Theft

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many offences of (a) shoplifting, (b) robbery of business property and (c) theft by an employee were recorded by police in the quarter October to December in each of the last 10 years. (269232)

Quarterly information for the requested offences is only available from 2001-02 onwards and the available data for the October to December quarters are given in the table. Statistics for October to December 2008 will be available following the publication of the quarterly update on 23 April 2009.

*Selected offences recorded by the police in England and Wales*
Number of offences
October to December each year	Shoplifting	Robbery of business property	Theft by an employee
2001	77,536	3,653	4,414
2002¹	74,302	2,852	4,454
2003	73,998	2,873	4,481
2004	70,763	2,226	4,541
2005	74,970	2,437	4,377
2006	75,500	2,723	4,119
2007	70,196	2,518	4,102
¹ Includes British Transport Police from this quarter onwards.

Volume 491: debated on Tuesday 21 April 2009