§ Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will obtain statistics from each police force as to the number of officers who were qualified to use firearms in each force in the last year and of the number of occasions in each force when firearms were (a) used or (b) drawn (i) in cases of crime and (ii) in other cases.
§ Mr. HurdIt is for individual chief officers of police to decide how many police officers should be authorised to use firearms. These figures, and those relating to the number of occasions on which firearms were drawn from holsters, are not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The other information requested is given in the following table:
218W
Number of occasions on which police officers used (i.e. fired) firearms in 1982 (excluding use for training purposes) Force In cases of crime *In other cases Derbyshire — 1 Devon and Cornwall — 1 Greater Manchester 1 1 Hertfordshire — 2 Lancashire — 3 Lincolnshire — 3 Metropolitan Police 6 1 Norfolk — 4 Northamptonshire 1 1 Northumbria — 1 North Yorkshire 1 — Nottinghamshire — 1 Sussex 1 — West Yorkshire 1 — Wiltshire — 1 Dyfed-Powys — 1 TOTALS 11 21 * Mainly for destruction of animals.