§ Mr. David YoungTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has, for the last year for which figures are available, as to the number of private cars stolen from each police division or constabulary in the United Kingdom and the number recovered.
§ Mr. John PattenThe available information relates to all theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle and is given in the following table. The figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland have been provided by the Scottish Home and Health Department arid the Northern Ireland Office and may not be entirely comparable with those for England and Wales, although the differences are thought to be small. From records held centrally, it is not possible to distinguish thefts of private cars from thefts of other types of vehicle.
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Notifiable offences of theft and unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle and vehicles recovered United Kingdom 1987 Police force area Offences recorded Vehicles recovered Avon and Somerset 10,945 9,355 Bedfordshire 5,068 2,729 Cambridgeshire 2,512 2,172 Cheshire 5,441 3,630 Cleveland 5,832 4,294 Cumbria 1,603 1,178 Derbyshire 2,967 2,198 Devon and Cornwall 5,073 4,130 Dorset 4,037 2,902 Durham 4,311 1,035 Essex 8,404 5,437 Gloucestershire 2,539 1,906 Greater Manchester 37,936 29,812 Hampshire 8,453 5,771 Hertfordshire 4,017 1,998 Humberside 5,396 4,677
Police force area Offences recorded Vehicles recovered Kent 9,248 6,084 Lancashire 7,867 5,887 Leicestershire 4,931 3,864 Lincolnshire 1,929 1,343 London, City of 296 123 Merseyside 18,873 12,224 Metropolitan Police 77,642 47,191 Norfolk 3,964 2,857 Northamptonshire 4,821 3,684 Northumbria 19,488 12,824 North Yorkshire 2,817 2,138 Nottinghamshire 7,038 6,060 South Yorkshire 9,312 7,060 Staffordshire 4,376 2,681 Suffolk 1,863 1,059 Surrey 2,922 2,295 Sussex 5,262 3,741 Thames Valley 13,996 8,875 Warwickshire 2,638 2,168 West Mercia 3,875 2,936 West Midlands 34,206 26,810 West Yorkshire 16,363 11,964 Wiltshire 1,916 1,412 Dyfed-Powys 994 820 Gwent 2,134 1,114 North Wales 2,275 1,526 South Wales 13,996 11,059 England and Wales 389,576 273,063 Central 914 n/a Dumfries and Galloway 234 n/a Fife 1,164 n/a Grampian 1,389 n/a Lothian and Borders 4,433 n/a Northern 500 n/a Strathclyde 16,505 n/a Tayside 1,044 n/a Scotland 26,183 n/a Royal Ulster Constabulary 7,873 n/a n/a—Not available.