§ Mr. PaiceTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what changes have been made to the list of recordable offences since 1997. [177466]
§ Ms Blears[holding answer 9 June 2004]: All offences under provisions which carry the possibility of a custodial sentence are recordable, plus 52 other, non-imprisonable, offences specified in the Schedule to the National Police Records (Recordable Offences) Regulations 2000, as amended by the National Police Records (Recordable Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2003. Regulations made prior to 1997 had listed five non-imprisonable offences as record able
section 1, Street Offences Act 1959 (offence of loitering or soliciting for purposes of prostitution);section 43, Telecommunications Act 1984 (offence of improper use of public telecommunications system);section 29, Road Traffic Act 1972 (penalisation of tampering with vehicles);section 1, Malicious Communications Act 1988 (offence of sending letters etc. with intent to cause distress or anxiety); andsection 139(1), Criminal Justice Act 1988 (offence of having article with blade or point in public place).The National Police Records (Recordable Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 1997 added a further 42 offences to the list. The 2000 Regulations added a further 5 offences, and at the same time consolidated the provisions, including the list. Most recently, the 2003 Amendment Regulations added offences of taxi touting, begging and persistent begging to the list, and made some tidying-up amendments including removing from the list three offences which are now imprisonable and therefore no longer needed to be specified in the list as recordable.
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