Chris Philp: Crime doesn’t just harm individuals, it hurts economic growth too
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.
Chris Philp is the Shadow Home Secretary and MP for Croydon South
Crime changes how businesses behave.
It raises risk, erodes margins, and forces firms to think about survival before growth. Theft, damage, rising insurance premiums, security costs, shorter opening hours, staff shortages are pressures that push businesses away.
If crime increases, and crime raises risk for business, then investment will be lower, leading directly to weaker productivity growth, slower employment growth, and lower output. Crime is both an economic and a social problem. A drag on growth with severe effects on the investment environment.
Investment is a central driver of growth, expanding productive capacity. Where investment is insufficient, productivity growth stagnates, output remains weak. Too often, this debate is reduced to GDP statistics that mean little to people’s daily lives. What does it mean? Our economy is the aggregate of millions of individual decisions, and it should be seen as such. Decisions taken by individuals willing to take risks in pursuit of a better life. Unless government policy creates the conditions that lower risk and reward enterprise, those decisions do not happen at scale and the economy cannot thrive.
Higher risk and uncertainty change how businesses behave. They raise required rates of return and, at the margin, deter investment altogether. We see this most acutely for small and medium-sized businesses. Here, margins are thin and exposed. Even modest increases in risk can decisively alter decisions about expansion, hiring, or operation.
That is exactly what we are seeing under Labour.
Crime has risen across a wide range of serious offences in England and Wales. Shoplifting has surged by 5 per cent and robbery of business property has increased by 66 per cent. Structural costs in doing business, undermining footfall in town centres, and a signal to shopkeepers and small traders that risk is rising faster than returns.
At the same time, policing capacity is being cut.
Police officer numbers fell by 1,318 in the year to September 2025. That is 1,318 fewer officers on the streets, fewer investigations pursued, fewer overstretched teams backed up when it matters. Thanks to Labour and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, the public and businesses are less safe.
The question, then, is whether this trend can be reversed. Empirical evidence across multiple jurisdictions indicates that increased police presence and enforcement reduce certain categories of crime through deterrence and incapacitation effects. Marginal increases in effective enforcement have been shown to deliver measurable reductions in crime, especially in high-risk areas.
In my own constituency of Croydon, we have seen what happens when that trend is reversed. …
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.
Chris Philp is the Shadow Home Secretary and MP for Croydon South
Crime changes how businesses behave.
It raises risk, erodes margins, and forces firms to think about survival before growth. Theft, damage, rising insurance premiums, security costs, shorter opening hours, staff shortages are pressures that push businesses away.
If crime increases, and crime raises risk for business, then investment will be lower, leading directly to weaker productivity growth, slower employment growth, and lower output. Crime is both an economic and a social problem. A drag on growth with severe effects on the investment environment.
Investment is a central driver of growth, expanding productive capacity. Where investment is insufficient, productivity growth stagnates, output remains weak. Too often, this debate is reduced to GDP statistics that mean little to people’s daily lives. What does it mean? Our economy is the aggregate of millions of individual decisions, and it should be seen as such. Decisions taken by individuals willing to take risks in pursuit of a better life. Unless government policy creates the conditions that lower risk and reward enterprise, those decisions do not happen at scale and the economy cannot thrive.
Higher risk and uncertainty change how businesses behave. They raise required rates of return and, at the margin, deter investment altogether. We see this most acutely for small and medium-sized businesses. Here, margins are thin and exposed. Even modest increases in risk can decisively alter decisions about expansion, hiring, or operation.
That is exactly what we are seeing under Labour.
Crime has risen across a wide range of serious offences in England and Wales. Shoplifting has surged by 5 per cent and robbery of business property has increased by 66 per cent. Structural costs in doing business, undermining footfall in town centres, and a signal to shopkeepers and small traders that risk is rising faster than returns.
At the same time, policing capacity is being cut.
Police officer numbers fell by 1,318 in the year to September 2025. That is 1,318 fewer officers on the streets, fewer investigations pursued, fewer overstretched teams backed up when it matters. Thanks to Labour and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, the public and businesses are less safe.
The question, then, is whether this trend can be reversed. Empirical evidence across multiple jurisdictions indicates that increased police presence and enforcement reduce certain categories of crime through deterrence and incapacitation effects. Marginal increases in effective enforcement have been shown to deliver measurable reductions in crime, especially in high-risk areas.
In my own constituency of Croydon, we have seen what happens when that trend is reversed. …
Chris Philp: Crime doesn’t just harm individuals, it hurts economic growth too
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.
Chris Philp is the Shadow Home Secretary and MP for Croydon South
Crime changes how businesses behave.
It raises risk, erodes margins, and forces firms to think about survival before growth. Theft, damage, rising insurance premiums, security costs, shorter opening hours, staff shortages are pressures that push businesses away.
If crime increases, and crime raises risk for business, then investment will be lower, leading directly to weaker productivity growth, slower employment growth, and lower output. Crime is both an economic and a social problem. A drag on growth with severe effects on the investment environment.
Investment is a central driver of growth, expanding productive capacity. Where investment is insufficient, productivity growth stagnates, output remains weak. Too often, this debate is reduced to GDP statistics that mean little to people’s daily lives. What does it mean? Our economy is the aggregate of millions of individual decisions, and it should be seen as such. Decisions taken by individuals willing to take risks in pursuit of a better life. Unless government policy creates the conditions that lower risk and reward enterprise, those decisions do not happen at scale and the economy cannot thrive.
Higher risk and uncertainty change how businesses behave. They raise required rates of return and, at the margin, deter investment altogether. We see this most acutely for small and medium-sized businesses. Here, margins are thin and exposed. Even modest increases in risk can decisively alter decisions about expansion, hiring, or operation.
That is exactly what we are seeing under Labour.
Crime has risen across a wide range of serious offences in England and Wales. Shoplifting has surged by 5 per cent and robbery of business property has increased by 66 per cent. Structural costs in doing business, undermining footfall in town centres, and a signal to shopkeepers and small traders that risk is rising faster than returns.
At the same time, policing capacity is being cut.
Police officer numbers fell by 1,318 in the year to September 2025. That is 1,318 fewer officers on the streets, fewer investigations pursued, fewer overstretched teams backed up when it matters. Thanks to Labour and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, the public and businesses are less safe.
The question, then, is whether this trend can be reversed. Empirical evidence across multiple jurisdictions indicates that increased police presence and enforcement reduce certain categories of crime through deterrence and incapacitation effects. Marginal increases in effective enforcement have been shown to deliver measurable reductions in crime, especially in high-risk areas.
In my own constituency of Croydon, we have seen what happens when that trend is reversed. …
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