Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken to to tackle county lines gangs targeting children to act as drug runners.

The Government is committed to halving knife crime and tackling violent and exploitative county lines gangs is crucial to achieving this. That is why we are investing more than £34 million in 26/27 in the County Lines Programme, to pursue violent line holders and safeguard children and vulnerable people.

The success and impact of the County Lines Programme is clear. Since July 2024, the Programme has resulted in more than 3,000 deal lines closed, 8,200 arrests, (including the arrest and subsequent charge of over 1,600 deal line holders), 4,300 safeguarding referrals of children and vulnerable people, and 900 knives seized. More than 620 children and young people have also received dedicated specialist support through our county lines support service in the same period.

Independent evaluation of the Programme has shown it is having a significant impact, reducing hospitalisations due to knife stabbings by 25% and drug misuse hospitalisations by 29% in the Programme taskforce areas. The latest Strategic Assessment by the National County Lines Coordination Centre also shows that the number of children involved in county lines has reduced by 17% since 22/23.

As committed to in the Government’s manifesto, we have also introduced a new offence of criminal exploitation of children in the Crime and Policing Bill to go after the gangs who are luring young people into violence and crime. As part of this legislation, we are delivering new civil preventative orders to disrupt and prevent child criminal exploitation from occurring or re-occurring.