Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Rob Butler Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

We have undertaken to publish an annual report to Parliament evaluating our progress on all these matters.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I very much welcome the strategy that the Minister has outlined today. I entirely agree about the vile practice of county lines drug dealing; having joined officers from Thames Valley police in Aylesbury on drugs operations, I know that one of the most shocking aspects is the way in which criminal gangs manipulate vulnerable people by taking over their home and using it as a base to carry out their trade. Can the Minister tell the House how the drugs strategy will help to tackle that evil exploitation?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The practice of cuckooing, particularly where it targets often vulnerable adults in a destination drug-dealing town or village, is a really horrible thing to witness and often results in violence and victimisation. The £145 million that we are putting in to turbocharge our effort on county lines, making sure that the big exporting forces are co-ordinated through the national county lines co-ordination centre with the importing forces, will allow us to get ahead of exactly the kind of exploitation that my hon. Friend points to.