Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address the transportation of illegal substances through county lines.

This Government is determined to crack down on the county lines gangs who are exploiting our children and have a devastating impact on our communities.

That is why we are investing £25m to boost law enforcement efforts to put a stop to these ruthless gangs – this includes funding to tackle activity on the road and rail network, expand the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre (NCLCC), boost operational activity in the three major exporting force areas (the Metropolitan Police, Merseyside, West Midlands), and increase support for victims.

We know that the transport network is used to facilitate county lines, and our £25m investment has enabled the British Transport Police (BTP) to establish a County Lines Taskforce which works with police forces and rail industry partners to deliver targeted activity on the rail network. This investment has also continued to improve availability and standardise the use of Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) data, allowing for further additional support to county lines investigations.

Our investment is already delivering results: as a result of the £5m we invested in 2019-2020, pilot forces and British Transport Police have closed nearly 140 deal lines, seized cash and drugs with a total value of over £3 million, and made over 100 weapons seizures between November 2019 and March 2020.

In addition, a recent county lines ‘week of intensification’ co-ordinated by NCLCC in September and involving all police forces, including BTP, resulted in over 1,000 arrests, drugs worth more than £1m seized and over 1,500 vulnerable individuals safeguarded.