Speeches

Matthew Offord – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Offord on 2016-10-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been charged with terrorism offences committed overseas on their return to the UK in each of the last three years.

Mr Ben Wallace

The Government takes the threat posed by UK nationals who travel overseas to engage in terrorist activity extremely seriously. We are particularly concerned about those who travel to Syria and Iraq to fight. People seeking to travel to engage in terrorist activity should be in no doubt we will take the strongest possible action to protect our national security.

The number of individuals suspected of involvement in acts of terrorism or criminal matters who are arrested and then formally charged is recorded and collated in the Home Office Quarterly Statistical Bulletin which was last published on 22 September 2016. These statistics do not disaggregate arrests, charges and convictions relating exclusively to overseas returnees.