Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what training is provided to Border Force officers on the handling of CITES documentation for musical instruments.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
All Border Force officers receive relevant mandatory training on dealing with international trade documentation, which includes CITES permits, to aid the detection of illicit goods linked to the illegal wildlife trade, including musical instruments.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many full time equivalent police officers there were in Norfolk Constabulary on (a) 1 September 2024 and (b) 1 September 2025.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the size of the police workforce in England and Wales, on a bi-annual basis, as at 31 March and 30 September each year in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales.
The latest information on the number of police officers, as at 30 September 2025, is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-30-september-2025.
Table 1 of the data tables accompanying the release includes information on full-time equivalent police officers in England and Wales, broken down by Police Force Area, as at 30 September 2024 and 2025.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made on the potential impact of the Police Funding Settlement (England and Wales) 2026-27 on the response times to rural crime incidents in North West Norfolk constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
As a result of the 2026-27 police funding settlement, Norfolk Police will receive up to £248.7 million in 2026-27, which is an increase of £9.5 million on the previous year. This equates to a 4.0% cash increase in funding.
Forces are operationally independent, and the deployment of officers and staff remains an operational decision for Chief Constables.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact on the Police Funding Settlement (England and Wales) 2026-27 on the provisions for tackling fly tipping in rural areas.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
As a result of the 2026-27 police funding settlement, Norfolk Police will receive up to £248.7 million in 2026-27, which is an increase of £9.5 million on the previous year. This equates to a 4.0% cash increase in funding.
Forces are operationally independent, and the deployment of officers and staff remains an operational decision for Chief Constables.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made on the potential impact of the Police Funding Settlement (England and Wales) 2026-27 on the number of police officers in North West Norfolk constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
As a result of the 2026-27 police funding settlement, Norfolk Police will receive up to £248.7 million in 2026-27, which is an increase of £9.5 million on the previous year. This equates to a 4.0% cash increase in funding.
Forces are operationally independent, and the deployment of officers and staff remains an operational decision for Chief Constables.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to announce the (a) scope and (b) timetable of the forthcoming consultation on proposals to merge shotgun and firearms licensing regimes.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government response to the 2023 firearms licensing consultation, published on 13 February 2025, included a commitment to having a public consultation on strengthening the licensing controls on shotguns to bring them more into line with the controls on other firearms in the interests of public safety.
We intend to publish this consultation shortly.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential impact of permitting self-defence weapons on personal safety.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government has no plans to permit the possession or use of currently prohibited weapons, such as pepper sprays or tasers, for self-defence purposes. Pepper sprays and tasers are prohibited under section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968.
The Government considers that increased availability of such items potentially increases the risk of them being used by violent criminals, alongside a risk that they may be used inappropriately or irresponsibly in a variety of different circumstances, increasing the risk of serious injuries.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support police forces in tackling shoplifting in North West Norfolk constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Shop theft continues to increase at an unacceptable level. We will not stand for this.
We are ensuring the right powers are in place. Through the Crime and Policing Bill, we are bringing in a new offence of assaulting a retail worker to protect the hardworking and dedicated staff that work in stores. We are also removing the legislation which makes shop theft of and below £200 a summary-only offence, sending a clear message that any level of shop theft is illegal and will be taken seriously.
Additionally, we are providing over £7 million over the next three years to support the police and retailers tackle retail crime, including continuing to fund a specialist policing team – in partnership with the retail sector - to better understand the tactics used by organised retail crime gangs and identify more offenders.
Tackling retail crime requires a partnership approach between policing representatives and business. The previous Minister for Crime and Policing launched the ‘Tackling Retail Crime Together Strategy’, which was jointly developed by the police and industry and aims to provide a collaborative and evidence-based approach to preventing retail crime, including organised shop theft.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding her Department has allocated to local policing in North West Norfolk in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Norfolk Police will receive up to £239.2 million in 2025-26, an increase of up to £16.5 million when compared to 2024-25.
In addition to the funding announced at the settlement, the Home Office provided £1.3 million to Norfolk Police to help with the cost of the 2025-26 police pay award.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to provide additional support to police officers to tackle drug-related crime .in North West Norfolk constituency.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
To deliver on our pledge to halve knife crime in the next decade, it is crucial that we tackle the gangs that lure children and young people into crime and run county lines through violence and exploitation. County Lines is the most violent model of drug supply and a harmful form of child criminal exploitation. Through the County Lines Programme, we continue to target exploitative drug dealing gangs and break the organised crime groups behind the trade.
Between July 2024 and June 2025, law enforcement activity through the County Lines Programme taskforces has resulted in more than 2,300 deal lines closed, 6,200 arrests (including the arrest and subsequent charge of over 1,100 deal line holders), 3,200 safeguarding referrals of children and vulnerable people, and 600 knives seized.
While the majority of county lines originate from the areas covered by the Metropolitan Police Service, West Midlands Police, Merseyside Police, Greater Manchester Police and West Yorkshire Police, we recognise that this is a national issue which affects all forces, which is why we fund the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre (NCLCC) to monitor the intelligence picture and co-ordinate a national law enforcement response. We also have a dedicated fund to help local police forces, including Norfolk Constabulary, tackle the scourge of county lines.
As part of the Programme, the NCLCC regularly coordinates weeks of intensive action against county lines gangs, which all police forces take part in, including Norfolk Constabulary. The most recent of these took place 23-29 June 2025 and resulted in 241 lines closed, as well as 1,965 arrests, 1,179 individuals safeguarded and 501 weapons seized.