Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps her Department has taken to tackle county lines drugs dealing.

County lines have a devastating impact on communities. We are determined to disrupt these gangs and put an end to the exploitation of children and vulnerable adults.

In October 2019 the Home Secretary announced £20m of targeted investment to support a package of measures to crack down on county lines gangs. This includes:

• increasing the capacity of the National County Lines Coordination Centre;
• supporting increased operational activity by British Transport Police on rail networks;
• exploiting technology and data to support disruption of county lines drug dealers using the road network;
• tackling money laundering and increasing cash and drug seizures; and
• specialist support to victims and families to help young people exit their involvement.

This investment is already having a direct impact, which is why we recently committed an additional £5m to increase efforts to tackle these ruthless gangs. This brings our overall investment to £25m over 2019/20 and 2020/21.

The Children’s Commissioner’s report ‘Keeping Kids Safe’, published in February 2019, estimated that 27,000 children in England identify as a gang member. Children aged between 15-17 make up the majority of the vulnerable people involved in county lines, while both girls and boys are groomed and exploited, there is likely to be underrepresentation of both females and adults as victims.