Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 18 December 2015 to Question 20068, how many British-based individuals have breached the sanctions regime against Daesh; and how many bank accounts have been frozen in the UK as part of the efforts by the UN and the Government to prevent funds from being transferred to Daesh.

The UN sanctions regime against Daesh includes not just financial sanctions, but also a travel ban against listed individuals and entities, as well as an arms embargo, prohibitions on travel to act as a foreign terrorist fighter, an oil embargo, and other form of restriction. HM Treasury is responsible for the administration of financial sanctions in the UK, in relation to those individuals or entities designated under one of the counter terrorism financial sanctions regimes, which include the UK’s domestic terrorist asset freezing regime, the EU’s external terrorism regime and the UN’s ISIL (Daesh) & Al Qaida regime.

The UN ISIL (Daesh) & Al Qaida Regime is implemented in the UK by way of EU Regulation 881/2002. Information held by HM Treasury in relation to breaches of this regime is received for the purposes of compliance and enforcement of this Regulation. The Regulation prohibits the use of that information for any purpose other than compliance and enforcement, and as a result HM Treasury is unable to release information held on the number of British-based individuals that have breached the financial sanctions regime against Daesh. The Treasury works closely with operational partners on the compliance and enforcement of financial sanctions regimes.

HM Treasury publishes a Quarterly Report to Parliament on the operation of the counter terrorism financial sanctions regimes in the UK. The next report is due to be published soon, for the fourth quarter of 2015. The report includes the number of bank accounts that are frozen for each regime. It is located at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/operation-of-the-uks-counter-terrorist-asset-freezing-regime-quarterly-report-to-parliament.

I can confirm that the last Quarterly Report stated there are 55 accounts frozen under the UK’s domestic terrorist asset freezing regime, and 21 accounts are frozen in the UK under the UN’s ISIL (Daesh) and Al Qaida regime.