Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police forces in (a) England and (b) Wales contain operational rape and serious sexual offences units.

The Government is committed to ensuring that victims and survivors of rape and sexual offences have their case treated seriously from the point of disclosure.

We recognise that having police officers with the right skills is critical in ensuring cases are managed appropriately and effectively. We are supporting the police to ensure this is the case through:

• funding Operation Soteria, which includes reviewing the learning and development on rape and sexual offences to officers and sharing learning nationally;
• supporting the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing to design and pilot the Rape and Other Sexual Offences Investigative Skills Development Programme for police officers;
• funding the Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme, run by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which drives improvement in the policing response to all safeguarding crimes (including adult sexual offences); and
• the three-year Spending Review settlement secured an additional £550m for the Police Uplift Programme to fund the remaining officers in the third year of the programme, supportthe full 20,000 officer uplift, delivering on this Government’s commitment to recruit additional officers and keep the public safe.

The structuring of police forces is an operational matter for Chief Constables and information on the number of specialist units is not collated centrally.