Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people had passports seized and temporarily retained under section 1 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 in (a) 2016 and (b) 2017.

Schedule 1 to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 enables police officers at ports to seize and temporarily retain travel documents to disrupt immediate travel, when they reasonably suspect that a person intends to travel to engage in terrorism related activity outside the UK.

Between February and December 2015, the power was exercised 24 times.

We aim to publish figures on an annual basis, and we will publish information on the use of the power during 2016 and 2017 shortly in the 2018 Government transparency report.