Home Secretary Priti Patel claimed on Sunday she had never supported the death penalty while she had been an MP - despite appearing to have done just that.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show this morning, Patel said she was “not pro” capital punishment.
Patel added she had “over time” changed her mind about the death penalty.
“I’ve never in my time as a Member of Parliament been an advocate of it,” she said.
But appearing on the BBC’s Question Time programme in 2011, Patel said: “I would actually support the reintroduction of capital punishment to serve as a deterrent.”
Patel, who was elected the MP for Witham in 2010, told the programme:
“I do actually think when we have a criminal justice system that continuously fails in this country and where we have seen murderers, rapists and people who have committed the most abhorrent crimes in society, go into prison and then are released from prison to go out into the community to then re-offend and do the types of crime they have committed again and again.
“I think that’s appalling. And actually on that basis alone I would actually support the reintroduction of capital punishment to serve as a deterrent.”