Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help reduce pickpocketing in London.

In the last year of the previous government, we saw a 40% increase in snatch theft. As part of our Safer Streets mission, this government is determined to crack down on pickpocketing, snatch theft, robbery, and other crimes that make people feel unsafe in our communities.

This government is determined to tackle the scourge of the street crime. That starts with strengthening neighbourhood policing, and we will introduce a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee to provide a more visible presence in town centres, recruiting thousands of additional neighbourhood police officers, police community support officers and Special Constables, and giving every community a named local officer.

One way of preventing these crimes is to tackle the market for stolen goods, making items such as mobile phones less attractive to steal in the first place. This is why we have announced that we will be be working with tech companies and law enforcement to see what more can be done to break the business model of mobile phone thieves.