Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether his Department is taking steps through the criminal justice system to support small businesses affected by criminal damage.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates 623k criminal damage offences in the year ending December 2023, which is a decrease of -73.9% since year ending March 2010.

The Government is working to reduce crime against businesses. Police forces across England and Wales made a significant commitment to follow up on any available evidence where there is a reasonable chance it could lead them to catching a perpetrator and solving a crime. This is a substantial and meaningful commitment that we believe will help drive down crime, improve investigations and improve the criminal justice system outcomes to support all victims.

We are taking action to support the retail sector, including small, independent retailers. The Government’s plan – "Fighting retail crime: more action" was launched on 10 April and includes commitments to make it easier for small independent businesses to report crime to the police.

In 2021-22, the Home Office provided £75,000 to the National Business Crime Centre to support the creation of a retail crime hub on their website and to establish it as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for business crime. The crime hub hosts a range of information and crime prevention guidance for businesses, including specific resources for preventing shop theft and prolific offending: Business Support (nbcc.police.uk). The Home Office will be providing further funding to the NBCC to carry out commitments in the Government’s retail crime plan.

We know anti-social behaviour blights neighbourhoods, makes people’s lives a misery and stops businesses and individuals from flourishing. That is why last year the Government launched the Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan to crack down on anti-social behaviour and restore public confidence that these crimes will be quickly and visibly punished.  Under the Plan, which is backed by £160m of funding, we are supporting increased patrols in anti-social behaviour hotspot areas, and making sure offenders are made to repair the damage they cause, in some cases within as little as 48 hours.