Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many animal thefts were reported to the Police in (a) Wakefield and (b) West Yorkshire in 2020.

The Home Office collects information from police forces in England on Wales on offences covered by the notifiable offence list. Whilst animal thefts are covered by the notifiable offence list it is not possible to separately identify these crimes from others in the wider offence category of theft offences.

The Government is ensuring police forces have sufficient resources to respond to the challenges they face. We have committed to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers by March 2023, with nearly 9,000 already in place. Furthermore, we are also investing in situational crime prevention through the Safer Streets Fund, to stop these crimes happening in the first place.

The Government recognises the distress pet theft causes and will consider the evidence and what more could be done to prevent these cruel crimes. That is why we launched the Pet Theft Taskforce on 8 May. Further information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/taskforce-launched-to-investigate-reported-rise-in-pet-thefts.