Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many recorded incidents of shoplifting there have been by police force area in each year since 2010; and what proportion of these included theft of food.

The Home Office does not hold data centrally on the number of incidents of food theft. Police recorded crime data held by the Home Office records numbers of thefts, but does not separately identify those involving food.

Similarly, the Home Office collects statistics on the number of shoplifting incidents recorded by the police at police force area, but this does not separately identify those offences involving food.

The total number of shoplifting offences in each financial year since 2010/11 are provided in the table.