Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help protect children from criminal exploitation in Surrey Heath constituency.

Tackling the criminal exploitation of children is an important strand of our work to halve knife crime under the Safer Streets Mission. Prevention and early intervention to stop young people being drawn into crime is an integral part of that mission including those being exploited by county lines gangs and those involved in violent crime.

We are introducing a new offence of child criminal exploitation in the Crime and Policing Bill to increase convictions against exploiters, deter gangs from enlisting children, and improve identification of victims. Alongside the offence, we are creating a new regime for CCE prevention orders to prevent exploitative conduct committed by adults against children from occurring or re-occurring

Through the County Lines Programme, we will continue to target exploitative drug dealing gangs and disrupt the organised crime groups behind this trade. Between July and September 2024, policing activity delivered through the County Lines Programme resulted in over 400 deal lines being closed, the arrest and charge of over 200 deal line holders, 500 arrests and 800 safeguarding referrals of children and vulnerable people. Through the Programme, we also fund specialist support for children and young people caught up in county lines and child criminal exploitation. More than 280 children and young people have received dedicated specialist support through our county lines support service since July 2024

While the majority of lines originate from the areas covered by the Metropolitan Police Service, West Midlands Police, Merseyside Police, and Greater Manchester Police, the county lines trade is a national issue. This is why, through the Home Office-funded County Lines Programme, we fund the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre to monitor the intelligence picture, identify and share effective practice, and co-ordinate the national law enforcement response. In addition, we have a dedicated surge fund which provides local forces with additional funding to tackle county lines, including Surrey Police.

As part of the Programme, the National County Lines Coordination Centre regularly coordinates weeks of intensive action against county lines gangs, which all police forces take part in. The most recent of these took place between 25 November to 1 December 2024, during which Surrey Police made 18 arrests and seized 2 drug lines, 55 bladed articles and 4 firearms.