Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the reasons for the change in the number of shoplifting offences in Lancashire over the last two years.

In the Modern Crime Prevention Strategy, published in March 2016, we set out the six key drivers of crime – opportunity, character, the effectiveness of the Criminal Justice System, profit, drugs and alcohol. These factors are likely to be relevant to the incidence of shoplifting as they are to other crime types.