§ Mr. SheermanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the estimated total cost of crime per annum.
§ Mr. John Patten[holding answer 6 February 1992]: No reliable estimate of the total cost of crime is available. The report of the working group on the cost of crime in 1988 —available in the Library of the House—gives various costs of different aspects of crime but states that these costs overlap and cannot be added to make a total. A recent CBI-Crime Concern report estimated the costs of crime to business to be around £10 billion per year: any realistic assessment of the total costs of crime generally would have to take into account the personal and social damage which it causes.