Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what data her Department collects on child grooming activities online.

The Home Office has access to a variety of data sources on child sexual abuse, which covers grooming both offline and online.

ONS publishes information on the number of notifiable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, on a quarterly basis, which can be accessed here: Crime in England and Wales: Appendix tables - Office for National Statistics.

Police recorded crime covers a range of offences that are classed as child sexual abuse and exploitation. Child grooming offences could be recorded against several offence codes such as grooming; abuse of children through sexual exploitation; and obscene publications offences which include indecent images of children offences.