§ Lord Harris of Greenwichasked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they are taking to reconcile the different findings of the Home Office Research Unit and the Northumbria Police on offences committed by offenders whilst on bail; the dates upon which they received these findings, and whether Ministers propose to make an early statement to Parliament on this matter.
Earl FerrersThe Home Office has investigated the reasons for the differences between the findings of the research studies into offending on bail and has published the results in a report entitled,Offending while on bail: a survey of recent studies (Research and Planning Unit Paper 65 1992). This showed that the differences were largely explained by the different methodologies which were used. The figures produced are not therefore directly comparable.
Detailed results of the individual research studies of offending while on bail were available from Northumbria Police in October 1991 and from the Metropolitan Police in March 1991. The Home Office RPU Paper was published in February 1992.
Offending while on bail is a matter of concern and work is in hand to tackle the problem. Discussions are continuing between the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers on how statistics indicating the rate of offending while on bail can be collected in the future.