Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the reason for the decline in the charge rate for residential burglaries in England and Wales since 2015; and what steps she is taking to improve detection and prosecution of residential burglary.

This Government recognises the particularly invasive nature of domestic burglary, and the profound impact these crimes can have on individuals and the wider community.

Police recorded burglary has decreased by 10% in the year to June 2025 compared with the previous year and was 73% lower than year ending March 2003 when current recording practices began. Residential burglary was down 11%, within this category home burglaries and burglaries of unconnected buildings are both down 11% compared with previous year. Non-residential burglaries also fell by 9% compared with the previous year.

Whilst the fall in the number of these crimes is welcome, too many people still experience the trauma of a domestic burglary every year, and the Government is determined that everything possible is being done to prevent these crimes from happening.

As part of reforms being delivered through our Safer Streets Mission, we are determined to crack down on burglary and other crimes that make people feel unsafe in our communities. This includes delivering on our commitment to strengthen neighbourhood policing. Through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, there will be thousands of additional police officers, police community support officers and special constables in neighbourhood policing roles, with each neighbourhood having a named, contactable officer dealing with local issue.

In June 2023, the National Police Chiefs’ Council announced that police forces across England and Wales had been fulfilling the commitment to attend home burglaries since March 2023. To support this, the Home Office and NPCC chair the Residential Burglary Taskforce, bringing together government, police, academics, industry leads, civil society groups and others to examine what more can be done to prevent domestic burglary, and to drive progress.