Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many cat thefts have been recorded in each of the last 10 years for which records are available.

Information on the number of recorded cat thefts is not held centrally.

We recognise the distress pet theft causes and are committed to preventing these cruel crimes.

However, information on the scale of pet theft was gathered as part of the Pet Theft Taskforce, which engaged a number of key organisations and experts in the field to shine a light on the existing evidence and is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pet-theft-taskforce-report/pet-theft-taskforce-report.