Sir Sadiq Khan blames high cost of living for increasing crime rate, reports Noah Vickers, Local Democracy Reporter

A Met Police officer and (inset) a corner shop

Sir Sadiq Khan has blamed London’s recent 50% surge in shoplifting on the capital’s particularly high cost of living, as well as the fact that the city has “a lot of shops” compared with other parts of the country.

Data published by the Office for National Statistics last week showed that 80,041 shoplifting offences were recorded by the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police in the twelve months to September 2024 – up from 53,202 for the same period a year earlier.

London’s 50% increase is twice as big as the 22% jump seen across the whole of England and Wales in the same period, as shoplifting cases rose overall from 402,482 to 492,914.

Asked why the problem is particularly bad in London, and what he is doing to tackle the issue, the mayor referred back to a piece of research published by the London School of Economics (LSE) last year.

“What the LSE report showed – without in any way excusing criminality – is that as the cost of living crisis gets worse, acquisitive crime is going to go up, and has gone up,” said Khan.

“[There are] three areas where acquisitive crime has gone up – personal theft, personal robbery, and shoplifting.”

Pressed on why the increase in London was so much higher than the rest of the country, the mayor said: “Because we have a lot of shops here, and because the cost of living crisis is more acute in the capital city.

“Personal theft and personal robbery is a big concern for me in London, as well. That’s one of the reasons why I support the [Metropolitan Police] commissioner in him having, as a priority, neighbourhood teams.

“I’ve been out on patrols myself with neighbourhood teams, in Waterloo and elsewhere, where the work they’ve been doing with the retailers, using facial recognition, having good neighbourhood watch teams, has led to a reduction [in crimes] in those particular shops.”

He added: “I’m really pleased that the home secretary has now convened a roundtable [meeting] to address this issue, which includes concerns around shoplifting…

“I speak regularly to retailers, including USDAW – which represents retailers – [about] staff who were assaulted as a consequence of working in shops, by people who want to shoplift or commit personal theft or personal robbery.

“So it’s an issue that’s personal to me, as someone who used to work in retail, but it’s also an issue that’s important to Londoners.”

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