Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department made an assessment of the level of risk of trafficking as part of its strategy to counter recruitment by (a) ISIS and (b) other groups in the period between 2013 and 2017.

The Government took a number of steps to address the serious risks associated with individuals travelling to Syria to fight for or otherwise support Daesh and other terrorist groups.

Since 2011, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has advised against all travel to Syria. The police and local authorities distributed over 200,000 leaflets and 30,000 posters, outlining the danger of travel to Syria.

The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 enables police officers at ports to temporarily seize and retain travel documents to disrupt intended travel when they reasonably suspect that a person intends to travel to engage in terrorism-related activity outside the UK. This power was used on 55 occasions between 2015 and 2017 (15 in 2017), and in some cases, has led to longer-term disruptive action. The Royal Prerogative can also be used to refuse a passport application, or withdraw an existing passport, under the public interest criteria. The Royal Prerogative was exercised to deny access to British passport facilities to 84 individuals between 2013 and 2017.

Our Prevent strategy includes work to identify and support individuals at risk of radicalisation. Since the introduction of the Prevent duty in 2015, over 3,000 referrals have resulted in individuals identified as being susceptible to radicalisation receiving support to move away from violent ideologies that could have resulted in harm to themselves, or others.