The Education Committee will question experts on what government, schools, police and other agencies can do to protect children from being groomed into county lines gangs.
County Lines gangs exploit children to move and store drugs and money from urban areas to coastal and market towns, often using coercion, intimidation, and violence. The Children’s Commissioner for England believes that at least 27,000 children are county lines gang members, with 4,000 in London alone. An additional 120,000 children – one in every 25 teens in England- are estimated to experience broader risk factors associated with exploitation.
In the first panel, MPs will quiz charity leaders from Refocus and St Giles Trust with frontline experience in dealing with county lines. Questions will likely focus on their work in the area and what more can be done to protect at-risk children from being groomed into gangs through funding, policy recommendations, and joint-working.
In the second panel, the cross-party Committee will hear from representatives of the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, the Children’s Homes Association, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Southend-on-Sea City Council. MPs may ask about different approaches taken to police county lines exploitation, whether the scale of childhood exploitation is getting better or worse, and the role of children’s homes in combating child exploitation.
