Phone Theft

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of mobile phone theft.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for ensuring that we could have this important debate today. I know that there are many MPs who would have loved to be here today and who have suffered mobile phone thefts.

Ten years ago my bag was stolen when I was at a conference in a Westminster hotel. I used geo tracking and saw it moving slowly over the bridge. I called the police, but they were not interested—as I say, it was 10 years ago. Somebody at the conference had a car, and in true “Starsky and Hutch” style we used it to chase down the thieves. We noticed as we were travelling alongside them that we were probably going to make them very suspicious, so we went ahead of them and stopped. This is probably a lot of detail, but we then pretended to kiss as the thieves walked towards us. I called the police again to tell them that we were about to apprehend the thieves and retrieve my phone. The police then arrived, and when they jumped out of the van we jumped out of the car. The thieves had about 20 mobile phones on them. I recovered my bag and, although they had dumped my stuff along the way, I got all my stuff back. But the thing is, that was 10 years ago, and things have moved on—people understand that there is “Find my phone”, as do the police, so we know that we can recover stolen phones—so now is the time to prioritise this type of theft, which is making our streets less safe. Tourists are being targeted.

I know that the Home Secretary has had a roundtable with mobile phone companies and with the Mayor of London, but if the companies will not take this problem as seriously as they should, we need to force them to do that by law. I went to a good briefing on the Metropolitan police’s Operation Reckoning, which shows its determination. This is a vital way of achieving the Government’s safer streets mission. In Westminster, a mobile phone is stolen every six minutes.

I commend the hon. Lady on bringing forward the debate. She is absolutely right, but it is about even more than mobile phones. I am not technically minded—I own up to that; I am of a different generation—but today’s young person carries on their mobile phone bank details, family things and personal things that allow access to accounts and whatever else. Sometimes, in the back of their phones they have their debit cards and their driving licence, so when someone gets their phone, they get almost their whole life. As the Minister acknowledged in a previous debate, perhaps today’s young person needs to understand that if they lose that, they lose almost everything financially.

I thank the hon. Member for that important intervention; he is absolutely right. A mobile phone is not just for making a phone call anymore; it is an integral part of most people’s lives. It holds data on it, as well as pictures that its owner will never be able to take again. It holds voicemails from loved ones. My friend who had her phone snatched in Egypt had a voicemail from her late mother on her phone. Mobile phones hold so much information that when someone snatches one, they are snatching a part of that person’s life.

Further to the intervention from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), does my hon. Friend agree that public awareness is not where it should be? It worries me to see people with their phones sticking out of their back pockets or people standing and taking photographs around Westminster, knowing how high the incidence of theft is. Somehow the public need to be more aware and more careful with these precious things that hold so much of their lives on them.

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention. That is the thing: until we ensure that our streets are safe, we must ensure that people are acutely aware of what is happening. I find myself sometimes tapping people on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me, can you move your phone from your back pocket? You might get pickpocketed.”

I feel that the manufacturers use this as part of their business model. They know that once a phone gets stolen, its owner will go and buy another phone, and phones currently operate on a monopoly. I do not know if anybody has ever tried to switch from an iPhone to a Samsung as I did—oh my goodness; it is like they do not want you to switch over. Even from Android to Android, it is difficult to move over the data. Mobile phone companies know exactly what they are doing. Thank God for USB-Cs, because iPhone chargers used to change with every upgrade, so people ended up forking out more and more money.

We need to hold the manufacturers to account because they make enough money and enough profit. We have to get to a stage where we are putting people and the safety of our citizens first.

London is one of the greatest cities on earth and we want Tories to come—not Tories, but tourists. [Laughter.] Tories are obviously welcome too, even though they are not here today. We want tourists to come to London to sample the art, the culture and the inclusion. We do not want to go around warning them about their mobile phones. Over 700 phones were also stolen from Departments, so the Government should have a vested interest in this because it will cost taxpayers money to replace those phones.

We can redesign mobile phones so that nobody wants to steal them. I do not know if people are old enough to remember—although there are a few in the Chamber today—when car radios used to be stolen out of cars. We combated and stopped that crime by building the radios into the cars so they could not easily be snatched out.

