Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment has she made of recent trends in the number of car thefts in (a) Enfield North constituency and (b) the London Borough of Enfield.

The best measure of trends in crime is the Office for National Statistics’ Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and its latest estimates shows that the number of incidences of vehicle related thefts has fallen by 42% since the year ending March 2010. The sample size of the CSEW is not large enough to yield estimates at constituency or local authority level.

However, the Home Office collects and publishes information on the number of vehicle theft offences reported to and recorded by the police in England and Wales, on a quarterly basis. These are available at the Community Safety Partnership Area level, and can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables

The Home Office does not hold information at the constituency level.

The Government is committed to tackling vehicle crime. We are working closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group (NVCWG), chaired by ACC Jennifer Sims, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime, to take forward a programme of work to prevent and reduce theft of and from vehicles.

This includes training police officers on methods used to steal vehicles, encouraging vehicle owners to secure their vehicles and working with industry to prevent theft. Through the NVWG a network of vehicle crime specialists has been established, involving every police force in England and Wales, to ensure better sharing of information and intelligence.