§ 72. Mr. Kimballasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans he has for amending the conditions of service of the Civil Defence Corps in such a way as to enable local authority planners to have more positive information upon which to base their mobilisation plans.
§ Mr. R. A. ButlerI am at present looking at the structure of the Civil Defence Corps to see whether any
Offence Annual Average, 1920–1929 Annual Average, 1930–1939 Annual Average 1940 –1949 Annual Average 1950–1959 Murder 149 133 167 145 Manslaughter 125 168 148 149 Infanticide and child destruction 19* 22 41 23 Totals 293 323 356 317 * Average for 6 years only (1924–1929). The Infanticide Act, 1922, came into force on 20th July. 1922, and there were no offences known to the police in 1922 or 1923. The numbers of these offences known to the police during 1958, 1959 and 1960 were:—
Offence 1958 1959 1960* Murder … … … 137 149 154 Manslaughter … … … 108 92 106 Infanticide and child destruction … … … 18 26 20 TOTALS … … … 263 267 280 * The figures for 1960 are provisional. The figures given for murder exclude offences initially recorded by the police as murder but reduced to manslaughter or some other offence during the year in which they were recorded; offences initially recorded by the police as murder but reduced in a later year are included in the figures of murder.
The figures for murder and manslaughter for 1957 and onwards are not directly comparable with those for earlier years because of the provisions of Section 8 of the Road Traffic Act, 1956, and the Homicide Act, 1957.