Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many officers in the Metropolitan Police have travelled overseas at public expense to investigate crimes committed abroad in the last period of 12 months for which figures are available; and what information her Department holds on how many officers in other UK police forces so travelled in the same period.

In the last 12 months, under Section 26 of the Police Act (1996), the Home Office has authorised deployments at public expense of a total of 120 police officers. 88 of these were from the Metropolitan Police Service. 78 authorisations were deployments supporting the international response to the MH17 plane crash.