Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential use of geographically targeted Emergency Alerts to assist police in cases involving missing children and vulnerable adults who are considered to be at immediate or significant risk.

This government remains firmly committed to working to ensure that anyone who is reported missing to the police receives an equal, thorough and swift response, including a robust multiagency response. We are also working to improve support for all missing persons and their families during a missing incident and investigations.

We are very fortunate in the UK in that the public and the media respond with huge interest and support for missing or abducted child cases, including to try and help police and safeguarding partners with investigations to locate a missing child as quickly as possible. Police Forces also have well established media departments which can effectively get messages out to the public quickly and effectively without the need for national co-ordination and with appropriate safeguarding regard for children across the country.

The Cabinet Office has responsibility for the Emergency Alert System. Each new Emergency Alert is carefully coordinated with responding public bodies and agencies and each request is evaluated by the Cabinet Office on a rigorous, case-by-case basis to ensure it is necessary for public safety. At this time there are no plans to add missing persons alerts to this alert system.