Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps recent steps she has taken to work with manufacturers to reduce car thefts using exploits in keyless technology.

The Home Office doesn’t hold data on the number of car thefts related to exploits in keyless technology.

The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) collects data on car theft incidents and method of entry, which has, since April 2018, included the method of ‘Offender manipulated signal from remote locking device’. Comparable data prior April 2018 are not available. Due to lower levels of responses to these CSEW questions, it is not possible to break the data down by region or city.

The most recently available data is available at Table_3 below:

Nature of crime: vehicle-related theft - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

The Government is tackling vehicle crime as a priority. We continue to work closely with police and motor manufacturers through the National Vehicle Crime Working Group, established by the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime and overseen by the Government’s Crime and Justice Taskforce. This includes consideration of how we can reduce the number of vehicles being stolen.