Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps to improve accountability measures against (a) state and (b) non-state actors that sponsor terrorism.

The UK's Counter-Terrorism strategy, CONTEST, seeks to reduce the risk from terrorism to the UK, its citizens and interests overseas, so people can live freely and with confidence. The UK, thus, prioritises international terrorism that affects us and our interests. The overwhelming majority of the terrorist threat to the UK is from non-state actors such as Daesh and Al-Qaeda. However, the lines are increasingly blurred between state and non-state threats. The UK has multiple tools to reduce terrorism risk under the four CONTEST pillars of Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare, and these can be applied in certain cases in a threat agnostic manner. Accountability measures come under Pursue: to disrupt and degrade. We work with and through bilateral and international partners to build capacity to support the investigation and prosecution of terrorists in a rule of law and human rights compliant manner, in efforts to hold them accountable by bringing them to justice. Another tool in Pursue is multilateral (UN Security Council Resolution 1267) and sovereign 'CT2' sanctions, which we use to build international solidarity and to disrupt terrorists' activities. Significant international terrorist threats to the UK, regardless of ideology, are listed under the CT2 regime.