Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to reports of his remarks in Ankara in January 2016, what recent estimate he has made of the number of UK citizens who have (a) entered and since left, (b) entered and remained in and (c) been prevented from entering (i) Syria and (ii) Iraq since April 2013.

Mr Philip Hammond

Approximately 800 individuals of national security concern have travelled to take part in the Syria conflict since it began. Of these approximately half have returned. As I said when I visited Ankara in January, the UK and Turkey have worked together to prevent the travel of over 600 UK nationals to Syria and Iraq via Turkey.

The UK continues to work to prevent the flow of extremist travellers to Iraq and Syria, through domestic measures in the UK, and through co-operation with international partners including Turkey.