I just want to throw something else at the debate around the insurance issue. Many say, “You should be covered by insurance.” My phone was stolen last November. It was classic: I got bumped into in a big crowd and did not realise. I then recognised the theft and did “find my phone”. It was in north London, so I contacted the police, but they do not investigate after an hour because they say it is gone. I said, “I have the personal numbers of the whole of the Cabinet there, so that might cause a bit of a problem.” I then claimed on the household insurance and was covered, but then the insurance company would not renew my cover. That just adds to the problems all the way through. Everyone seems to be making a profit out of it, apart from us.

I am impressed that my right hon. Friend has the all the Cabinet’s phone numbers. He is absolutely right; the knock-on effect of this crime is huge. Whether it is the house insurance, the personal stuff or the global crime syndicate, it is huge. I watched a documentary by Dave Fishwick, known through “Bank of Dave”. He spoke to one of the gang leaders and they talked about shoulder surfing, where they liked to watch people and get the details of their phones. They like to get phones when they are already open so that they can then scrape all the data and bank details. Within that hour, as my right hon. Friend said, they could empty out someone’s bank account. Around 30,000 people are also victims of identity theft in this country every single day. This crime, therefore, is not simply about nicking somebody’s phone; it goes a lot deeper than that.

One hundred million second-hand phones go to China and some go to Algeria too. Apple and Google say that they will reconnect phones that have been reported stolen. We should say to them that that admission, in itself, is unacceptable. China has become an illegal electronic recycling hub where, if they cannot get into a phone, they dismantle it and build a new phone using various parts from stolen ones. Those who do not disconnect their ID straightaway are sent threatening messages that talk about killing and raping family members, with some even sent videos of guns that say they are coming to kill them. That is terribly frightening and also why we need to stop this global crime now.

There is a link between neighbourhood crimes and organised criminality. Criminals think that the police do not care about mobile phone thefts because it is just a mobile phone and people can claim it back. I am glad that the Met police is taking this seriously, unlike 10 years ago. I doubt that many heads of criminal organisations will be watching this debate, but I note that 235 people were arrested in January 2024 through Operation Reckoning. On average, people are getting sentences of four to five years, which I think is right, because this is not a crime without consequences.

The Government have a huge role to play in making sure that we say to these criminals that we are serious about holding them to account. However, we must also say to the manufacturing companies that if they will not provide a kill switch for stolen mobile phones, we will force them to do it by law.

Order. I plan to start the wind-ups at around 4.30 pm.

I congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for bringing this important debate. I rise to support her and to bring urgent attention to an issue that continues to disrupt lives not just across the UK, but in my constituency: the rising tide of mobile phone thefts.

This is not a petty crime or just about the loss of a device. This is about identity theft, financial vulnerability and, in many cases, the complete disconnection of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities from the services they rely on every day. The numbers for the last two years speak volumes. Between December 2021 and November 2023, West Yorkshire police recorded over 560 mobile phone thefts in Dewsbury and Batley alone—293 in 2021-22 and 269 the following year. On average, more than 20 people in my constituency fall victim to this specific crime every single month, and that is just what is recorded. We know full well the real figures are likely higher. Many do not report these crimes, believing that the police have more serious matters to attend to or that nothing can be done.

As the hon. Member said, mobile phone theft is serious. These are not just communication tools; they are banks, medical records, job applications, childcare arrangements, emergency lifelines and priceless memories. I read about a constituent—a single mother—in Dewsbury Moor whose phone was stolen while shopping. It was not just the phone she lost; she missed three job interviews, could not access her new universal credit account and had her personal photos and private medical records compromised. That is not an isolated story. Mobile phone theft is a systemic threat to digital safety and personal dignity.

Nationally, hundreds of thousands of mobile phones are stolen annually, and many of those devices end up in highly organised criminal supply chains. Some are exported; others are wiped and sold locally. In some cases, victims are followed or even assaulted for their devices. What is worse is that recovery and prosecution rates remain disturbingly low. Across many police forces, less than 5% of mobile phone thefts result in charges.

