Draft Drug Dealing Telecommunications Restriction Orders Regulations 2017

Victoria Atkins Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2017 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Drug Dealing Telecommunications Restriction Orders Regulations 2017.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. The regulations respond to an operational requirement of the police and National Crime Agency to support them in tackling the issue of county lines drug dealing and its related violence and criminal exploitation.

County lines is the police term for urban gangs supplying drugs to suburban areas and market and coastal towns, using dedicated anonymous mobile phone lines. We are particularly concerned about this form of drug dealing because of the high harm nature of the activity. These gangs target and exploit children and vulnerable adults who are then at high risk of extreme physical and sexual violence, gang recriminations and trafficking.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

County lines operates in and around my constituency, so I am pleased to see the regulations and for this to be the Minister’s first statutory instrument. I congratulate her on getting the job.

One horrific thing about the way in which county lines works is that the dealers give children drugs to carry and then steal from them so that they owe the gang the money that the drugs were worth, thereby holding the children, in effect, in slavery and not giving them options. I am delighted to see these regulations. I just hope that the Minister has talked to the Chancellor to ensure we have the resources we need to tackle this heinous activity.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady, and I know about the work she has done in her constituency. Sadly, this crime threat is emerging across the whole of the United Kingdom, which is why the regulations will have effect not just in England and Wales, but in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

We know that county lines gangs exploit children as young as 12 years old. One particularly chilling way in which they operate is that they take over the home of a vulnerable adult—perhaps someone with mental health issues—and literally confine them to one room and use the rest of the house as their drug den. Anything we can do to support the police and the NCA in tackling these heinous crimes will, I suspect, have the support of the Committee.

I commend the campaign led by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). He is not here, but he has taken an interest in this issue for a long time and was instrumental in ensuring that the regulations came about.

For those who are not familiar with the way in which these phone lines work, I add that they are highly profitable. They can make as much as £5,000 a day for the gangs. The phone is the method of business; it is how drug dealers communicate with their addicts. The phone is kept well away from street-level drug dealing, in, as it were, the headquarters of the drug gang. They then run operations across the country. That is why stopping these phone lines is so vital.

It goes without saying that, where possible, the police will pursue criminal prosecutions, but sadly that is not always the case. We do not always have the evidence to conduct such prosecutions. These regulations are targeted at those cases where we do not have enough evidence for prosecution but we want to disrupt the criminal activity.

I hope that hon. Members will approve the regulations. They will give the police a vital tool in their efforts to tackle county lines drug dealing and protect children and vulnerable people from being exploited by county line gangs. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank you, Mr Wilson, and the hon. Members for Sheffield, Heeley and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North. If I may, I will meet the hon. Lady’s request for me to write to her in detail. However, I reassure her that the regulations have been drawn up in consultation with all of the key bodies and organisations that will have control of them, particularly the judiciary. Six pilot courts have been selected to ensure that the applications are made as effectively as possible, and that the judiciary has the experience and resources.

[Lyn Brown]

Could the Minister also address that note to me, and will she tell us which six courts will be used?

[Victoria Atkins]

Yes and yes. On the point raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley about the cost and ease of getting a new phone, we all know that criminals try to run their businesses as effectively as business owners, but the key here is to disrupt their activities and make life as hard as possible for them. We have also future proofed the legislation as much as we can, so that if new methods of communication are involved, we very much hope they will be caught by the regulations.

Turning to the hon. Gentleman from Scotland, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, I am beguiled by his attempt to get me to change drug policy, but I will have to say no at this stage. I thank him anyway.

Question put and agreed to.