Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to improve the (a) detection and (b) policing of illegal fox hunting activities in County Durham.

The Home Office does not centrally collect information on offences under the Hunting Act 2004 and therefore the requested information on arrests and subsequent convictions is not held by the Home Office.

The enforcement of the Hunting Act is an operational matter for the police. This is in line with their duties to keep the peace, protect communities and prevent the commission of offences, working within the provisions of the legal framework set by Parliament.

It is for individual Chief Constables to determine how their resources are deployed and it is for locally elected Police and Crime Commissioners to hold their forces to account, including on how they tackle the crimes that matter most to residents and businesses in rural and urban areas alike.