On that very topic, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee had an inquiry where we put this to Apple and Google. It turns out that phones that are reported stolen in this country go on something called the GSMA blacklist, which stops the hardware from working and the phones cannot be reused in this country. The police says that most stolen phones go abroad to networks that do not use that blacklist. I put it to Apple and Google that they could use this blacklist. They said yes they could, but no they did not want to. Does the hon. Member agree that these companies should enable that blacklist, which would—in my humble opinion—effectively stop the theft of phones on the streets of London?

I thank the hon. Member for his informed contribution to the debate. I agree with him and the hon. Member for Brent East, who indicated that companies are not doing enough. It should be easy to disable phones so they are beyond use both in this country and abroad, and so the only value they have would be in the spare parts they contain.

We need stronger action from telecoms providers and tech companies. They must put the protection of their customers’ data above profits from their customers having to buy the same or a similar replacement. Why are some phones easy to wipe and resell? Why are tracking systems so easy to disable? The Government must act to force companies to make tracking systems stronger and less easy to disable.

Thirdly, we must support local policing. In Dewsbury and Batley, neighbourhood policing teams are overstretched, trying to deal with phone snatching, shoplifting and antisocial behaviour with limited boots on the ground. They deserve the tools, the people and the political will behind them to make our streets safer.

Finally, we must support victims. Many cannot afford to replace their phone or reclaim their digital identity without support. Let us explore emergency tech funds or digital safety grants for vulnerable individuals and families.

We live in a digital world in which stealing someone’s phone is tantamount to stealing their identity, their access to society and, for some, their only link to help. We must not stand by while our constituents are targeted, their privacy violated and their future interrupted. Let us act not just with concern, but with conviction.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for securing this important and timely debate. Seventeen years ago, I was a young Hutch to her Starsky, as a parliamentary staffer in the then constituency of Brent Central, so it is nice to speak in her debate today.

Those of us who have had our mobile phone stolen know how hopeless you can feel and how intrusive it can be. We know it is not a victimless crime. I have had my phone stolen, as has my husband. It can happen in seconds, leaving you suddenly vulnerable as you go about your daily life. For a woman walking alone, late at night, having her phone taken from her hands can be extremely intimidating. For many of us, having our phone stolen or snatched means we lose access to so much—our banking, our photos, our voice notes, and the occasional WhatsApp we might not want to be seen. In this day and age, having your phone stolen feels like your whole life is suddenly at risk of being cracked open and violated.

I know that horrible feeling, and so does my constituent Thomas, who contacted me after he saw a BBC article in which I discussed my own experience. Thomas did not just have his phone stolen. Thieves gained access to his wallet and online banking, and took out a huge loan in his name, which caused him massive anxiety over Christmas. Despite clear evidence of fraud, it was only when I intervened as his Member of Parliament that his bank allowed him to recover his money.

Thomas’ story is just one of many accounts of the impact of phone theft that my constituents in Stratford and Bow have related to me. With 330,000 passengers passing through Stratford station each day and 1 million visiting Westfield each week, Stratford has become a phone theft hotspot. Cynthia and Andrew wrote to me, deeply concerned about the rise in e-bike enabled phone snatches and the anxiety this has caused in their neighbourhood.

E-bikes are a key enabler of mobile phone theft. This week, we held ASB forums in Redbridge and Waltham Forest. We heard about the great work being done by Councillor Jo Blackman to address the problem of illegally adapted e-bikes. Simple measures we could implement, such as ending the off-road sales loophole, would have a real impact on our constituents affected by phone theft and other crimes. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must look at the regulation and enforcement around e-bikes, which can be adapted to go at dangerously fast speeds and so enable this sort of crime?

I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend; he makes an important point, and I am sure the Minister will respond to it.

I want to mention a few other constituents’ experiences. Jade contacted me to share her shock at witnessing a mother have her phone snatched while she was trying to buy shoes for her son. Matthew told me his partner was left feeling unsafe walking their dog at night after being accosted by thieves on his way home. Those are not isolated incidents. They are part of a wider and troubling trend—we in this Chamber know that it is happening across our constituencies—and it is one that leaves people feeling fearful in their own neighbourhoods, as they go about their daily lives.

Make no mistake: Conservative Members, who are not here in great numbers today, should look seriously at their record. In the final year of the previous Government, street crime rose by over 40%, and mobile phone thefts soared. It does not have to be this way. With properly funded and resourced police and community services, we can fight back. I mentioned the footfall at Stratford station. I have seen at first hand what is being done to tackle this issue there: a police taskforce launching targeted operations, with officers disrupting thefts and arresting phone snatchers. British Transport police recently had a similar operation.

