Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of police operations in tackling county lines.

This Government is determined to crack down on the county lines gangs who are exploiting our children and have a devastating impact on our communities. This is why, through the 10-year Drug Strategy, we are bolstering our County Lines Programme, investing up to £145m over three years to tackle the most violent and exploitative distribution model yet seen. By 2025, we expect this to result in over 2,000 more county lines closed, through a sustained attack on the distribution model.

We know our County Lines Programme is delivering. Since the County Lines Programme was launched in 2019, police activity has resulted in over 3,500 lines closed, 10,000 arrests, and 5,600 safeguarding referrals. This includes over 1,000 line closures since April 2022 against the Drugs Strategy commitment. The latest National County Lines Co-ordination Centre (NCLCC) assessment of County Lines also shows a reduction in the total number of potentially active lines per month, with numbers reported to have fallen from between 800-1,100 in 2019/20 to 600 in 2020/21.

As part of our County Lines Programme, the NCLCC also regularly coordinates weeks of intensive action against county lines gangs, which all police forces take part in. The most recent of these took place 27 February - 5 March and resulted in 276 lines closed (68% increase on the last Intensification Week), as well as 1,658 arrests and over 30kg worth of Class A drugs, £2m in cash and 404 weapons seized.