Drug Trafficking: County Lines — House of Commons, 2018-10-17
Topic: Law and Crime
John Woodcock (Independent, Unknown): I am really pleased to have been able to secure the Adjournment debate this evening on the crucial matter known as county lines. This long-distance drug running is bringing misery to towns such as Barrow and coastal and rural areas right across the country, as well as to the big cities where the drug gangs operate, where thousands of young people are being coerced into what is effectively—and what is being prosecuted as—modern-day slavery in order to run drugs from the big cities to areas such as mine To be clear, there have always been issues of drug dealers getting into other areas, but the scale of the problem is now unprecedented. The Government’s own figures, which I will ask the Minister to confirm, suggest that the problem is spiralling out of control, with an exponential rise in the number of these dedicated mobile phone lines in towns such as mine. People use them to order drugs, which are then couriered by young people, often against their will and under the threat of violence. Communities such as mine are finding themselves awash with drugs, to a level that they have not seen before, and seeing the kind of drug-related violence that has previously marred big cities but has thankfully kept away from towns such as my own The Daily Mail reported an excellent investigation on its front page today, and some of the figures were truly astounding. It found that county lines were bringing in around £7 million to drug gangs every single day, which equates to £2.5 billion a year. The new national county lines co-ordination centre, which I am sure the Minister will want to say more about, has revealed that each mobile phone line is making about £5,000 a day. British Transport police said recently that it arrested 476 drug couriers using the railways, of whom more than 100 were classed as frequent train travellers The effect of county lines on these young people is predictably devastating. The children’s charity Safer London believes that 4,000 children are involved in the capital alone. A National Crime Agency report last year showed that nearly every police force area in England and Wales had been affected to some degree. Of the 44 forces, 35 mentioned knife crime linked to county lines and 32 mentioned gun crime. Academic evidence shows that county lines drug-selling gangs are generally much more violent than the local dealers who previously controlled the market Last month, I was able to bring together Members of Parliament, senior police officers from across the country, the Minister for Policing and the Fire Service and his opposite number, my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), as well as charities from across the country, to talk about this issue. The representative from the National Crime Agency suggested that, according to the latest estimate, there had been 1,000 county lines in operation last month. That figure suggests an increase of more than a third on the 720 that were reported last year. However, the Daily Mail reports today that that same organisation now estimates the number to be 1,500, which would be a nearly 100% increase in one year. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify those figures.