Overview

• House of Commons Library data shows 289,464 shoplifting investigations in 2024–25 were closed with no suspect, with 55% ending unsolved and about 18% resulting in a charge.
• The Metropolitan Police recorded the weakest outcomes, closing 76.9% of 93,705 cases with no suspect and charging in just 5.9% of incidents.
• Police-recorded shoplifting reached a record 530,643 offences in the year to March 2025, up 20% from 444,022 the year before.
• Liberal Democrats condemned the results as a failure to tackle retail theft and renewed calls to scrap police and crime commissioners in favor of more frontline policing.
• Ministers cite plans for extra neighbourhood patrols and officers, to remove the under‑£200 theft threshold and to create a specific offence for assaulting retail workers, as policing bodies point to strengthened information‑sharing and a new Retail Crime Strategy.