Scotland Has a Cuckooing Offence With No Start Date

Scotland’s cuckooing offence, which carries up to five years in prison, is on the statute book and is still not in force. Section 65 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 makes it a crime to take control of someone else’s home for listed offending, yet the official text still marks the whole chapter as prospective.

Holyrood consented in March and Royal Assent followed on 29 April 2026, 14 months after the bill was published. The people already in those closes, housing officers, adult-protection workers and Police Scotland, still have no new charge to use.

A Five-Year Offence Still Marked Prospective

Then Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said the bill would better protect people in every corner of Scotland, language that framed the original Scottish cuckooing announcement when the bill appeared at Westminster on 25 February 2025. Then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said police should have every tool as tactics change. The tool they named for home takeovers is now an Act of Parliament, 2026 c. 20, and it still has no start date.

The offence did not come into force when the Act was passed. Section 255 leaves most of the statute to ministers, and the first commencement instrument, made on 25 June 2026, brought other parts in on 29 June without touching Chapter 2. Later instruments have followed the same pattern: machinery first, the home-takeover charge later.

THE ROAD FROM BILL TO A PAPER OFFENCE

1. 25 February 2025: The Crime and Policing Bill is published at Westminster, with a UK-wide cuckooing offence in the pack.
2. 16 May 2025: The Scottish Government lodges a legislative consent memorandum, because the offence touches devolved criminal law.
3. 24 March 2026: Holyrood agrees motion S6M-21179, moved by Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, including the cuckooing clauses.
4. 29 April 2026: The bill receives Royal Assent. Section 65 is on the books and is not in force.
5. 24 June 2026: Neil Gray, answering in Holyrood, says cuckooing is not currently a criminal offence and that ministers hold no prevalence data.
6. 21 and 29 September 2026: Further commencement dates under the third instrument bring in other parts of the Act. Section 65 is not among them.
7. 26 October 2026: Respect orders under section 1 are due to start. The cuckooing chapter still has no date.

That sequence is the story housing staff are living with. They were told a bespoke crime was coming. They got a heading in an Act and a wait.

Holyrood Consented Before Royal Assent

Criminal law is devolved, so Westminster needed Holyrood’s consent to put a Scottish home-takeover offence into a UK bill. The Scottish Government asked for that consent in May 2025 and kept lodging supplementary memorandums as the bill moved through the Lords. The Criminal Justice Committee recommended that Parliament agree.

On 24 March 2026 Constance moved S6M-21179. The motion covered a long list of clauses, including child criminal exploitation prevention orders for Scotland and, expressly, cuckooing. The motion was agreed at decision time. A letter the same day told the Clerk of the House of Commons that the Scottish Parliament had consented.

Scottish ministers can later amend Part 2 of Schedule 9, the list of Scottish crimes that turn a takeover into the new offence, where the change would be within Holyrood’s competence. The Secretary of State holds the parallel power for the rest of the schedule. The architecture is UK-wide with a Scottish lock on the Scottish list, which is why consent was required in the first place.

Consent is not commencement. Gray’s June answer, two months after Royal Assent, still described the offence as something that would arrive “once the provisions come into force.”

What Counts as Control of a Scottish Home?

The Act names the crime controlling another’s home for criminal purposes. Person A commits it if A exercises control over B’s dwelling, does so to enable that dwelling to be used in connection with one or more relevant offences, and B does not consent to that control for that purpose. The relevant offences in a Scottish home are the Scottish crimes listed in Part 2 of Schedule 9, a list that includes theft, fraud, firearms offences and production or supply of controlled drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

Control is drawn widely. It covers who may enter, leave or occupy the place, what is delivered or collected, how the dwelling is used, and whether B can still use it for B’s own purposes. It also covers the case where A arranges for someone else to exercise that control. A dwelling includes a tent, caravan, vehicle or vessel used as living space, so a takeover is not limited to a tenement flat.

Consent is narrow. B consents only if B is 18 or over, has capacity, is given enough information to decide, gives consent freely, and has not withdrawn it. A child cannot consent. Coercion, deception and other abuse strip the consent out. The Home Office factsheet, updated on 30 September 2026, says the same in plainer words: the occupant is meant to be treated as a victim, not as the offender who happens to hold the tenancy.

HOW THE PENALTIES SPLIT

The 12 months figure is the Scottish summary ceiling, not a lesser version of the same crime. On indictment the maximum is the same five years everywhere. The Act also adds the offence to the criminal-lifestyle list in the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and gives victims automatic access to special measures in court.

WHAT PROSECUTORS WILL HAVE TO PROVE

• Control: A, or someone A puts in, decides who uses the home, what comes through the door, or whether the occupant can still live there as their own place.
• Criminal purpose: That control is for enabling a listed offence, typically drugs, weapons or sexual offending, in that dwelling.
• No valid consent: The occupant is under 18, lacks capacity, was not properly informed, did not agree freely, or has withdrawn agreement.

Until those three points can be charged, officers still go in on the drugs, the weapons or the disorder, and the takeover itself has no name on the indictment.

The Landlords Who Were Never Consulted

Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, asked in June 2026 what talks the Scottish Government had held with social landlords about the risk to tenants. Neil Gray, who chairs the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce, answered on 24 June 2026 and covered ten questions on the same subject in one reply.

The Scottish Government has not had any discussions directly with social landlords on cuckooing. Cuckooing is not currently a criminal offence, therefore the Scottish Government holds no data on the prevalence of cuckooing.

