County Lines Drug Trafficking

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

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.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (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.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

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.