§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will give, at the latest and most convenient stated date and for the longest period of time, the number of persons who have been found dead and believed murdered; how many were men, women and children respectively; and in how many of these cases the culprits have not been found or charged.
§ Mr. BrittanInformation of the kind requested has been found to be unsatsfactory as the police, when initially classifying offences, sometimes do not have sufficient evidence to be able to distinguish between murder and other forms of homicide. The information available is on the basis of offences recorded as homicide and is published annually in "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales"—tables 10.1, 10.2 and 10.6 of the volume for 1979, Cmnd. 8098.