§ Lord Braine of Wheatleyasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many proprietors of video rental outlets were prosecuted for supplying films with an 18 rating to children in each of the last three years for which figures are available.
Earl FerrersThe Video Recordings Act 1984 does not differentiate between the unlawful under-age supply of video recordings in the age-restricted categories "18" and "15", since the age categories are not laid down by statute but are a matter for the classification authority (the British Board of Film Classification). The latest prosecution figures available are for 1989 and are shown below. Information collected centrally from 1990 onwards does not separately identify offences committed under this Act from other summary offences.
Prosecutions Convictions 1989 47 42 These figures probably do not provide a reliable guide to the current level of enforcement of the Act, especially as the main responsibility for enforcement passed from the police to local authority trading standards departments on 1 September 1988 as a result of Section 162 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.