Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of using drones in police searches.

Decisions on operational equipment are made independently by police forces, who are best placed to assess their own operational needs while ensuring they have the tools necessary to protect the public.

The wider adoption of drones by police forces is developing at a rapid pace. Therefore, in FY 24/25, the Home Office allocated over £4m to national police-led programmes of work to support police use of drones and explore the benefits that future drones’ capabilities may provide to police operations – including, standardising police operations, trailing innovative use of drones to improve police productivity, and supporting the progression of a future operating model for police aviation that considers both crewed and uncrewed aircraft.

We are currently finalising the funding arrangements for these police-led drones programmes in FY25/26 to continue supporting the use of drones by police forces.