Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

My hon. Friend is always interesting—no less so on this point. He is right. Both sides of the House should accept that human rights are important and must be upheld, but our courts, our judges and our Government are perfectly capable of doing that job, which they have done very well for a long time.

[Sir Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

4. What steps the Crown Prosecution Service is taking to support action against terrorism.

[The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)]

Terrorism prosecutions are dealt with by a specialist unit within the CPS, and there is close working between the CPS, the police and the intelligence services from the launch of an investigation until the conclusion of a trial.

[Sir Henry Bellingham]

While the 400 or so radicalised British Muslims who are still fighting for ISIS in Syria are naive, many of them pose a great danger to the UK. We know their names, so what steps are being taken to prepare for prosecutions?

[The Attorney General]

My hon. Friend is right. We have to pay close attention to each of those individuals. He will understand that prosecutions will not always follow in all those cases, but the number of prosecutions in terrorism cases has increased significantly. There were 79 trials last year, compared with 51 trials the year before, and we are remarkably good at convicting in those trials, which have a conviction rate of something like 86%.