Criminals to face jail over forcing children to conceal drugs under new offence
Children and vulnerable adults are forced to ingest or conceal the items in their bodies, which can cause significant harm and can be fatal if drug packages break open inside them, leading to an overdose.
The move will be included as an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill currently going through Parliament.
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said: 'There is something truly evil about the gang leaders who degrade young girls, young boys and vulnerable adults in this way, forcing them to put their lives at risk.
'This new offence will go alongside other measures in our landmark Crime and Policing Bill to turn the tables on the gang leaders and hold them to account for exploiting children and vulnerable adults.'
It comes as the Government committed to investing £42 million into a programme to tackle county lines gangs and support victims of the drugs trade.
Since July 2024, more than 800 violent criminals involved in county lines have been charged through the programme's enforcement action and 1,200 drug lines have been closed, according to the Home Office.
More than 2,100 safeguarding referrals for children and vulnerable people have also been made, it added.
Jack O'Neill, of The Children's Society, said: 'Children forced to carry drugs in this way are subject to a form of abuse and exploitation that causes deep, long-lasting harm, and the law must reflect that.
'A clear legal definition of child criminal exploitation would help stop vulnerable children falling through the cracks and shift the focus onto the predators who profit from their abuse.'
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No democratic state should make arbitrary decisions and must actively seek the consent of citizens. As it stands, how proscription is achieved – short parliamentary debates in both Houses and, in the case of Palestine Action, bracketing the organisation along with two far-right groups in a single vote – fails this test. To have the ability to proscribe a group as 'terrorists', ministers and government must do much more to show the public how and why that is the case. We must also address the glaring inconsistencies and real gaps in law these cases reveal. Legislation on public order focuses on specific practices; proscription orders target specific terrorist groups. Nothing sits between this to recognise when organisations themselves encourage members repeatedly and deliberately to escalate intimidation in pursuit of their aim. Extreme groups create a climate of violence, leaving refugees waiting to be firebombed, Jewish citizens attacked, black and Muslim citizens living in fear, and women increasingly vilified. Getting the balance right means abolishing offences such as 'recklessly encouraging support' of a proscribed group and focusing instead on those who organise this criminality. Setting out how and when behaviour threatens our democracy – as distinct from criticising state policies – would also better maintain the integrity of the seriousness of terrorism charges. Stopping organisations that are not simply accidentally violent, but intentionally so, means a new offence is needed, distinct from the battery of existing criminal ones. This would recognise how groups that encourage violence and intimidation go beyond existing public order offences, disentangling non-violent direct action from violence or attacks on property and terrorism. The alternative – accepting that harm to individuals is an inevitable risk of protest because people feel strongly about something – is not tenable. Terrorism is different from terrifying opponents, but both are or should be criminal offences. The failure to make that distinction is both increasingly infecting the policing of protest and undermining the legitimate right to protest. Anyone who thinks this situation is simple – either an egregiously authoritarian power-grab from the government or a sincere intention to block violent thuggery – isn't paying attention. The status quo has come to mean equating peaceful witness with terrorism, and isn't sustainable. But neither is pretending there isn't a problem that threatens our ability to debate, disagree and ultimately decide in our democracy. Without action, it will be those with the loudest voices and the most lethal actors who win. Stella Creasy is the Labour and Cooperative MP for Walthamstow. Peter Hain was the Labour MP for Neath from 1991 to 2015 and now sits in the House of Lords
