Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information his Department holds on the number of abandoned 101 calls in England and Wales in the most recent year for which data is available.

The Home Office does not collect this data. The handling of 101 calls is an operational matter for the police. It is for elected Police Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables to decide how best to manage their communications and response to the public. However, any calls to 101 should be responded to in a timely manner.

I should add that most forces offer additional channels for contacting the police on non-emergency matters, for example, via online reporting tools, webchat or, in some forces, social media. The Home Office is supporting policing to maximise its use of new technologies and investing significantly in the policing sector to help develop national capability. For example, the Home Office is supporting the Digital Policing Portfolio to help expand the way policing can engage with the public digitally, as well as face to face and on the phone.