Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws on 2015-10-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people aged (1) 21 and over, and (2) under 21, are known to have returned to the United Kingdom from a conflict zone since January 2014; and of those, how many were (a) charged with an offence and convicted, and (b) not charged but were put under supervision and entered into programmes of deradicalisation.

Lord Bates

Figures on the number of people who have returned to the UK from all conflict zones are not available. However, the Police have estimated that around 700 people from the UK who are of concern are thought to have travelled to the Syria/Iraq region since the start of the conflict, and that around half of those have returned. All decisions on handling returnees from Syria or Iraq are taken on a case-by-case basis. For some, prosecution for terrorist offences is the right course of action, and this will be a decision for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. For others, it may be that support from mental health or social services might be more appropriate.