Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:49 pm on 15 December 2020.
On 3 December, crime and justice specialist Crest Advisory published a report on county lines and looked-after children. Based on that report, I called for a Welsh Government statement on support for looked-after children in north Wales. Using police data and stakeholder interviews in north Wales and Merseyside chosen to reflect exploitation at both ends of a county line, they found that almost all known county lines activity in north Wales originates in Merseyside, that the lines travel into north Wales firstly across the Welsh border into Flintshire and Wrexham local authorities, and secondly to coastal towns, including Rhyl, Colwyn Bay, Abergele, Llandudno and Bangor; that although looked-after children are taken into local authority care to improve their welfare, they are over-represented in child criminal county lines exploitation and are therefore far from being effectively safeguarded; that children placed in residential care homes and unregulated settings are at a higher risk of going missing, with 31 per cent of missing incidents in north Wales in the last two years reported from care; and that although looked-after children are disproportionately represented in county lines networks, they are not being systematically identified by police or local authorities. I think this is an urgent matter, a pressing matter, and one that must not be overlooked because of COVID, and I call for an urgent statement accordingly.