§ Mr. Woolmerasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total number of indictable offences connected with firearms in 1979 and in each of the last 10 years in Scotland and the number and percentage of them that involved air weapons.
§ Mr. RifkindConsistent information on firearms used in crime is available for 1978 and 1979 only.
The information is set out in the following table. "Crimes" is the Scottish classification broadly equivalent to "indictable offences".
CRIMES INVOLVING FIREARMS, THE NUMBER OF AIR WEAPONS INVOLVED AND THE PERCENTAGE OF AIR WEAPONS INVOLVED, 1978 AND 1979 SCOTLAND Number of crimes 1978 1979* Number of crimes involving firearms 411 614 Number of crimes involving air weapons 338 524 Percentage of crimes involving air weapons 82% 85% * Provisional.