Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) fines, (b) community punishments, (c) cautions and (d) custodial sentences have been administered for the illegal possession of nitrous oxide in England since November 2023.

The Home Office collects information on the number of notifiable offences, and their investigative outcomes, recorded by the police in England and Wales. This includes possession of nitrous oxide for wrongful inhalation and possession of nitrous oxide with intent to supply.

Information on the number of the Cautions, Community resolutions and Penalty Notices for Disorder for these offences issued between 1^st November 2023 and 30^th June 2025 are shown in the table below.

Source: Home Office Data Hub, Police Recorded Crime and Outcomes

The Ministry of Justice publishes statistics on court sentencing outcomes including for the illegal possession of nitrous oxide in England and Wales. The latest published statistics for the period between 1^st December 2023 and the 30^th June 2025 are presented in the table below.

Source: Outcomes by Offences data tool, which can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-justice-statistics