This Labour Government are taking action, cracking down on the thieves and thugs and taking back control of our high streets, town centres and shopping centres. We are backing up police with stronger powers to tackle mobile phone theft in the Crime and Policing Bill, and we are calling on tech companies to design out the ability of thieves to re-sell stolen phones. Crucially, we are strengthening neighbourhood policing to restore public confidence that if a person reports their phone as stolen, someone will actually do something about it. In London, we are working with Mayor Sadiq Khan, who I know is personally committed to driving down these figures.

Phone theft is not a petty crime, and it is not a victimless crime. It can happen in seconds, but the impact is long-lasting. It can rob people of cherished memories stored on their phones. It can drain bank accounts in seconds. As my constituent Matthew put it:

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I thank the hon. Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. Along with the hon. Members for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) and for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran), she spoke eloquently of the emotional impact of a stolen phone. I still have a 2G Nokia, but that is another issue. A phone is far more than just something we can send text messages on or make calls. It is where we store our memories, where many people find romance and where we access critical services, as the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley said. It is so much more, and that is why the impact of a stolen phone is very significant and far more disruptive than it would have been 20 years ago.

Members have highlighted the important role that tech companies and phone companies need to play in preventing and mitigating phone theft. They also highlighted how the lack of police resources can sometimes mean a lack of immediate police interest or a need to improve police process. We must make sure that our police are supported, so that they can help people who are victims of this crime. Any form of crime can leave us feeling vulnerable. I was once burgled. Very little was taken, but nevertheless, the sense of worry and the fact that it could happen again stays with us and preys on the mind, particularly when by oneself late in the evening. That manifests itself here as well as anywhere else.

The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) made an important point about the role that illegal e-bikes play in this crime. I commend to Members a recent report by the all-party parliamentary group for cycling and walking about the issue of illegal e-bikes, which outlines a number of steps that could be taken to better regulate them and deal with that problem.

Government policy is that police will be able to search properties without a warrant for stolen phones or other electronically geotagged items under measures in the Crime and Policing Bill. Clearly, as we have heard this afternoon, more needs to be done to stop the tidal wave of mobile phone theft. It is right that the Government are taking steps in that direction but, if they are really serious about stopping mobile phone theft, they must also restore proper community policing, where officers have the time and resources to focus on their local neighbourhoods. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their own home and walking down their own streets, but for too many people in the UK today that is simply not the reality.

It should go without saying that law and order is the bedrock of a healthy society, but laws that we make in this House are only worth anything if they are enforced. In Britain today, this is all too often the story: a widening gulf between our laws and how they are actually applied. I can think of few better examples than mobile phone theft.

There is a temptation to think of phone theft as an example of petty crime, but it sounds as though we in this House all agree that there is nothing petty about it. Mobile phones are a link to our friends and family, and for many people they are a necessary tool for work, study and day-to-day life. They often hold sensitive information, both personal and financial, to say nothing of the intimidation and violence experienced by victims, and the corrosive impact that rampant phone theft has on our public realm. So when we think about phone theft, we should not just be thinking about the inconvenience of a missing phone; we should be thinking about the distress to victims and the creeping sense that, increasingly, we are no longer safe in public.

To capture the scale of the problem, it is useful to reflect on the data. According to last year’s crime survey for England and Wales, snatch thefts of mobile phones and bags rose by 70% last year, reaching a 20-year high. Overall, theft stands at the highest rate for a decade, according to the Office for National Statistics. At the epicentre of this crime wave is London, where thefts have more than doubled over the past five years. Three quarters of phone thefts take place there, with 116,656 phones stolen last year alone. Those devices have a street value of more than £20 million.

Phone theft often contributes to other forms of crime. According to Commander James Conway of the Metropolitan Police, about 70% of London’s knife crime is linked to theft, meaning that the increase in phone theft is likely to be contributing to the city’s rampant knife crime epidemic. Cyber-security experts have also warned that phones stolen in London are being shipped off to countries like China, where they are often used in international organised crime.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) on securing the debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating the time. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing her experiences, particularly the “Starsky and Hutch” approach that she took to trying to recover her mobile phone when it was stolen 10 years ago.

