Speeches by Atkinson.

“We have heard previously, in other decisions, about the lack of evidence base around extremism and policy approaches. What do you think the priorities should be for future research in this area, considering the current gaps that there are? What could the Home Office and Government do to support that?”

“What are the barriers to carrying out that research? You mentioned the research ethics of universities. Do you think a clear steer from the Government about intent or priority for that work would be helpful?”

“How does the Prevent threshold levels compare with those accessing safeguarding pathways: mental health support or other safeguarding pathways?”

“You have both mentioned the link between mental health and the significant waiting times for mental health services and Prevent referrals, and this is something we are going to ask of subsequent panel, but, as you mentioned it, do you think that in some cases people are being referred to Prevent as a way of shortcuttin…”

“Whatever you think of specificity of the Online Safety Act—you talked with my colleague about social media bans in terms of the Online Safety Act’s principle around putting proactive responsibilities on online content platforms of taking responsibility for the way that their algorithms and the impact that their content…”

“The issue of the previous panel and yourself, and that we have seen from the evidence that we have had, that Prevent is very clearly being used to try to shortcut waiting times in mental health services, what would you do about that? What policy changes would you suggest ensuring that Prevent is not being used as a fas…”

“Thank you. I am going to come back to the 13,000 neighbourhood policing numbers, if I may, particularly in the context of figure 6 in the NAO Report around the number of police officers in support functions. As I understand it—and I would just be grateful if you could confirm—the manifesto commitment of the Government …”

“I will just come in on that point. My background is in the NHS. The CQC’s inspection framework of NHS trusts has a use of resources metric. It does not just pass comment; it sets a grade, in the “outstanding” to “inadequate” framework, on use of resources. Is there a role for more assertive and explicit grading of forc…”

“What happens if it is not? It should be, absolutely, but what happens if it is not? Given the changes that were announced by the Government the other week on police accountability through the Police and Crime Commissioners, what happens if a police force, even under different accountability arrangements going forward, …”

“That takes us on to what I was going to ask Dame Antonia about zooming out in terms of accountability for productivity. The NAO has highlighted five high-level barriers to productivity and we have talked about quite a number of them. The second one is really the one that we were talking about there: slow progress in ad…”

“Do you have a view about how skewed the deployment of police officers in what could be staff roles is, and how that varies by force?”

“For example, the NAO shows that, between 2019 and 2024, the number of officers in support functions increased by over 50%, or 3,000 officers. Can I just check my understanding? You might think that an efficient way of doing that would be by replacing some of those officers in support functions with, for example, an HR …”

“That is not necessarily 13,000 newly recruited officers.”

“I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, particularly what she said about the more than 75,000 nurses working in our NHS who have arrived in this country since 2021. Those nurses and other healthcare professionals were actively encouraged to come here to fill the gaps left by the previous Government’s failure to do NH…”

“Our creative industries offer huge opportunities for economic growth, and the Crown Works film studio in Sunderland will be a box office smash for jobs across the north-east. Last year, the Chancellor premiered investment to prepare the site, adding Government support to that of our Labour council and elected Mayor. Th…”

“Can you outline how you think the Government should account for digital exclusion when developing their plans for digital ID—whether that be mandatory or not?”

“Can I be clear on the mandatory work checks? I hear really clearly that you are against mandatory digital ID for those checks—that’s taken as read. You will have heard the previous panel talk about a potential interpretation, or policy direction of Government, that mandatory work checks would have to be checked with Go…”

“But your view is that you could still do the right-to-work check with a digital ID for some, but via other means for people who did not want to hold a digital ID.”

“To check my understanding, you are saying that there could be a mandatory right to check against the central Government record. That might be done very easily via digital ID, for people who choose to use it, but equally it could be done separately, albeit more onerously, via someone saying, “If you don’t want a digital…”

“You are rightly raising some clear challenges with making it mandatory, but can I press you on whether a significant number of the benefits that you have identified, or indeed all of them, would still accrue if there was widespread but not mandatory adoption?”