§ Mr. AmessTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further response he has had to his proposals on crime prevention; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. John PattenThere has been an encouraging response to our crime prevention policy, which stresses the320W role of the whole community in tackling crime. For example: there are now nearly 60,000 neighbourhood watch schemes across the country covering some three and a quarter million households; there have been nearly 200,000 separate requests for copies of our crime prevention handbook, over 1.5 million of which have been distributed; and all of the nine areas invited to take part in the first year of our safer cities programme have expressed an interest in participating, and in three of these work has now begun.