Theft of Mobile Telephones

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

One of the first things that anybody who is a victim of crime should do is report that crime, because we cannot act unless we know the level of crime and the impact of it in the first place. That is important. The noble Lord is also right that designing out the potential for this activity in the building of resilient phones that cannot be used post crime is the best way forward. There have been innovations by a number of phone companies on that, but certainly there is more that can be done.

We want to help to support CCTV, and to take measures such as the incident warrant and on neighbourhood policing. In the long term, we will work with companies to ensure that we design out crime, and we will look at the market for broken-up, exported or resold phones in the United Kingdom. That intelligence-led policing will help to have a great impact on the current 146,000 thefts from a person last year, up 22%, of which mobile phone thefts were approximately half that figure.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

Is there not a lesson to be learned from what the Israeli intelligence service did with pagers? I am not suggesting that we should do that, but the principle is most appropriate. I cannot understand why the companies producing mobiles are not prepared to move quickly so that when their owners lose them they can disable them. That will stop the stealers.

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I note what my noble friend thinks about the Israeli example, but if that happened, it might mean that half of south London did not have access to a phone on any given day. The key thing is that I, and the Government, welcome innovation in mobile phone protection. The mobile phone companies are looking into that, and we have to work with them in tandem. The idea of a kill switch or a stop in any way, shape or form is certainly welcome, but it is in technology that that is developed. It is in everybody’s interests, including those of the mobile phone companies, to develop that technology speedily.