Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to increase the number of police trained to deal with cybercrime; and if she will make a statement.

Cyber is a Tier One threat to national security, and the Government is investing £860 million over five years through the National Cyber Security Programme (NCSP) to respond. Of this, approximately 10% is being invested in building law enforcement capabilities to tackle cyber crime. This has been used to build capability at the national, regional, and local level. We have established a National Cyber Crime Unit within the National Crime Agency (NCA), and cyber teams within each of the Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs). NCSP funding is being used to train officers in these units to investigate the most serious cases of cyber crime.

We are also delivering training in cyber crime to officers in local police forces. The College of Policing has designed four training modules on cyber crime aimed at police officers and staff, on cyber,digital and social media. Since they were rolled out in 2013, over 120,000 of these modules have been completed. The College and police forces have also been delivering a classroom-based course to police investigators, which gives them the understanding of how to exploit intelligence and evidential opportunities offered by technology, social networking and communications data.

Over the next year we will continue to build law enforcement capability to tackle cyber crime. This includes increased staffing levels and technical resource. As part of this, there will be a large expansion in the NCA's pilot programme of "cyber specials" – volunteer officers who have specialist expertise that is highly valuable to law enforcement – and an increase over the next three years to 80 volunteer cyber specialists in the NCA and forces across the country.