§ Lord Stoddart of Swindonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will give figures covering (i) the Metropolitan Police area and (ii) the rest of Great Britain for the crimes of (a) homicide (b) criminal assault and (c) burglaries; whether they will give figures for (a) fatal road accidents (b) road traffic casualties and (c) damage only accidents, for the same areas; and what proportion of police manpower is employed in traffic and accident prevention duties in the same areas.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers)Crime figures are provided in terms of notifiable offences recorded by the police in England and Wales and crimes recorded by the police in Scotland in 1990. In the Metropolitan Police area there were 184 homicides and 173,247 burglaries. In the rest of Great Britain there were 572 and 935,287 offences respectively. Assaults on a constable and common assault are summary offences and are not included in the notifiable offences series. Other notifiable offences which may be termed as assaults are not separately identified. Figures from the Department of Transport show that there were 433 fatal accidents and 55,434 road casualties in the Metropolitan Police area. Corresponding figures for the rest of Great Britain were 4,315 and 285,707 respectively. No information is collected on damage only accidents. I understand that about 4 per cent. of the Metropolitan police are designated as traffic officers, compared with 8 per cent. of the police in the rest of England and Wales, and 6 per cent. in the police in Scotland.