Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle mobile phone theft in (a) Beckenham and Penge constituency and (b) the UK.

On 6 February the Home Secretary brought together law enforcement and leading tech companies to drive greater collaboration in breaking the business model of mobile phone thieves.

The Summit resulted in clear commitments from attendees to work in partnership, including to significantly boost the sharing of data and intelligence on mobile phone theft, in order to build a comprehensive picture of the problem and the role of organised crime networks.

To aid police investigations and recovery of stolen goods, our Crime and Policing Bill also includes a measure to give police the power to enter and search premises for stolen property which has been electronically geolocation tracked to those premises, where it is not reasonably practicable to obtain a warrant without seriously prejudicing the entry and search purpose.

Finally, we are committed to strengthening neighbourhood policing and through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, we will place thousands of additional police officers and police community support officers in neighbourhood policing roles, to provide a more visible and effective response to the activities of mobile phone thieves operating in our communities.