§ Mr. Steelasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will make a statement on the percentage of armed robberies for the years 1979 to 1986 which involved unregistered guns;
(2) if he will make a statement on the number of armed robberies for the years 1979 to 1986.
§ Mr. Douglas HoggThe available information for England and Wales relates to the number of offences of robbery recorded by the police in which firearms were reported to have been used and is published annually in table 3.1 of "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales", the latest issue of which, Cm. 233, for 1986, was published on 29 October 1987. In 1986, 2,651 such robberies were recorded, compared with 1,038 in 1979; however, the proportion of all robberies in which firearms were used remained at about 9 per cent. during this period. The police do not record the number of firearms recovered which were shown to have been used in crime, nor the proportion of these which were subsequently found to have been illegally held.