§ Mr. Paul MarsdenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many pensioner households have had Government funded and approved locks fitted to their homes; and if he will make a statement. [157587]
§ Mr. Charles ClarkeThe "locks for pensioners" scheme that we are funding in conjunction with the Department for Environment, Transport and the Region's Home Energy Efficiency Scheme enables certain low income pensioners in high crime areas to have their house checked for security and if necessary to have additional security features such as door and window locks fitted. The scheme has been running in England for eight months and, by the end of March, almost 47,000 houses had been surveyed of which 22,441 were found to require security upgrades. So far, 21,715 of these have been referred to the registered installers and for 10,778 houses, the security upgrades are known to have been completed. The true figure will, however, be significantly higher as there can be a delay of several weeks between the work being completed and confirmation of this fact being received by the two organisations managing the scheme.
The equivalent scheme started in Wales only in February and, as yet, there are no centrally held figures for the numbers of Welsh households that have had improved security fittings as a result.
We have also funded a number of projects that provide security upgrades to burglary victims or other vulnerable people under our Reducing Burglary Initiative. We do not, however, have central records of the numbers fitted or whether the recipients were pensioners.