Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to her departmental data Crime against businesses: findings from the year ending March 2021 Commercial Victimisation Survey published on 30 March 2022, for what reason that publication does not include information on the (a) agriculture, forestry and fishing and (b) accommodation and food sectors.

The 2020 Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS) was planned to cover all commercial sectors but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As the effects of the pandemic continued into 2021, a decision was taken to focus the 2021 CVS on the Wholesale and retail sector only whose premises had largely remained open.

Being a premises-based survey, the CVS is not considered a good measure of fraud and computer misuse offences as these crimes are typically dealt with by Head Offices. Experience from previous surveys demonstrated that respondents were unable to answer questions on some categories of online crime. Therefore, in the 2021 CVS the sub-categories below were included within the category of computer misuse:

1. Hacking or unauthorised access

2. Computer viruses or malware

3. Staff receiving fraudulent emails

Respondents were asked about incidents of intellectual property thefts, but the numbers of incidents reported were too low to produce any reliable national estimates. Specific questions on theft of money, the online theft of information, and website vandalism were not collected.