To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many charges relating to offences under counter-terrorism legislation were brought by police in England in 2006. (254689)

The Home Office science research group will be publishing a statistical bulletin on terrorism arrests and outcomes. This will provide detail on terrorism related charges and convictions, providing a breakdown of specific offences. The bulletin will show the numbers of people charged and convicted and the charge to conviction ratio.

The bulletin is due to be published shortly.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent steps the Government are taking to prevent acts of terrorism. (258857)

[holding answer 2 March 2009]: The Government have in place a comprehensive strategy to address the threat from terrorism—called Contest—which is based around four pillars:

Prevent—stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism;

Pursue—stopping terrorist attacks;

Protect—strengthening our overall protection against terrorist attack; and

Prepare—where we cannot stop an attack, to mitigate its impact.

We have spent much of the last year updating this strategy. This is very much about learning from our experiences and successes in recent years. A revised version of Contest will be published shortly.