The Government plans to go ahead with pumping more money into its Prevent counter-radicalisation strategy in the wake of the Manchester attack, the Home Secretary has said.

Amber Rudd said there would be an "uplift" in Prevent as she praised the programme's "good work".

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she said: "There is an industry out there that doesn't like Prevent, but I can tell you that 150 people for instance were stopped, because of Prevent activity, from travelling to Syria last year, 50 of whom were children.

"There were 142 community organisations working in communities. I've been to visit some of them to stop young people becoming radicalised. They do good work.

"We can always learn more, we can always improve and as the threat against us changes, we need to make sure that our defences change. I have been proposing and we will be going ahead with an uplift in Prevent and when we do that we will also be making sure that it has (an) even more effective outcomes in communities to protect us, to keep us safe."

Asked if this meant more money, she went on: "Absolutely, I already proposed that a number of months ago and we will be going ahead with that I hope after June."

David Anderson QC, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said Prevent had been a controversial strategy in some communities, but said he thought the Manchester attack "might focus some minds".

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: "The important thing to recognise is that of course we need a policy to prevent our young people from strapping on suicide belts and being drawn into terrorism.

"It's just that if the policy is to be as effective as it possibly can be it needs to be not only strengthened, which I think is what certainly the last government had in mind, but also palatable to all the communities that it affects.

"We have a counter-terrorism budget of something like £3 billion a year, Prevent in some ways is the most important part of that because it holds the long term solution to these terrible problems, but it's only 1% of the amount of money that we spend and it's very important I think that we spend it as effectively as we possibly can."

Labour former Home Office minister Hazel Blears spoke of the importance of combating the "evil ideology" that underpins radicalisation.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, she said: "This morning our thoughts are with all the families in Manchester but I do think that we need to think very seriously about our counter-terrorism strategy, it has the four ps: prevent, pursue, prepare and protect and for me the most important one has always been the prevent part.

"It hasn't always been given the kind of priority, resources and attention that I think is absolutely vital."

She added: "But as well as the traditional things we've done around working with communities and bringing people together and trying to create that sense of cohesion, I think now there is an even more pressing need and that is to really have a programme of combating this evil ideology that underpins this radicalisation and eventually the actions that lead to murder and destruction as we've seen."

She went on: "Because if you've got an ideology that says it's alright to kill yourself, because if you commit suicide you'll go to paradise, an ideology that says you hate Western values, and you whip people up almost through grooming vulnerable people, particularly online and you get them to the point where they are prepared to kill themselves together with hundreds of other people, then that ideology needs to be deconstructed, taken apart, challenged at every level and I really don't think that we are doing enough in that space."