Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the budget allocated to the National Crime Agency GCHQ specialist unit for investigating child sexual abuse online in each year since 2014.

It has been the longstanding policy of successive Governments not to reveal specific details of the budgets or spending of the intelligence agencies. However, in September, the Home Secretary announced an extra £21.5m investment in law enforcement over the next 18 months to reduce the volume of offending and pursue the most hardened and dangerous abusers. The majority of this funding will go to UK law enforcement and intelligence agencies to tackle the most determined and dedicated abusers and includes further funding for a Joint Operations Team (JOT).

The Joint Operations Team is a jointly managed National Crime Agency (NCA) and GCHQ capability, drawing on the experience and knowledge of the NCA and the high-end capabilities and tradecraft of GCHQ to investigate and disrupt online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.

Working collaboratively provides a very powerful operating model. The JOT has supported the NCA in bringing offenders such as Dr Matthew Falder - the university lecturer who committed 137 offences – to justice. He was sentenced to 32 years imprisonment following their investigation.