I am grateful to all Members of the House who have made contributions. In the limited time that we have had available, we have had an important discussion, spanning many different areas, both geographically and topically. The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) spoke about the experience in West Yorkshire. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran) talked about the interchange at Stratford station and, along with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey), talked about the problems with e-bikes as enablers of mobile phone theft.

I want to be very clear: this Government are absolutely determined to address the menace of mobile phone theft. I say to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), that the unfortunate truth is that by the time this Government took office, this type of criminality had become so common that it was essentially a feature of daily life in some areas, and the statistics bear that out. She talked about the policing of speech and locking criminals up, but she needs to reflect on the record of the Conservative Government. They introduced the non-crime hate incident guidance under the previous Policing Minister, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who is now the shadow Home Secretary, and failed the prison system by not building enough prison places. This Government are having to deal with that.

Will the Minister give way?

No, time is very short. The hon. Gentleman’s record when he was a special advisor in the Home Office really is nothing to be proud of.

I will talk about the statistics. Street theft increased by more than 40% in the last year of the previous Government, driven largely by soaring rates of snatch theft involving mobile phones. While we are starting to see some promising reductions, including a decrease in the number of mobile phone thefts by force or threat of force in the capital, levels of mobile phone theft sadly remain intolerably high, which is totally unacceptable.

We recognise that the impact of this criminality goes beyond the loss of a mobile phone, costly and stressful though that undoubtedly is. It undermines people’s sense of personal safety and security in the most insidious way. It snatches parts of people’s life, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East said, including bank details, personal records and precious memories stored on phones. Decent, law-abiding people deserve much, much better, which is why the Prime Minister has placed safer streets at the heart of his plan for change. Through that mission, we are taking decisive action to restore law and order to our town centres and high streets, and the scourge of mobile phone theft is very much in our sights.

It may be helpful if I set out for the House some of the key steps we are taking to combat this crime. It has been clear throughout the debate that we accept that if we are to drive the real change we need to see, we need to work effectively with tech companies, the police and others in civil society, both to prevent thefts from happening and to better detect the perpetrators when thefts occur. In that spirit, the Home Secretary chaired a very productive summit in February, bringing together representatives from the police, including the Metropolitan police, the National Crime Agency, the Mayor of London, local government leaders, leading technology companies and other sectors to push for much stronger collaboration in this space.

I have been working closely with stakeholders from industry and law enforcement on this important topic, so I was pleased to see the summit result in clear commitments from attendees to working in partnership, and to significantly boosting the sharing of data and intelligence on mobile phone theft, so that we can build a comprehensive picture of the problem and better understand the role of organised criminal networks. Ultimately, our aim is to disrupt, design out and disincentivise mobile phone theft. Officials are working closely with law enforcement partners, tech companies and other industry representatives to deliver practical and effective measures, so that we can crack down on these crimes.

I was in the middle of writing, “We all know what the issues and problems are,” and then the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), started speaking.

I thank the hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) for his contribution, including his mention of universal credit. We have started encouraging people to do everything online, so when their phone gets taken away, all of that also gets taken away. I also thank my partner in crime, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran)—I will not tell you about any of the adventures we have been on, Madam Deputy Speaker. Stratford is a very busy centre and attracts a lot of crime, so it is important that we get this right. She also mentioned our Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and all the work he is doing on this issue.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) for the intervention he made on the issue of e-bikes that have been illegally hacked so that they go faster. Generally, there are two riders on the back; one steers them in, and the other takes the phone. This is a problem that we have to get to grips with, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon) and the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said. At the end of the day, we need to get to the bottom of this, because it is not petty crime, but a huge crime that affects our streets.

The shadow Minister completely missed the point, but as she spoke about free speech, let me say this: when the police arrested the last person who called me the N-word and other racist slurs, they thanked me for taking a far-right extremist off the streets, because that person was not on their radar, and the police were shook. The shadow Minister may want to hold a protective shield over those who are racist, sexist, misogynistic and homophobic, but we do not. All I can say is: thank goodness the Conservatives are no longer in power.

That this House has considered the matter of mobile phone theft.