Neil Gray, written answer S7W-01001, 24 June 2026

He pointed instead to the taskforce, whose members include Police Scotland, the Crown Office, CoSLA, the National Crime Agency and SOLACE. He cited practitioner guidance on criminal exploitation published in 2023, an awareness event in 2024, and the refreshed Trafficking and Exploitation Strategy of July 2025, which already treats cuckooing as criminal exploitation. He also listed money that is not a cuckooing budget: more than £75m through the Victim-Centred Approach Fund for 2022 to 2027, more than £3.4m from the Victim Surcharge Fund to 27 organisations, helping more than 10,000 people, and more than £3.5m in 2026-27 for TARA and Migrant Help.

The Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007 remains the statutory hook for councils. It already requires inquiries when an adult may be at risk and intervention may be needed to protect that person’s well-being, property or finances. Housing lawyers have been telling registered providers to keep using closure orders where a tenant cannot control who comes through the door, and to treat the occupant as someone to safeguard rather than as the source of the nuisance. That advice is the job as it stands, because the new offence is pending guidance and a commencement date.

The gap is practical. A housing officer is often the first official in the close. The Scottish Government holds no data on the prevalence of cuckooing and has not sat down with the landlords who would supply it.

June’s Week of Action Found 584 Homes

The Home Office says there is no centrally held count of cuckooed properties. What exists are snapshots from police intensification weeks, which are UK-wide and are not a Scottish series.

THE COUNTS THAT EXIST OUTSIDE HOLYROOD

• One in eight: Polling for the Centre for Social Justice and Justice and Care found that one in eight people have seen signs of cuckooing in their community.
• March 2024 week: The same campaign cited 1,284 cuckooed addresses visited in one week of intensive police action.
• October 2021 week: An earlier county-lines week of action visited 894 cuckooed addresses.
• June 2025 week: The National Police Chiefs’ Council, as reported in the Home Office factsheet, had 584 suspected cuckooed properties visited.

Those figures are not a Scottish prevalence rate. They are the reason Gray can say ministers will only collect data once the offence is in use. The campaign that pushed the law, led by the Centre for Social Justice and Justice and Care since 2021, treated that recording gap as the point: police were visiting the addresses and the Crown still had no home-takeover charge that fitted.

On 29 April 2026 the Centre for Social Justice called Royal Assent as the moment the standalone offence was recognised.

🚨BREAKING: Cuckooing has been recognised as a standalone criminal offence, with the Crime and Policing Bill receiving Royal Assent just now✍️

The CSJ and @JusticeandCare have long campaigned for those trapped in their own homes, controlled by dangerous gangs, to be recognised… pic.twitter.com/gOwKUN58qP

— The Centre for Social Justice (@csjthinktank) April 29, 2026

CSJ senior fellow Kenneth Ferguson wrote in May that the Scottish test is whether the law becomes protection for people whose homes have been taken over, not whether the clause exists. That test has not started, because no one can be charged under section 65 yet.

County Lines Already Occupied Highland Flats

The February 2025 billing presented cuckooing as a youth-protection measure in a wider child-safety package. The occupants who actually lose their keys are often adults with addiction, poor mental health or a learning disability, squeezed out of their own living room the way a cuckoo takes a nest. That is the pattern housing staff already recognise, and it is not confined to city schemes.

County lines from English cities now keep the phone, send runners north on the east-coast rail line and the A9, and use flats in towns too small to sustain a local drugs firm. The live argument in Scotland is that this occupation of Highland and north-east homes is treated as a side issue beside overdose numbers, while a new charging power still sits unused. A home-takeover offence will not, on its own, cut deaths. Treatment, deprivation and polydrug use remain Holyrood’s, and a paper crime does not reopen a closed rehab bed.

Police Scotland has been visiting cuckooed addresses for years under county-lines days of action, using search warrants, cash seizures and safeguarding referrals. Assistant Chief Constable Angela McLaren, speaking after an earlier national day of action, described gangs that groom children and at-risk adults to store and sell drugs, with intimidation and violence as the method. Those operations will continue. They simply still have to charge the drugs and the weapons, not the takeover.

When Will Police Scotland Get the Charging Power?

The Secretary of State may issue statutory guidance on the offence. Chief officers of police and the National Crime Agency will have a duty to have regard to it. No start date for that guidance has been set beside the offence, and housing lawyers were still describing the charge as pending guidance in the summer.

The commencement regulations made in September fix 21 September, 29 September, 26 October and 29 October 2026 for other slices of the Act, including respect orders on 26 October. Section 65 is not in that instrument. The same pattern is visible around child criminal exploitation: some order-making machinery has been switched on, the underlying offences have not.

WHAT WE KNOW

• On the books: Section 65 is part of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 after Royal Assent on 29 April 2026 and Holyrood’s consent on 24 March 2026.
• Not live: The chapter is still prospective. It was not commenced at Royal Assent and was not included in the September commencement instrument.
• No Scottish count: Gray said in June 2026 that because the conduct is not yet an offence, the Scottish Government holds no prevalence data and has not spoken directly to social landlords.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The start date: No regulations have appointed a day for section 65.
• The guidance: The power to issue statutory guidance exists. A published version for police and partners has not been tied to a date.
• First charges: There cannot be a Scottish prosecution under section 65 until the offence is commenced, so there is no charging record to inspect.

Police Scotland will keep using the Misuse of Drugs Act, firearms law and the 2007 adult-support duties on the same doors. The five-year home-takeover offence is written, consented to, and still waiting for a day on the calendar.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 and related Scottish government answers. It is for information only and is not legal advice, criminal-law advice, or guidance on how any person should report, investigate or defend an allegation of cuckooing or any other offence. Readers who think a home has been taken over, or who face housing or criminal action linked to that situation, should speak to a solicitor, Police Scotland, or their local adult-support and housing team before acting. Figures, commencement dates and the in-force status of each section reflect the official sources cited and can change when new regulations are made.