Violent Crime: Young People

Since 2019, we have invested £160 million in 20 violence reduction units across England and Wales, and a further £55 million has been committed this year. Violence reduction units have reached more than 270,000 young people. They bring together specialists from health, the police, local government and community organisations not just to tackle violent crime, but to identify the young people who are most at risk of being drawn into it and provide evidence-based interventions to support them.

I am grateful for that answer. Children as young as 12 are being recruited by local drug dealers in the central wards of Stockton, and are provided with pocket money—huge sums for them—to carry and deliver class A and class B drugs. Many of them are in thrall to their balaclava-wearing controllers, who largely act with impunity. Although the police and other agencies work hard to combat such organised crime, Cleveland has the highest crime rate in the country, and police and councils do not have the fair funding needed to deal with criminals or provide good diversionary activities for those vulnerable young people. What will the Minister do to sort that out?

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that, under our tackling organised exploitation programme, we are keenly aware of the difference between victims and criminals, and that children are being drawn into criminal enterprises and gangs at ever-younger ages. I want to provide reassurance that where we have evidence of that happening, the child should be referred through the national referral mechanism—the framework for identifying victims of exploitation by county lines groups and equivalents. That can be done with or without the child’s consent, and it provides the police with a vital tool not just to protect the child but to disrupt the criminal activity in which they are being enlisted.