In Home Office Questions this week, local MP James Duddridge asked the Home
Secretary, the Rt. Hon. Amber Rudd, how the government should help children who
were being coerced into dealing drugs. James highlighted the youth of some of those
involved, as well as how vulnerable the children were in many of these cases.
James said:
Sadly children as young as fourteen are dealing drugs in Southend. What can we do
to protect those vulnerable individuals but also punish those that coerce vulnerable
individuals, vulnerable children into those types of pursuits?
The Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, said:
I would say to my honourable friend that it’s a combination of enforcement and early
intervention. Enforcement because that sort of illegal abuse of children is wholly
unacceptable and we need to make sure that we stop it, but we also need to make
sure that children don’t fall victims to the sort of sort of words which might be said to
them that they might fall into the trap of using drugs. So I would say that it’s a
combination of enforcement and early intervention.