Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to raise awareness of spiking.

Spiking is an abhorrent crime and illegal in any form, whether through food or drink, vape, or needle. It can affect anyone, at any time and in any setting, regardless of gender, sexuality or age.

Between January 2021 and June 2023, the police received 19,347 reports of spiking. However, it is important to note that the principal offence rule prioritises recording the most serious offence, which means cases of spiking linked to other offences are captured under that substantive category rather than separately in central data.

Additionally, we assess that spiking crimes are underreported for a range of reasons, including embarrassment, lack of trust in the police or assumption that the police could not help or would not believe victims. To help overcome this and encourage more suspected victims of spiking to come forward, including anonymously if they so wish, the Police have launched an online reporting tool, available on police.uk.

The government is enhancing how the police record and report spiking crimes. From April 2026, spiking will be part of the Police’s Annual Data Requirement which will improve both the quality and quantity of data, as well as the frequency of reporting.

The Home Office will also look to utilise the National Data Quality Improvement Service (NDQIS), a computer-assisted classification tool, to greatly improve the analysis of the data it receives. NDQIS will have a range of benefits including being able to identify crimes which were facilitated by spiking, such as rape or sexual assault. We expect this to give us a better understanding of the scale of spiking and its use in enabling other crimes.

Tackling spiking is a government priority. We are implementing a comprehensive set of actions to strengthen awareness, prevention and detection, enhance support for victims and ensure perpetrators are brought to justice, including:

• In line with our manifesto commitment, the Government has introduced new legislation on spiking, as part of the Crime and Policing Bill, to strengthen the response to these appalling incidents.
• The Home Office continues to provide free training for staff in the hospitality sector to understand and tackle spiking, provide better support for victims, and assist police with evidence collection.
• The Security Industry Authority are also providing spiking training for their 368,000+ door supervisor and 11,000+ close protection licence holders. This has already been delivered to more than 228,000 licence holders since Spring 2024 as part of their mandatory licence linked qualification.
• We are funding two weeks of increased policing activity on spiking with the aims of raising awareness, encouraging reporting, and gathering more evidence to support spiking prosecutions. The first was on the week commencing 15 September to align with University Freshers weeks. The second week will be in December.
• We continue to fund research into the efficacy of rapid urine testing kits to assist with better detection of spiking crimes.
• We are also exploring options to enhance and make more convenient the process for collecting and processing urine samples from spiking victims.
• In July 2025 the Government published updated statutory guidance on Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Health Education for schools in England. In the new curriculum, to be implemented by September 2026, secondary pupils will learn about the risks associated with spiking, alongside consent, and other drug, alcohol, tobacco and vaping related issues.
• We have commissioned a leading University to undertake academic research to better understand some of the important driving factors that contribute to spiking incidents.