§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if he will publish a table showing the number of(a) civil actions and (b) criminal prosecutions using the powers of (i) the Insolvency Acts, (ii) the Theft Acts and (iii) the Banking Acts in each of the last four years.
Mr. John M. Taylor(a) civil actions. This information is not available for the Insolvency Acts and Theft Acts and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. The number of civil actions carried out by the Bank of England using the powers of the Banking Acts were as follows:
400W
Year to end of February Civil actions 1991 7 1992 5 1993 2 1994 1 (b) criminal prosecutions: Defendants proceeded against under the Insolvency Acts and Theft Acts will be prosecuted under the indictable offence categories of robbery, burglary, theft and handling stolen goods and fraud and forgery and the summary offence categories of stealing and unauthorised takings. Information on the number of prosecutions by type of offence is published annually in the Home Office publication "Criminal Statistics England and Wales Supplementary tables, Volume 1 Proceedings in Magistrates' Courts". Copies of the publication for 1989 to 1992—latest available—are held in the Library.
The number of criminal prosecutions carried out by the Bank of England using the powers of the Banking Acts were as follows:
Year to end of February Criminal prosecutions 1991 0 1992 2 1993 1 1994 2