Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to prevent crime relating to wildlife.

The Home Office worked in partnership with Defra to support the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in delivering their Rural and Wildlife Crime strategy for 2025-28. The Strategy – which was published on 25 November -provides a framework through which policing, and its partners can work together to tackle the most prevalent threats and emerging issues including wildlife crime.

We also fund the National Wildlife Crime Unit who provide intelligence, analysis and investigative assistance to forces and other law enforcement agencies across the UK to support them in investigating wildlife crime.

We are ensuring forces have the tools and resources they need to deal with rural crime including wildlife crime. We are on track to deliver an additional 3,000 neighbourhood officers by March.