Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what arrangements are in place between UK police forces and international partners to assist in locating missing children who may have been taken abroad.

This Government is committed to ensuring a robust multiagency response to missing people, including children, and safeguarding them from harm. We recognise that missing episodes, however brief, can often be a red flag for a number of harms including child sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation.

We are determined to work together across government, including with the police and other safeguarding partners, to improve the whole system response to missing individuals and their families. We are introducing a new offence of child criminal exploitation in the Crime and Policing Bill to go after the gangs who are luring young people into violence and crime.

As part of this legislation, we are also delivering new civil preventative orders which will disrupt and prevent child criminal exploitation from occurring or re-occurring. We are also funding the Children’s Society to deliver the Prevention Programme to work with professionals within the private, statutory and third sectors, as well as the general public, to raise awareness and upskills staff to better respond to, disrupt and prevent multiple forms of child exploitation

Each missing child case represents both a vulnerable young person at risk and a family in crisis, often with complex underlying causes that need to be understood and addressed. We are working to support the NPCC and its rollout of its ‘Children who go Missing from Care’ Framework as another vital tool when tackling head-on the underlying vulnerabilities in children that often lead to missing episodes and further strengthening frontline response

The Home Office does not hold information on the average length of time taken is for police forces to find children reported as missing, given the complexities and care different cases require. Where there is a case of a child going missing internationally, the police are able to work with international partners to investigate, including where cases are raised under the Hague Convention.