Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of children "going country" to deliver drugs.

The National Crime Agency’s 2017 threat assessment of county lines set out the most up to date anaylsis of the threat posed by county lines and the number of ‘deal lines’ and children being exploited through this form of drug dealing.

The report is clear that further work is needed to determine the true nature and scale of children and vulnerable adults being exploited through county lines, although it is estimated to be in the thousands. A more detailed intelligence picture will be generated as part of the work of the new National County Lines Co-ordination Centre that was announced in the Serious Violence Strategy and which is expected to be fully operational later this year.