that they thought it restricted their ability to live freely and it is pushing people away: not allowing them to work together, deterring people from contributing to public life and undermining social cohesion. So it has a direct correlation to social cohesion, our democratic society and how we live as a country.

You mentioned NGOs, and in section 2.4 of your report you mentioned the case of Mermaids v. the Charity Commission and LGB Alliance. Basically, they did not agree with each other and essentially one charity was trying to ban the freedom of another. You said that there was, “No legal right to be free from criticism by those who disagree with you.”

Well, the judgment said.

Yes, “Or to prevent those who hold beliefs that the law recognises as protected from expressing themselves.” What would your recommendation to those groups be, for them to be able to operate without other groups trying to ban them?

This just shows why social cohesion is so important and, by the way, freedom-restricting harassment is a much greater phenomenon than cancel culture. But this attempt to shut down legitimate activity in a democracy is just untenable. People have all kinds of views. The biological sex versus gender identity debate has been very toxic, as we all know. There has to be a space where we can talk about those things in a civilised way, where we can passionately disagree and even get angry, but as a society acknowledge that there are certain red lines. If you start threatening people and doxing and releasing people’s addresses online, you have crossed a red line. Passionate, angry debate is something that is great about living in a democracy, but it feels like those red lines are becoming increasingly blurred where we feel it is justified; we are so passionate about our beliefs that we think it is okay to dox somebody or to threaten them and make them feel frightened for their lives. Those red lines have been crossed. Yes, we can talk about the role of the police, but we need to have a wider public debate. We cannot live in a democracy if we do not respect those red lines. If I want people to respect my views, I have to respect other people’s views. It does not mean I am going to agree with you, but it has to be done in a way where we recognise and agree the consensus of what those red lines are.

I want to just bring you back to that point where you said about having good healthy debate. I would like to say that the Women and Equalities Committee was able to have a good healthy debate on puberty blockers—something that, I would say, we have not been able to have in public and political discourse for some time. We actually had a panel of experts who did not always agree, but like you say, they were able to have that discussion and that space to be able to do that in a way that was respectful and understanding, and actually we all gained greater understanding as well. When it comes to where we draw those red lines, when you said about possibly an area for independence, constraints and codes of conduct for MPs in particular, this should be a space. Is that something that you have experienced as well?

As in having the space? There is a definite demand for it. People want to be able to debate these issues and they want to feel like they can do it without worrying they are going to get death threats. This is why freedom-restricting harassment is so insidious: the greater that phenomenon grows, the more difficult it becomes to have those conversations where you are able to talk about it. If you think you are going to talk about it and people are watching online who are then going to start giving you death threats, because everyone has different levels of resilience, some people will say, “I don’t care, I’m going to talk about it,” but others will say, “I am not going to say what I have every right to talk about.” And that is what makes FRH so insidious. If you look at polling, the British public believe that we should be able to disagree on all kinds of issues but that we do it in a way that is not harmful or hateful to each other and is impeding our ability to get on well with each other. That is very clear from the polling. So how do you create that space and how do you inhibit this growing cultural phenomenon in our country where people think it is okay to engage in threatening, harassing, abusive behaviour? Just because I do not agree with your political view, or any type of view, it is okay for me to start targeting or doxing you, or inciting violence against you or your family, or trying to get you fired from your job. How do you curtail that? It is not about legislation—I personally do not think legislation can fix this. This is about us as a country and why it is so important to social cohesion.

I agree on the social cohesion part and that is not necessarily something where how we police our conversations and how we set an example is always reflected accurately in the media. So, for example, that really productive, and I would say informative, session was not always reported as such. Prime Minister’s Questions is possibly the most viewed part of politics and yet, let’s be honest, it is probably the least informative. It is the most combative and theatrical, but does it show us politicians in the best light? Perhaps where we are working cross-party as a Committee it may not be as exciting but actually could probably show us in a better light, if the media were more interested in that.

