Terrorism: Finance

Statement

The Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Myners)
My honourable friend the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Sarah McCarthy-Fry) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

In a Written Ministerial Statement on 10 October 2006, the then Economic Secretary undertook to report to Parliament on a quarterly basis on the operation of the UK’s counter terrorism asset freezing regime. This is the eleventh of these reports and covers the period April to June 2009.1

Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2009

The Treasury has amended the Terrorism (United Measures) Order and a new Order in Council is being laid before Parliament today. I have made a separate Written Ministerial Statement about the new order.

Asset-freezing designations

In the quarter April to June 2009, the Treasury gave no directions under the Al-Qaida and Taliban (United Nations Measures) Order 2006.

The Treasury gave no new directions under the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2006. The Treasury revoked one direction given under this order during this period,

There were no financial sanctions designations made at the UN, or at the EU, in relation to terrorism, or Al-Qaida and the Taliban of persons with links to the UK.

As of 30 June 2009, a total of 237 accounts containing just over £607,6612 of suspected terrorist funds were frozen in the UK.

Reviews

The Treasury keeps domestic asset-freezing cases under review and completed three formal reviews in this quarter.

Licensing

In accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1452 (2002), the Treasury operates a licensing system whereby designated persons and others are able to apply to make or receive payments under specific and, if necessary, monitored conditions. In this quarter, the following licences were issued to listed persons:

four listed persons were granted basic expenses licences (including licences for benefits payments);
 

one listed person was granted a licence allowing them to receive compensation payment into a frozen account following an European Court of Human Rights judgment.;
 

no persons were granted legal expenses licences; and
 

no licences were granted for extraordinary expenses.
 

In this quarter two households of listed persons were granted benefits licences.

1 The detail that can be provided to the House on a quarterly basis is subject to the need to avoid the identification, directly or indirectly, of personal or operationally sensitive information.

2 This figure reflects account balances at time of freezing and includes approximately $58,000 of suspected terrorist funds frozen in the UK. This has been converted using exchange rates as of 08/07/09. Future fluctuations in the exchange rate may impact on the contribution this sum makes to future totals of suspected terrorist funds frozen.