§ Lord Tebbitasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the incidence of the carriage or use of firearms by persons engaged in crime has decreased since the passage of the Firearms Acts. [HL2148]
§ Lord BachDetails of the carriage of firearms are not collected. Numbers of firearms offences in the year ending March 1999 were given in Chapter 3 ofCriminal Statistics England and Wales 1998, published in March this year. The Scottish Executive has also published details for 1998 in Recorded crimes and offences involving firearms, Scotland 1998, published in October 1999.
The figures relating to the use of handguns in crime for England and Wales are given in the following table. The figures for 1998–99 will be somewhat inflated relative to earlier ones on account of changes in the counting rules for recorded crime introduced in April 1998. This expanded the coverage of offences to include, for instance, illegal possession of firearms and trading in and altering firearms. The degree of 156WA inflation cannot be assessed precisely. Figures for Scotland are also given in the following table.
All recorded crimes in which handguns were used Homicides in which handguns were used All incidents in which handguns fired and caused injury England and Wales 1997 2,648 39 168 1998–99 2,687 32 119 Scotland 1997 148 5 14 1998 123 1 15 There were three homicides in Scotland in 1998 in which the firearm was unidentified.