Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what powers the EU has to freeze the assets of suspected terrorist groups or individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism; and what assessment he has made of the benefits to the UK of those powers.

Mr David Lidington

The EU has two mechanisms for freezing the assets of individuals and groups suspected of involvement in terrorism. The UN’s ISIL (Daesh) and Al-Qaida sanctions regime is implemented in the United Kingdom by way of EU Council Regulation (EC) No. 881/2002 and subsequent EU regulations adding new individuals and entities to the regime. The EU also has its own autonomous counter-terrorism regime under Common Position 931, for listing individuals and groups based on national competent authority decisions by a Member State or third country.

HM Treasury reports quarterly to Parliament on the implementation of these measures. The Treasury’s latest report [http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-02-24/HCWS548/], published on 24 February 2016, sets out that in Q4 of 2015 a total of 43 UK accounts were frozen under either EU or UN counter-terrorism measures. A further 36 accounts were frozen under the UK’s domestic Terrorist Asset Freezing etc. Act 2010 regime.

The EU’s autonomous regime lends a multiplying effect to the reach of a number of the UK’s domestic asset freezes and proscriptions of terrorist organisations, and facilitates the sharing of information on designated persons between Member States. The UK also benefits from the consistent application across EU territory of the UN’s ISIL (Daesh) and Al-Qaida asset freezes.