HL Deb 01 July 1997 vol 581 c16WA
The Earl of Longford

asked Her Majesty's Government:

What increase they estimate in the number of recorded crimes between 1997 and 2005.

Lord Williams of Mostyn

No such projections have been made and there are no plans to do so. This is because the relationships between actual crime, its reporting to and subsequent recording by the police have been found not to be consistent over time, while levels and patterns of crime appear to be influenced by a number of demographic and economic factors which are not easy to predict in the medium to longer term.