Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of equipping more police officers with Taser non-lethal weapons, and if she will make a statement.

We are committed to giving the police the necessary tools to do their job and TASER^®, a form of conducted energy device (CED), provides officers with an important less-lethal, tactical option when facing potentially physically violent situations.

While its use must be in line with the Home Secretary’s authorisation of the device, the deployment of TASER^® is an operational matter for Chief Officers. It is for them to determine the number of devices and specially trained officers based on their force assessment of threat and risk.