Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of stolen cars returned to their owners in each of the last three years.

The Government is committed to tackling vehicle crime.

The latest estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows there were 726,000 incidents of vehicle-related theft in the year ending September 2023. This represents a 39% fall, when compared with the year ending March 2010, when there was an estimated 1,198,000 such incidents.

The Government is working closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group, chaired by ACC Jennifer Sims, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime, to take forward a programme of work to prevent and reduce vehicle crime nationally. This includes training police officers on methods used to steal vehicles, encouraging vehicle owners to secure their vehicles and working with industry to prevent theft. A network of vehicle crime leads has been established in every police force in England and Wales, ensuring forces share information about emerging trends in vehicle crime and are better able to tackle regional issues.

We are legislating through the Criminal Justice Bill to create two new offences where a person possesses, makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply electronic devices where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they will be used in vehicle theft. The legislation will make it easier for police to prosecute criminals making and supplying these devices, as well as vehicle thieves.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales publishes annual estimates on the proportion of stolen vehicles returned to owners which can be found within the ‘Nature of crime: Vehicle related thefts’. The latest available figures from the 2019/20 CSEW, estimated that in 28% of thefts the vehicle was returned to its owner, 34% in the 2018/19 survey and 40% in the 2017/18 survey.

No assessment has been made of the number of vehicles stolen by under 18s and there are currently no plans to publish the minutes of meeting on car theft since November 2023.