§ Mr. Gordon PrenticeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what were the most common crimes committed by persons under 16 in each of Lancashire Constabulary's divisions for the latest year for which figures are available. [48502]
§ Mr. MichaelThe available information shows the number of notifiable offences cleared up by Lancashire Constabulary that were committed by persons under 16. On this basis, the five most common offences cleared up in 1997 are shown in the table in rank order for each division within the force.
alternative development. The United Kingdom Presidency also took forward important work on European Union regional drugs initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean.
(b) Other criminal activity
Under the United Kingdom Presidency, work against other criminal activity, particularly serious organised crime, has been largely geared to implementing the European Union's Action Plan against organised crime, agreed in 1997 by the Amsterdam European Council. A progress report prepared for the Cardiff European Council in June this year described substantial progress with the implementation of the Action Plan's recommendations.
Work on all of the recommendations with deadlines for completion up to the middle of 1998 either has been completed or is well underway. Work has also begun on many of the recommendations with longer deadlines.
Specific achievements in the field of organised crime during our Presidency included:
the establishment of a funding programme to combat organised crime (FALCONE programme);political agreement on a joint action on participation in a criminal organisation;the establishment of a mutual evaluation mechanism and setting in motion of the first round of national evaluations which will concentrate initially on reasons for delays in providing mutual legal assistance and urgent requests for restraint of assets;creation of a European Judicial Network to improve practical co-operation and communication;adoption, ahead of schedule, of the Pre-Accession Pact on organised crime with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, including the Baltic States and Cyprus;introduction and completion of a joint action on good practice in mutual legal assistance:349Wintroduction of a joint action on the identification, tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscation of assets, on which discussion is continuing.In addition to these achievements, the Naples II Convention on customs co-operation has been agreed, as has the Convention on Driving Disqualification which has been in negotiation for seven years.
A further priority for our Presidency was to secure full ratification of the Europol Convention. National ratification procedures have now been completed and the Europol Convention will enter into force on 1 October 1998. A fully functioning Europol will represent a step-change in the level of the European Union's response to organised crime.
On a more technical level, the United Kingdom Presidency promoted and concluded initiatives on the subjects of crime prevention, where national contact points were identified for exchange of information and dissemination of best practice, and on fingerprints, where agreement was reached on a common European Union standard for the exchange of fingerprint information.