Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many adults were convicted of offences involving the grooming of children in Lancashire by age profile in (a) 2016, (b) 2017 and (c) 2018.

The Ministry of Justice has published information on the number of convictions for offences involving the grooming of children by Police Force Area and age ranges up to December 2018, which can be found in the Principal offence proceedings and outcomes by Home Office offence code data tool available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/804510/HO-code-tool-principal-offence-2018.xlsx

• Filter the Police Force Area field to ‘Lancashire’
• Select 88A Sexual grooming in the Offence filter, which will display prosecutions and outcomes in the pivot table
• To display convictions by age range, remove the ‘Values’ field from Rows and drag Convictions into the Values area, and Age Range into the Rows area. Note that data for 2017 and 2018 allows a more detailed breakdown of age ranges than previous years.

Please note that Police Force Areas provide breakdowns of where offences were dealt with (not where they were committed).