§ Mr. Fisherasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in respect of England and Wales, what was the number of crimes which were notified to the police but which were not cleared up in 1978 and 1985.
§ Mr. MellorThe estimated number of notifiable offences recorded but not cleared up was 1.4 million in 1978 and 2.2 million in 1985, calculated as the difference between the number of notifiable offences recorded by the police in the year and the number of offences cleared up in that year. It is not possible to provide an exact figure for the number of offences recorded in a year which were not subsequently cleared up because some offences are recorded and cleared up in different years, and so the figures do not strictly correspond. Numbers of offences recorded and cleared up are published annually in chapter 2 of the Command Paper "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales" (table 2.17 of the Issue for 1984, Cmnd. 9621) and most recently in a Home Office statistical bulletin (table 5 of Issue 4/86).