Drugs: Organised Crime

(asked on 21st February 2022) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to page 22 of From Harm to Hope: a 10-year drugs plan to cut crime and save lives, published in December 2021, how many and what proportion of the 4,000 vulnerable people safeguarded through the County Lines Programme are children who (a) are in care, (b) are on the register, (c) have a protection order, (d) are at risk, (e) already had a referral through the NRM and (f) have previously been through the NRM.


Answered by
Rachel Maclean Portrait
Rachel Maclean
This question was answered on 25th February 2022

Since November 2019, through our County Lines Programme, police have closed more than 1,500 lines, made over 7,400 arrests and engaged with more than 4,000 people through safeguarding interventions. The National County Lines Coordination Centre (NCLCC) determines a line to be closed where there is evidence that the controlling line holder is no longer capable of distributing drugs using that telephone number.

Information on geographic breakdown of lines is held by NCLCC and not publicly available due to operational sensitivities, however NCLCC do publish a strategic assessment of county lines which sets out the latest threat. The latest NCLCC strategic assessment (published in April 2021) shows a reduction in the total number of potentially active lines per month, with numbers reported to have fallen between 800-1,100 in 2019/20 to 600 in 2020/21. The reduction in potentially active lines is believed to be linked to a change in reporting and enhanced operational activity, the latter of which indicates the positive outcomes from the investment in addressing the county lines drug supply model.

We do not centrally collect the information requested on vulnerable people safeguarded through the Programme.

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