Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce domestic burglaries.

Crime Survey for England and Wales data shows a 55% per cent fall in the level of domestic burglary when comparing the Crime Survey to year ending March 2023 with the year ending March 2010. This represents a fall from 917,000 incidents to 409,000 incidents. While this is clearly good news, the Government recognises the significant impact invasive crimes such as domestic burglary can have on individuals and the wider community, and we are committed to tackling and preventing these crimes.

In her open letter to police leaders in September 2022, the Home Secretary made it clear the public want to know the police will visit them when a home burglary has been committed. We therefore welcome the announcement made by the National Police Chiefs’ Council on the 8 June that all 43 police forces in England and Wales have been implementing this policy since March. We are working with police leaders to ensure forces are making their attendance data available to the public. https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/police-now-attending-scene-of-every-home-burglary

The commitment to attend home burglaries is being supported by specific College of Policing good practice guidance on conducting residential burglary investigations. https://www.college.police.uk/guidance/residential-burglary Setting the standard in respect of the initial response and the subsequent investigation, the guidance sits alongside the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice on Investigations.

As part of this back-to-basics approach, police forces across England and Wales have committed to pursue all ‘reasonable lines of enquiry’ where there is a reasonable chance it could lead them to catching a perpetrator and solving a crime. This commitment, announced on 28 August, has been worked up and agreed by the Home Office, in tandem with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pursuing-all-reasonable-lines-of-enquiry-letter-to-police-leaders/pursuing-all-reasonable-lines-of-enquiry-letter-to-police-leaders

Furthermore, the Home Secretary has made it clear she expects forces to work with partners across the justice system to see more criminals charged and prosecuted.

To help ensure the police have the resources they need to fight crime and tackle anti-social behaviour, we have delivered on our commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers by the end of March this year. As of 31 March, a total of 20,947 additional officers had been recruited across England and Wales through the Police Uplift Programme, raising the number of police officers in England and Wales to 149,566, the highest number on record since comparable records began.