Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of cross border policing between West Mercia Police and West Midlands Police.

In specialist crime types, such as serious and organised crime and county lines, policing has been effective in tackling cross-border crime.

Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs), working with police forces across England and Wales, are a prime example of this.

In May 2026, Tarian ROCU, working with Gwent Police and Gloucestershire Constabulary, concluded Operation Rooster – a long running investigation into an organised crime group (OCG) operating across south Wales and south-west England. Tarian ROCU coordinated enforcement activity against a network involved in the supply of Class A and Class B drugs with an estimated street value of £3.5 million. Through evidence secured in the investigation, five members of the OCG were sentenced to a combined 41 years imprisonment.

Additionally, through the County Lines Programme, we fund the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre (NCLCC) to monitor the intelligence picture and co-ordinate the national law enforcement response to county lines. The NCLCC has been vital in strengthening the law enforcement response and enabling police forces to work together to tackle this complex, cross-border issue.

However, despite the success of these operations, the ability to tackle cross border crime and provide victims of these crimes with the support they need is not consistent across policing in England and Wales. The existing 43 force model is fractured, and we expect all 43 forces to be both highly responsive to local needs and to deal with major incidents and serious crimes. They are not set up to do both.

As set out in the Police Reform White Paper, we will set out to change that.

We will create

• Dedicated local policing units with dedicated local commanders, in every town, city and borough focused exclusively on everyday crime and anti-social behaviour.
• Strategic forces with the specialist skills and capacity to support local police when major or serious incidents occur. This will be informed by The Independent Review of Police Force Structures led by Lord Hogan-Howe, which will report in due course.
• A National Police Service (NPS) to ensure that the system is led and coordinated to keep pace with the international criminals using technology to cause serious harm to the public. In its final state, the NPS will bring together the National Crime Agency, Counter Terrorism Policing and the national facing capabilities dealing with cross-border serious and organised crime threats in ROCUs.