Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many times children have been detained overnight in police custody for non-payment of fines in each of the last five years.

The Home Office does not hold data centrally on the number of detentions of children made for non-payment of fines. The Home Office collect and publish data on the number of persons detained for more than 24 hours under part IV of the Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act broken down by the length of detention and police force area.

These data cannot be broken down by age or to identify those arrested or detained for non-payment of fines. The available data are published here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales