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Nature Conservation: Crime

Asked by Ruth JonesLabourHome OfficeTabled Answered 22 October 2025UIN 81954

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to Naturewatch Foundation's report entitled Policing Wildlife Crime: Make Wildlife Count, published on 9 September 2025, what estimate she has made of the number and proportion of wildlife crimes which result in no further action.

Answered by Sarah Jones

The Home Office is working with the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to deliver their ‘Rural and Wildlife Crime strategy 2025-2029’. This is published by the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU), accessed here:

https://www.nwcu.police.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/NPCC-Wildlife-Rural-Crime-Strategy-2022-2025.pdf

The Home Office, along with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, directly funds the NWCU. The NWCU assists police forces and other law enforcement agencies in investigating wildlife crime.

The Home Office collects and publishes information on the number of wildlife crime offences, and their investigative outcomes, recorded by the police in England and Wales, on a quarterly basis. The latest information, to the year ending March 2025, is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/police-recorded-crime-and-outcomes-open-data-tables

Information to the year ending June 2025 will be published on 23 October.

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