Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of crime in England in the last year was linked to county lines.

Drugs are a significant driver of crime. As set out in our Drug Strategy approximately half of all acquisitive crime is linked to drugs and we know that almost half of all homicides in England and Wales are drug related.

That is why last year the Government published a ten-year Strategy to combat illicit drugs. This sets out a whole-system approach to cut off the supply of drugs by criminal gangs, give people with a drug addiction a route to a productive and drug-free life, and reduce the recreational use of drugs.

Through our Drug Strategy we are investing £145m over three years to bolster our existing county lines programme. Since it was launched in 2019, police activity delivered through the county lines programmes has closed over 2,400 lines, made over 8,000 arrests and engaged over 9,500 individuals through safeguarding interventions.