Dawn Butler

I rise to speak to new clause 47 in my name. This is a very simple new clause, in a way, about how we stop mobile phones that have been stolen from being reconnected to the cloud and sold on. If we can break that link, we can stop the proliferation of mobile phone theft, which has increased by 150%. Some 200 mobile phones are snatched every single day, and there has been a marked increase in Westminster. I know that a number of MPs have had their mobile phones stolen—some of them are sat not too far away from me. The amount of money in this crime is incredible. I do not believe phone manufacturers are that keen to stop this crime, because I feel it is part of their business model: when somebody has their mobile phone stolen, they go and buy another mobile phone. New clause 47 says that once somebody’s phone has been stolen and they report it to the police, the police must report it to Apple, Google, Samsung or whoever, which then stops that phone from being reconnected to the cloud. In effect, that phone would become inactive. If the manufacturer failed to do that within 48 hours, it would be fined £10,000. We need to ensure that the manufacturers take this issue seriously, because they are not. Here is the simple thing: if we want to stop mobile phones being stolen to order, we need to ensure that the manufacturers take the issue seriously. We need to ensure that IMEI numbers are easily accessible, and we need to ensure that thieves cannot reconnect the mobile phones.