HC Deb 09 February 2000 vol 344 cc165-6W
Mr. Cohen

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance is given by his Department to police forces on the provision of suitably designed body armour for female officers. [109000]

Mr. Charles Clarke

Suitable body armour for female officers, designed and approved to standards set by the Home Office Police Scientific Development Branch

Table showing the number of asylum seekers being supported by London boroughs1 at 7 January 2000
Borough Total number of asylum seekers Unaccompanied minors2 Single adults Number of families3 Number of people in families
Barking and Dagenham 2,440 140 800 530 1,500
Barnet 1,420 40 270 330 1,100
Bexley 400 80 100 60 220
Brent 1,890 50 570 430 1,270
Bromley 530 40 170 90 310
Camden 1,820 80 510 370 1,230
Corporation of London 170 — 90 20 70
Croydon 940 150 180 180 610
Ealing4 1,280 — 390 260 900
Enfield4 1,970 60 420 550 1,490
Greenwich 1,850 70 820 330 960
Hackney 2,440 — 920 490 1,520
Hammersmith and Fulham4 2,400 180 670 470 1,550
Haringey4 4,680 320 1,330 910 3,040
Harrow 750 40 170 150 540
Havering4 310 — 220 30 90
Hillingdon 1,880 400 760 230 710
Hounslow4 920 30 210 270 690
Islington4 2,360 220 1,280 460 860
Kensington and Chelsea 1,790 130 810 260 850
Kingston-upon-Thames4 330 10 90 70 230
Lambeth 2,900 150 1,050 580 1,710
Lewisham4 2,390 90 1,000 410 1,300
Merton4 910 — 260 190 660
Newham 6,120 70 1,240 1,420 4,810
Redbridge 1,860 200 540 340 1,120
Richmond-upon-Thames 1,650 210 710 2107 30
Southwark 2,850 190 1,010 550 1,660
Sutton 550 50 250 90 260
Tower Hamlets 660 10 230 130 420

(PSDB) and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), has been available since May 1999. The new PSDB Stab Resistance Standard for Body Armour 1999 also includes provision for testing female armour.

The results of all body armour tested to PSDB standards are published in the "Manual of Ballistic and Stab Resistant Body Armour", a joint PSDB/ACPO publication. The manual is available to all police forces and contains information on how to select appropriate body armour from among almost 200 commercially available armours. PSDB also gives presentations on female body armour to individual forces.