HC Deb 14 July 1998 vol 316 cc105-6W
Mr. Drew

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list by police authority area the number of illegal guns that have been received over each of the last three years. [49897]

Mr. Michael

Information about illegal firearms received by individual forces is not normally collected centrally. During the national firearms amnesty in 1996, a total of 22,942 firearms were surrendered to forces as follows:

Police force Total number of firearms
Avon and Somerset 878
Bedfordshire 173
Cambridgeshire 308
Cheshire 376
Cleveland 198
Cumbria 365
Derbyshire 337
Devon and Cornwall 1,110
Dorset 521
Durham 305
Essex 793
Gloucestershire 310
Greater Manchester 420
Hampshire 716
Hertfordshire 161
Humberside 259
Kent 588
Lancashire 504
Leicestershire 404
Lincolnshire 466
London, City of Merseyside 245
Metropolitan Police 1,056
Norfolk 605
Northampton 222
Northumbria 428
North Yorkshire 311
Nottinghamshire 512
South Yorkshire 352
Staffordshire 423
Suffolk 650
Surrey 368
Sussex 873
Thames Valley 864
Warwickshire 212
West Mercia 526
West Midlands 597
West Yorkshire 352
Wiltshire 445
Total England 18,239
Dyfed Powys 493
Gwent 110
North Wales 332
South Wales 340
Total Wales 1,275
Total England and Wales 19,514
Central Scotland 215
Dumfries and Galloway 285
Fife 307
Grampian 547
Lothian and Borders 497

Police force Total number of firearms
Northern 368
Strathclyde 936
Tayside 273
Total Scotland 3,428
Total Great Britain 22,942