County Lines Drug Trafficking

Lord Laming Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a valid point, and I will start from that premise. The Government have put an extra £1.1 billion into police forces with the police settlement that was approved by the House of Commons just a few weeks ago, and that is providing a range of functions. It is for police forces, chief constables and police and crime commissioners to determine the use of that resource locally, but she makes a valuable point about co-ordination and central management, which I will continue to reflect on because we need to ensure that there is not a backlog. The amount of digital material we have on our phones now—Twitter contents, phone calls, texts, Facebook messages and everything else—means that when someone is arrested there is a giant amount of digital information, and that is growing daily and monthly. It is important that we focus in on getting the right digital information to ensure convictions and drive up the conviction rate from the figure that I mentioned for between July and September last year, and that means tackling the backlog that the noble Baroness has rightly mentioned.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that those who conduct this awful business often seek out the most vulnerable children in the area, then supply them with drugs and get them completely dependent on them so they will then distribute these drugs around the country. Will the Minister assure the House that the Home Office and the services that are provided will do all they can to remind local authorities of their child protection responsibilities? The child and its welfare should be of paramount importance.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that the child should be central, and I will take away what he said today. I hope I can reassure him that the new offence we are introducing tomorrow of criminal exploitation of children will mean that there is another mechanism to hold to account those criminals who seek to use vulnerable children to undertake their criminal activity. When that comes to this House, I hope it has widespread support.