HC Deb 12 January 1995 vol 252 cc268-9
6. Mr. Alan W. Williams

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the accuracy of official crime statistics.

Mr. Maclean

Two forms of official crime statistics are produced: crimes recorded by the police, and crimes measured by the British crime survey. Every effort is made to ensure that both sets of figures are as accurate as possible within their inherent limitations.

Mr. Williams

What does the Home Office intend to do about the problem which affects efforts to cut crime when police officers reclassify burglaries as criminal damage, thefts as lost property and car crime as tampering?

Mr. Maclean

The hon. Gentleman should not give the impression that there is somehow a deliberate attempt to classify crimes in the wrong way. That is not the case. However, if in its annual round Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary comes across anomalies, it will instruct the force to apply Home Office guidelines, which have not been changed, to try to ensure that all crime is properly classified. If someone comes across a broken window in a garden shed, it must be difficult in practice for officers to know whether that is an attempted break-in, criminal damage or vandalism. I hope that the hon. Gentleman was not giving the impression that somehow there is deliberate changing of the figures, because there is not.

Mr. Sykes

Is my hon. Friend aware that the so-called blip boy has been sent to a children's home in Scarborough? Is he further aware that North Yorkshire county council's social services department did not find it necessary to inform the police of his placement but instead said that the reason was a lack of secure accommodation? Does my hon. Friend agree that that enforces the need for new secure accommodation units as soon as possible?

Mr. Maclean

Yes. That is why we are bringing two sets on stream—the proposals for new secure accommodation which we put in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which the Opposition opposed, and more local authority secure accommodation. We need both and it is appropriate to have both.

Mr. O'Hara

Is the Minister aware of one area in which the explosion of crime has generated false statistics? In some places there has been so much burglary that people can no longer get domestic contents insurance. They therefore do not bother to report burglaries as they know that they will not be resolved anyway. In view of the Chancellor's recent Budget increase in insurance premiums, the misrepresentation of crimes will get worse in future rather than better.

Mr. Maclean

I do not accept that there is misrepresentation of crime. The trend over the past 10 years has been for people generally to report more and more crimes. In 1981 some 31 per cent. of crimes were reported, according to the British crime survey. By 1991, the figure had risen to 41 per cent.