That is a fascinating point and actually, for my sins, as well as being a politician I am a former journalist. It sometimes seems to me that we have reached the point where the space is not available because what newspapers need, what the media needs, what it feeds on, is controversy. People are not interested in reading a newspaper or watching a bulletin that says, “Well, it all went fine today, nobody fell out.” So we are building this the whole time. As well as making it difficult for people to put their head above the parapet and say, “Actually, I don’t agree with that, you’re harassing these people, what you’re saying is not fair,” we are forgetting that the people we are talking about are getting the impact of seeing that everybody is fighting about them. Whether it is an ethnic minority or the LGBTQ community, all they are getting in the media is that people are lambasting each other and saying bad things about them. That must give them a feeling of being dissociated from society. Their cohesion and their feeling of belonging to a society that does not want to help them but only wants to argue about them, must be exacerbated by that, and makes the space that you are talking about much more vital.

Absolutely. When authoritarian states make it very clear that they despise freedom of expression, it is because they look at democracies and they think, “Well, this is what happens. You guys are all over the place and there is no order.” Of course we are all going to disagree with authoritarian states and what their view is, and never support their view on freedom of expression, but sometimes we act as if free speech in this country is an unqualified right and it is not. I am sure you are very aware of this: it is a qualified right and it can be restricted. Of course freedom of expression is an important aspect of democracy; you cannot have democracy without freedom of expression. But equally the reason why it has to be curtailed in certain circumstances is because free speech can also threaten democracy. I feel like we have lost that balanced discussion and view, which is very much enshrined in our own legislation. The public debate about free speech has become very polarised now. That is part of the challenge in all this: where you have some absolutists who will say, “Sorry, nothing should be censored, you can say anything and everything, people can put out whatever awful stuff online, it’s not a problem,” to other people who want to curtail everything and do not want anybody to say anything and they will call you everything under the sun if you have legitimate views. We just seem to have lost that debate around freedom of expression. It seems to me it has got worse and worse as time has gone on, and has turned itself into a bit of a culture war.

Thank you. I had some questions for the end about education in schools but I will follow up with them in writing, if that is okay?

Yes, that is fine.

Earlier you touched on the Online Safety Act and you have mentioned the police. I get death threats—I would guess more than most people here—probably at least a few a year and I then have to turn to the police, but anyone can say anything they want about wanting to kill me on social media because they do not like my views. Who is it you think ought to be responsible for that, or stopping that happening to some of the new colleagues who perhaps have yet to experience that?

I am really sorry to hear that, Rosie, and I have heard how awful the threats that you have received are. When I was doing my review I honestly lost count of the number of times people in public life, including councillors, politicians and others, would tell me they would go to the police and say, “Look, here are public forums where they’re literally threatening to kill me,” and the police’s response would be, “Yes, but it’s not being directed at you, it’s on a public forum, and under the Protection from Harassment Act we cannot do anything about it.” Or I had public figures and parliamentarians telling me that the police were actually blaming them by saying, “Well, you’ve put yourself out there in the public limelight, you should expect this,” or, “Well, this is part of free speech.” Honestly I lost count of the number of times people said that to me, which is absolute nonsense. So there seems to be confusion about the Protection from Harassment Act and malicious communications legislation; there is a lot of legislation out there. Everyone I spoke to said, “We don’t need more legislation, what we need is better training and ensuring proper implementation of training.” When there are clear-cut examples of where the police should actually be investigating people, they are not doing it and are just saying that it is either a free speech issue or whatever. So that is something I raised in the review which I find concerning. I am going to give a bone to the College of Policing who will argue that the Protection from Harassment Act talks about causing alarm, harassment and distress, but it is a very subjective view: something that somebody may consider alarming and distressful is not alarming and distressful for somebody else. So policing that line becomes quite difficult for the police, especially now when there is just so much abuse going on online. They told me it is unscalable and they cannot deal with it because there is just too much of it. So it is a real problem, but I worry that the police are not dealing with this in the way that it needs to be dealt with under existing legislation. That is why one of the recommendations I suggested was that every police force should have a safety officer whose focus is specialism on harassment legislation, who can provide adequate support for victims who felt that it was victim blaming rather than being supported and perpetrators were being allowed to get away with it. So that is one of the recommendations that I put forward that would be very helpful in providing support to victims and going after perpetrators.

Dame Sara, thank you so much for your expertise and your time on the panel today. I know that you have another appointment so I am really grateful for your time today as is the rest of the Committee, I am sure. That brings proceedings to a close.