Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many police forces in England and Wales have disbanded their specialist child protection teams and allocated their work to Criminal Investigation Departments.

The Government does not keep a record of how individual police forces are structured. Team structures and deployment of officers within police forces are rightly decisions for Chief Constables, working with their democratically accountable Police and Crime Commissioners.

We recognise the need for police forces to be properly equipped to deal with the changing nature of crime. We have provided significant extra investment through the Police Transformation Fund to support policing to respond to changing crimes and threats including against vulnerable children.