§ Mr. Tony Banksasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the average weekly flying hours of Metropolitan police helicopters on traffic patrol duties during the past year.
§ Mr. Giles Shaw[pursuant to his reply, 14 July 1986, c. 338]: The Commissioner of police of the Metropolis tells me that from 1 July 1985 to 30 June 1986, the Metropolitan police helicopters flew an average of about five hours a week specifically on traffic patrol duties.
§ Mr. Tony Banksasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department for each of the past five years what was the number of write-offs obtained by Metropolitan police officers from confessions by prisoners serving sentences for other unrelated offences.
§ Mr. Giles Shaw[pursuant to his reply, 16 July 1986, c. 509]: I understand from the Commissioner of police of the Metropolis that an experimental scheme of interviewing prisoners about otherwise unsolved crimes was introduced force-wide in April 1984 following an earlier pilot scheme in two divisions. Offences cleared up through this scheme have not been separately identified for the regular returns on offences cleared up, but a separate evaluation, which may not be entirely consistent with those returns, suggests that in the period April to December 1984 the number of offences cleared up through the scheme was less than 3,000 and in 1985 less than 5,000. The latter figure represents some 3 to 4 per cent. of all offences cleared up by the Metropolitan police in 1985. It is planned to identify separately offences cleared up in this way in the regular returns for 1987, following the introduction by the Home Office of more detailed returns on the ways in which offences are cleared up.