Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has published recent guidance for local authorities on best practice for auditing of (a) CCTV and (b) other surveillance technologies; and what steps she is taking with counter-terrorism specialists to ensure there is effective provision of these technologies.

The Government updated the Surveillance Camera Code last year [Amended Surveillance Camera Code of Practice (accessible version) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)], which advises the police and local authorities to have effective review and audit mechanisms to ensure legal requirements, policies and standards are complied with in practice.

For security reasons, we do not comment on counter-terrorism (CT) capabilities or provide a breakdown of CT funding. Decisions around the deployment of these capabilities is a matter for the police, who are operationally independent.