Jerome Mayhew
Main Page: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland and Fakenham)Department Debates - View all Jerome Mayhew's debates with the Home Office
(3 days, 23 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Border Security and Asylum (Alex Norris)
I assure my hon. Friend and colleagues across the House that we are closing hotels, not opening them.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)
My constituents hate seeing organised shoplifting taking place with apparent impunity. Norfolk police recognises this and has identified suspects in more than a third of all cases, but what is the point when the Government’s assumption is that any sentence shorter than 12 months will automatically be suspended? What are the Government going to do about it?
Sarah Jones
We are making some progress in this space. It may seem small, but there was a 1% fall in shop theft offences last year, and a 30% increase in the last year of the hon. Gentleman’s Government, so we are making progress. In particular, we are working hard on how we target prolific offenders more. We are using new technology and of course working with the private sector. Our Crime and Policing Act 2026 introduced new powers, so we are going to tackle shop theft in a way that the previous Government did not. We are also launching the centre for AI soon, which will give us new technology that we can use. We are bearing down on shop theft.