Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to create national guidelines for preventing adult grooming.

The Government is taking a range of actions to prevent the grooming and exploitation of vulnerable adults.

To tackle criminal exploitation, we are introducing a new cuckooing offence in the Crime and Policing Bill to target criminals who groom and exploit vulnerable people in order to take over their homes for criminal purposes. We are also introducing a new offence of coerced internal concealment to address the appalling practice whereby criminals exploit children and vulnerable adults to cause them to internally conceal items such as drugs for criminal purposes. Both offences will be supported by statutory guidance for police as well as non-statutory multi-agency guidance which will include information on preventative action to protect those at risk of these terrible forms of adult grooming and exploitation.

In terms of adult grooming for sexual exploitation, we are working closely with police and others to tackle the drivers of trafficking for sexual exploitation, including through law enforcement operational intensifications aimed at tackling modern slavery threats and targeting prolific perpetrators.