HL Deb 28 July 1982 vol 434 cc344-5WA
Lord Hylton

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many persons have been arrested in Great Britain under the Prevention of Terrorism Act during each of the last five years and in any subsequent period; how many have been served with exclusion orders; how many have been charged with offences; how many have been found guilty and how many have been extradited to stand trial elsewhere or deported.

Lord Elton

Disproportionate cost would be involved in providing more information than that already published in Tables 1, 3, 4 and 5 of the latest quarterly,Home Office Statistical Bulletin on Statistics on the

PREVENTION OF TERRORISM (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) ACT 1976
No. of Arrests No. of persons subsequently charged (scheduled and other offences)
1977… … … … … … … … … … … … … 167 81
1978… … … … … … … … … … … … … 155 72
1979… … … … … … … … … … … … … 162 51
1980… … … … … … … … … … … … … 222 103
1981… … … … … … … … … … … … … 495 153
1982 (to 30 June) … … … … … … … … … … … 407 169

NORTHERN IRELAND (EMERGENCY PROVISIONS) ACT 1978
*No. of Persons arrested by HM Forces No. of Persons arrested by Royal Ulster Constabulary No. of persons subsequently charged
Scheduled Offences Non-scheduled Offences
1978 (from 1st June) … … … … … … N/A 1,186 276 53
1979… … … … … … … … … N/A 2,035 427 99
1980… … … … … … … … … N/A 1,719 340 81
1981… … … … … … … … … 1,993 2,555 587 186
1982… … … … … … … … … †83O ‡679 137 17
Notes:
*Persons initially arrested by members of Her Majesty's Forces and handed over to the Royal Ulster Constabulary may be subsequently re-arrested by the police, and would in such cases appear both in the figures for arrests by Her Majesty's forces and those for arrests by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
†To 30th June.
‡To 31st May.

It would be disproportionately costly to correlate directly the number of arrests in any one year with the number subsequently convicted. However, records show that during the period 1st January 1977 to 31st December 1981 4,177 persons were tried on indictment for scheduled offences and of those, 3,860 were convicted.