Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what recent estimate they have made of the loss to the UK economy from heritage crime.

This Government is committed to driving down rural crime.  We are on target to recruit 20,000 additional officers by March 2023. This is unprecedented and reflects the biggest recruitment drive in decades, and will help ensure the public is better protected, including in rural communities.

To help prevent the theft of agricultural machinery the Government is supporting the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill which will require immobilisers and forensic marking to be fitted as standard to all new All-Terrain Vehicles and quad bikes. We are intending to consult on extending the legislation to other agricultural machinery.

The Home Office collects and publishes information on the number of theft offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. However, information on what is stolen is not routinely collected by the Home Office. All data collections are reviewed each year by the Policing Data Requirement Group (PDRG) to ensure that data requested from the police is proportionate to the need for the data and that forces have the technical capabilities to provide the data requested.

The Home Office has not made an estimate of the of the loss to the UK economy from rural crime or heritage crime. However, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) estimates that in 2021 rural theft cost the UK £40.5m, based on their insurance claim statistics.