Labour has been accused of turning Britain into a ‘soft touch for criminals’ as shoplifting incidents jumped to more than half a million in the Government’s first year in power.
Official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed retail crime spiked by 13 per cent in the 12 months to June, reaching 529,994 recorded offences.
In a further example of rampant crime in Wild West Britain, theft from the person rose by five per cent to 145,860 offences in England and Wales.
The number of sexual offences recorded by police jumped nine per cent to 211,225 offences, today’s ONS data showed.
It included a six per cent increase in reported rapes, to 72,804.
Although robbery of personal property was down 12 per cent, there was a sharp rise in the number of commercial premises being robbed.
This category was up a dramatic 55 per cent to 18,534 offences.
The ‘theft from the person’ category, which will include mobile phone snatches, was up five per cent to just under 146,000 offences.
It comes after the number of police officers in England and Wales fell by 1,300 to 146,400 in March, from an all-time high of 147,700 a year earlier.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘The rise in serious crimes like rape, sexual offences, shoplifting and robberies – as well as a fall in police numbers – prove Labour are too weak to restore public order and have no plan to cut crime.
‘In a single year, Labour have turned Britain into a soft touch for criminals and a nightmare for victims.’
He added: ‘Keir Starmer does not have the backbone to take the difficult decisions Britain needs.
‘Now he’s paralysed, too weak to face down his Left-wing backbenchers and activists who think criminals are victims and victims are statistics.
‘Only the Conservative Party has a common sense, hard-edged plan to restore order, put 10,000 extra police officers on our streets and put fear back where it belongs – in the minds of criminals.’
The new crime figures come as new Labour legislation, which is currently going through Parliament, will scrap most jail sentences of less than a year.
Critics have said they fear the soft justice masterplan drawn up by Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, will embolden shoplifters and lead to an even greater problem.
The ONS said the rises in sex offences reflected ‘general increases in police recorded sexual offences over the last decade, largely because of improvements in police recording practices’.
Racially or religiously-aggravated harassment leapt by 11 per cent in the year to just over 10,000 incidents, the data showed.
The rise is likely to reflect anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim incidents triggered by the Gaza-Israel conflict and the July 2024 Southport attack.
Overall, police recorded 6.6million crimes during the year, down one per cent on the previous 12 months.
It included an 18 per cent jump in drug offences to just under 217,000 incidents, including a 39 per cent rise in drug trafficking incidents.
Recorded fraud and computer misuse rose one per cent to 1.3million incidents.
Other categories were down, including knife crime (down five per cent) and gun crime (down 16 per cent).
Homicides – murders and manslaughters – fell six per cent to 518, the lowest number since current recording practices began in 2003.
Separate data published by the Home Office today showed the police are making slow progress on increasing the proportion of crimes which lead to an offender being sent to court.
The data said 7.6 per cent of crimes recorded by police led to a charge or summons, up from 6.7 per cent in the previous year.
But performance is still far below levels seen a decade ago, when it stood at 15 per cent.
There was a fractional increase year-on-year in the number of reported rapes which led to a charge or summons, up from 2.7 per cent to three per cent.
Liberal Democrat justice spokesman Jess Brown-Fuller MP said: ‘This rising surge in shoplifting is becoming worryingly normalised.
‘Frankly, our communities and our high streets deserve better than this.
‘The Government has made big promises when it comes to tackling crime, but they are failing to deliver.’
Lucy Whing of the British Retail Consortium said: ‘Retail theft is a major issue for retailers, costing over £2.2billion a year.
‘While ONS figures do not reveal the true scale of the issue as it only tracks reported incidents, it chimes with our own statistics which show shoplifting soaring in recent years.
‘The causes are manifold, but the rise in organised crime is a particular concern, with gangs systematically hitting stores one after another, all over the country.
‘Theft is also a major trigger for violence and abuse against staff. Incidents of violence and abuse have risen to over 2,000 per day.’
The Government’s forthcoming legislation to remove a £200 threshold for police to investigate shop crime will ‘send a clear signal that all shoplifting is unacceptable and will not be tolerated’, she added.
Crime and policing minister Sarah Jones said: ‘Levels of shop theft and street crime that this government has inherited are utterly unacceptable.
‘That is why we are putting 3,000 new neighbourhood officers on the beat to fight crime, catch criminals and protect communities as part of our Plan for Change.’
