Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle organised crime.

Serious and organised crime affects more of us, more often, than any other national security threat, persistently eroding our economy and our communities. It costs the UK at least £37 billion every year.
The newly updated Serious and Organised Crime Strategy, published on 1st November 2018, sets out how the Government will mobilise the full force of the state and align the collective efforts of key partners from the public, private and voluntary sectors to tackle serious and organised crime together in one single approach.

We also continue to invest in the right capabilities and tools for law enforcement, across Government and in partnership with the private sector to tackle SOC effectively.

The cross-system approach is aligned to the four strategy objectives:
o Relentless disruption and targeted action against the highest harm serious and organised criminals and networks affecting the UK

o Building the highest levels of defence and resilience in vulnerable people, communities, businesses and systems

o Stopping the problem at source, identifying and supporting those at risk of engaging in criminality

o Establishing a single, whole-system response, aligning the efforts of all those involved in responding to serious and organised crime as one, cohesive system.

The Government has already made some early progress in implementing the Serious and Organised Crime Strategy. For example, we have:
• established and expanded the new community coordinator programme pilot areas in England and in Wales to promote community resilience and divert people away from serious and organised crime;
• deployed a new cross-government overseas policy specialists network to complement existing international law enforcement operational work abroad;.
• established a National UK Protected Persons Services in the National Crime Agency on 1st April 2019, through the transfer of England and Wales based Protected Person Units, to ensure the best protection possible is available to individuals while enhanc-ing judicial outcomes across the Criminal Justice Service.

The Government is determined to prevent serious and organised crime, defend against it, track down perpetrators and bring them to justice. We will allow no safe space – online or offline – for these people and their networks.