Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support local authorities in enforcing trading standards to help reduce the resale of stolen phones.

On 6 February the Home Secretary brought together police, the National Crime Agency, the Mayor of London, local government representatives, leading technology companies and others to drive greater collaboration in breaking the business model of mobile phone thieves. The Summit resulted in commitments from the police to work in partnership across force boundaries as well as in collaboration with local partners such as Trading Standards and other local authority resources to tackle this criminality. This collaboration is ongoing.

In addition, the Crime and Policing Bill includes a measure to give police the power to enter and search premises for stolen property that has been electronically geo-location tracked to those premises, where it is not reasonably practicable to obtain a warrant without seriously prejudicing the entry and search purpose.

Through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee we will also place thousands of additional police officers and police community support officers in neighbourhood policing roles to provide a more visible and effective service to the public, with each neighbourhood having named, contactable officers dealing with local issues, including the theft of mobile phones.