Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the total number of specialist roads policing officers employed in each of the last ten years.

The Home Office collects and publishes data annually on the primary function of police officers, as part of the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletins, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales .

These data include 4415 Full Time Equivalent officers whose primary function is “Road Policing”, and officers with multiple responsibilities are recorded under their primary function.

This government is fully committed to giving the police the powers and resources they need to fight crime. The Chief Officer will decide how to deploy available resources in dealing with all the issues for which the force is responsible, including roads policing, taking into account any specific local problems and demands with which they are faced.

The Home Office collect and publish arrests data (available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2019), however, information on the officer making the arrest is not collected.

Manufacturers have 15 devices that are currently seeking product type approval from the Home Office, with varying timelines to approval ranging from a few months to 3 years.

Differing timeframes for the approval process are influenced by a number of complicating factors, for example improvements identified by the type approval process that are required for meeting approval requirements, the submission of valid test reports or the provision of manufacturer’s data.