Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the cyber skills of police forces; and what steps she is taking to improve those skills.

Tackling cyber crime is one of the key objectives of the UK’s Cyber Security Strategy. The Government has supported this with £860m of investment over five years through the National Cyber Security Programme (NCSP). We have so far committed £70m of NCSP funding in improving law enforcement agencies’ ability to respond to this threat, including setting up the National Cyber Crime Unit in the National Crime Agency, and cyber teams in each of the Regional Organised Crime Units. We are also supporting the training of police officers and investigators in local forces in England and Wales, through the development of new online and classroom-based training packages by the College of Policing for 5,000 officers.