Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department took to vet the Libyan personnel before their training at Bassingbourn Barracks; and if she will make a statement.

Before the start of General Purpose Force training on 11 June 2014, the UK held extensive discussions with the Libyan government on the selection and vetting of Libyan trainees. The Libyan government provided trainee candidates who had
been through Libyan vetting and selection processes.

These candidates were subject to additional UK vetting in Libya to ensure thoseselected met Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence and Home Office requirements on security, immigration, medical, physical, literacy, and numeracy criteria as
well as representing a distribution of trainees that was geographically representativeof Libya.

Home Office visa processes included checks against UK criminal databases and a visa declaration by all trainees that confirmed they held no criminal convictionsor charges in the UK or elsewhere. We are not aware that any of those candidates
who passed UK screening had criminal convictions or faced charges at that time in theUK or elsewhere.