Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to
deal with county lines drug trafficking.
The Minister of State, Home Office ()
(Con)
My Lords, county lines has a devastating impact on our children
and communities, and this Government are determined to crack down
on these criminal gangs. We are providing £25 million of targeted
investment this financial year and next to boost law enforcement
efforts. This builds on previous activity, including establishing
the National County Lines Coordination Centre, which launched in
2018 and has co-ordinated activity resulting in over 2,500
arrests and 3,000 people safeguarded.
(Lab)
My Lords, I first thank the Lord Speaker for his wise words and
wish him and all noble Lords well.
With regard to the Question, the largest rise in child victims of
modern slavery and human trafficking reported by the NCA is due
to county lines crimes. However, the Modern Slavery Act 2015,
which was not passed with this type of crime in mind, is being
used by prosecutors to try to tackle this growing problem. Given
the disturbing rise in this life-changing crime, will the Home
Office prioritise an investigation into the use of the Modern
Slavery Act in relation to county lines cases to determine where
swift improvements can be made?
I certainly take the noble Baroness’s comments on board. The
Government constantly review legislation to ensure that it is
working effectively, but I shall certainly look into the point
that she makes. We of course want the legislation to work in the
best and most effective way.
(CB)
Does the Minister agree that many of those caught up in county
lines drug trafficking are extremely vulnerable children and
teenagers, and furthermore, that our response should and must be
cross-governmental? We need to have a grown-up conversation about
drugs policy. The present policy—often described as a “war on
drugs”—seems only to embolden gangs and cause misery in many
communities. At the other end of this joined-up thinking,
particularly to stop the disproportionality of black children
being excluded from schools, must be an unprecedented recruitment
drive of black male teachers.
I most certainly agree with the noble Lord about this whole thing
being driven by the drugs markets. The types of people who are
most predominantly targeted and engaged in this are indeed
vulnerable teenagers, and in fact younger. I totally agree that a
multiagency approach is entirely needed, which is what the
National County Lines Coordination Centre aims to do. It is a
multiagency team of experts from the NCA, the police and regional
crime units. I also take his point about the stopping of black
people. People should be stopped on an intelligence-led basis,
not because of the colour of their skin.
(Lab)
Does the Minister agree that the work of the West Midlands Police
and West Mercia Police in Operation Ballet, led by Detective
Inspector Julie Woods, has been exemplary? It led to convictions
at the Worcester Crown Court last Friday of 13 individuals who
had operated a county lines scam starting in London, going to
Birmingham New Street station, and then spreading out, with
couriers and local people in the towns of Herefordshire and
Worcestershire; these towns are not normally associated with drug
trafficking, but, in the present circumstances, seem to be
hotbeds of this terrible anti-social activity.
The noble Lord makes exactly the right point: towns and counties
that one would usually not expect to be associated with such
criminal activity in fact are. I pay tribute to Julie Woods for
the convictions secured at Worcester Crown Court. For every one
person convicted, an awful lot of young people are safeguarded
from this terrible scourge.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, what assessment have the Government made of the links
between young people being drawn into county lines and increasing
child poverty, the number of children in care and the number of
young people being excluded from schools? Also, what are the
Government doing to divert those who have been caught from a
lifelong career of criminality?
My Lords, like all these things, the causes are multifactorial.
The symptoms are also many and varied. It might not be drugs or
county lines that a young person gets into; it might be other
things as well. What was the second part of the noble Lord’s
question?
Diversion from a life of crime.
Noble Lords have previously brought up in this House that the
young people who are drawn into this sort of activity are not
themselves criminals; they are victims of other people’s
exploitation. It is very important to keep that in mind when we
think about how we deal with these children and divert them into
mainstream life and out of a life of crime.
(Lab)
My Lords, following the Government’s decision to fund an increase
in the number of police officers by some 20,000, the Home
Secretary told police chiefs that she now expected them to
deliver a return on that funding in the form of a reduction in
crime. Now that the Home Secretary has admitted through that
statement that the total number of police officers available does
have an impact on the level of crime—contrary to what the
Government used to maintain while they were busily reducing the
number of police officers over the last decade—will the
Government now agree that one reason, though not the only reason,
for the rate and level of expansion of child criminal
exploitation, or county lines, across the country has been the
reduction in the number of police officers and the resultant
increasingly stretched police forces across the country over the
last 10 years?
My Lords, as I said earlier, I think these issues are
multifactorial. One thing that the noble Lord, , would say if he were
here is that it is driven by the drugs market, but the drugs
market is not the only factor. It is also fair to say that at
some point demands on the police, and crime, became more complex,
and therefore it was the right decision to take to promote the
move towards having more police officers on our streets to fight
crime.
(GP)
My Lords, sometimes in the past the police have caught a young
criminal, a young gang member who has been involved in criminal
activity, and, instead of charging or even rehabilitating them,
they have actually turned them around and sent them back into the
gang as a child police spy. Is that still happening? If it is,
how many children are involved?
The noble Baroness will know from previous answers I have given
that the number is estimated to be fewer than 10; she will recall
the report that looked into that. It is something that is used
only very sparingly, and its ultimate aim is to drive down crime
and bring to justice those people who are exploiting children.
