Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how funding for undercover online policing units will be distributed; and what outcomes each unit is expected to deliver.

Undercover Online Police Officers (UCOLs) deploy online to identify and pursue offenders seeking to sexually exploit children. Using unique capabilities and covert tactics to target dangerous offenders, UCOLs focus on a range of offences including grooming, peer-to-peer offending, live streaming, contact offences and historic or current familial offending.

The UCOL Network has achieved continued success, surpassing its targeted annual outcomes for operational activity and responding to emerging threats, including the proliferation of AI-generated child sexual abuse material.

Given the UCOLs’ continued success in disrupting online child sexual abuse, the Home Office has invested £11.7m in this capability this past FY 2025/26. The government has also committed to expand the use of the Home Office’s network of Undercover Online Operatives to address Violence Against Women and Girls in its’ “Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls”, published on 18th December 2025.