Drug Trafficking: County Lines

Debate between Rachael Maskell and Lord Walney

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind)]

I am really pleased to have been able to secure the Adjournment debate this evening on the crucial matter known as county lines. This long-distance drug running is bringing misery to towns such as Barrow and coastal and rural areas right across the country, as well as to the big cities where the drug gangs operate, where thousands of young people are being coerced into what is effectively—and what is being prosecuted as—modern-day slavery in order to run drugs from the big cities to areas such as mine.

To be clear, there have always been issues of drug dealers getting into other areas, but the scale of the problem is now unprecedented. The Government’s own figures, which I will ask the Minister to confirm, suggest that the problem is spiralling out of control, with an exponential rise in the number of these dedicated mobile phone lines in towns such as mine. People use them to order drugs, which are then couriered by young people, often against their will and under the threat of violence. Communities such as mine are finding themselves awash with drugs, to a level that they have not seen before, and seeing the kind of drug-related violence that has previously marred big cities but has thankfully kept away from towns such as my own.

The Daily Mail reported an excellent investigation on its front page today, and some of the figures were truly astounding. It found that county lines were bringing in around £7 million to drug gangs every single day, which equates to £2.5 billion a year. The new national county lines co-ordination centre, which I am sure the Minister will want to say more about, has revealed that each mobile phone line is making about £5,000 a day. British Transport police said recently that it arrested 476 drug couriers using the railways, of whom more than 100 were classed as frequent train travellers.

The effect of county lines on these young people is predictably devastating. The children’s charity Safer London believes that 4,000 children are involved in the capital alone. A National Crime Agency report last year showed that nearly every police force area in England and Wales had been affected to some degree. Of the 44 forces, 35 mentioned knife crime linked to county lines and 32 mentioned gun crime. Academic evidence shows that county lines drug-selling gangs are generally much more violent than the local dealers who previously controlled the market.

Last month, I was able to bring together Members of Parliament, senior police officers from across the country, the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service and his opposite number, my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), as well as charities from across the country, to talk about this issue. The representative from the National Crime Agency suggested that, according to the latest estimate, there had been 1,000 county lines in operation last month. That figure suggests an increase of more than a third on the 720 that were reported last year. However, the Daily Mail reports today that that same organisation now estimates the number to be 1,500, which would be a nearly 100% increase in one year. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify those figures.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing forward this important debate. York has also had a real challenge with county lines. Does he share my concern that North Yorkshire police is going to withdraw its special operation on county lines? Surely all police authorities should be investing in special operations to deal with this issue.

[John Woodcock]

That does indeed sound concerning, and I can understand why my hon. Friend wonders why that is happening, particularly at a time when police forces are focusing on how they can put more resources into this and achieve more co-ordination. This issue goes beyond the traditionally drawn boundaries between police forces, and therefore requires a greater level of intelligence sharing, co-operation and co-ordination than was used to tackle traditional drug operations in past decades. The message from the seminar was that, yes, greater police powers and more investment in the police are necessary, but also that we cannot simply arrest our way out of this situation. Agencies need to come together, and health, safeguarding and education need to play a role.

Turning to what is happening in Barrow, which is what spurred me to call for this debate and do this work on county lines, 12 people suffered drug-related deaths between December 2016 and April this year—a four-month period. To put that in perspective, there were 66 drug-related deaths per 1 million people nationwide last year, yet Barrow saw 12 such deaths in four months in a town of only 67,000 people. The community is rising to the challenge, which is focused on an estate called Egerton Court, where four of those 12 deaths occurred. By the end of the year, a multi-agency hub will be operating out of Egerton Court to try to remove the stigma, change the culture and show drug dealers that that they can no longer ply their pernicious trade with impunity in the area.

However, so much more needs to be done. I want to hear from the Minister about the Government’s latest thinking. I have two proposals that I hope they will consider seriously, and the first relates to the public transport network. In previous years in Barrow and elsewhere, drug dealers would arrive by car and get their produce in using that method. Now, however, younger people are being used, and most of them are reliant on the public transport network because they are too young to drive, so coach drivers, cabbies and train guards can be the eyes and ears of the police service. The Government recognised that with the publicity campaign they launched earlier this year, so I would like to hear about how that is going and how widespread it is.

Posters are not enough on their own, though. I hope that the Minister will agree to speak urgently to his colleagues at the Department for Transport, who are pressing ahead with changes to franchises on so many train lines that pretty much require train operators to remove guards from trains. It is the guards who can detect and pick up on signs when something does not look right. Many of these young people stick out like a sore thumb because they are travelling alone and look vulnerable, so public transport staff can play a vital role in alerting the police.