§ Mr. Wheelerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will arrange for the regular publication of statistics of recorded crime for the different parts of the Metropolitan police district.
§ Mr. BrittanA number of right hon. and hon. Members have indicated to me that they would find it helpful to have regular statistics of recorded crime for the different parts of the Metropolitan police district. I am sympathetic towards this request, and I have therefore been considering, in consultation with the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, how such statistics could best be provided. With his agreement, I am making the following arrangements.
I shall arrange for a table of notifiable offences recorded by the police in each borough and district in the 413W Metropolitan police district to be placed in the Library each quarter. In addition, a table will be produced at the beginning of each year giving for each borough and district the numbers of offences recorded and the clear-up rate for the whole of the previous year. The first table, covering the first quarter of 1985, will be produced in June. As an interim measure, I am today arranging for tables to be placed in the Library showing the number of notifiable offences recorded by the police in each police district within the Metropolitan police district in the third and fourth quarters of 1984 and the clear-up rate for 1984 in each police district. Similar figures for previous quarters back to the beginning of 1983 were contained in a reply given on 12 December 1984, at columns 479–84, to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson).
I hope that the arrangements I have made will be helpful to right hon. and hon. Members. The statistics should also prove of interest to local police/community consultative groups since they will relate to the areas covered by the groups and will be available for discussion at group meetings.