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22 May 2006 : Column 1524W—continued

Mrs. Dorries: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment has been made of the impact of the proposed restructuring of police forces on the provision of (a) armed response units and (b) specialist firearms officers teams; and if he will make a statement. [71595]

Mr. Byrne: The assessment found that the resources providing the armed response function were required to be dual-function, providing other services such as roads policing. Clearly, this caused difficulties in trying to respond to simultaneous incidents. In addition, many smaller forces did not provide their own (expensive) specialist firearms services but looked to neighbouring forces to assist them as and when incidents occurred, relying on goodwill and building in a delay to what is often an urgent requirement.

The impact of restructuring will be that new forces will have sufficient resilience to provide armed response units dedicated solely to this function. This will allow them to gain greater skills and experience and have sufficient capacity to focus on not just responding to firearms incidents but also preventative work. Forces will be of sufficient size to allow them to develop their own dedicated, specialist firearms services, improving their training, expertise and experience of incidents as well as negating their reliance upon others for those services.

Mrs. Dorries: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many training courses have been provided by Bedfordshire police in (a) initial firearms, (b) armed response vehicles, (c) specialist firearms officers, (d) national firearms instructors, (e) tactical refreshers for authorised firearms officers and (f) firearms incident command training; and if he will make a statement. [71644]

Mr. Byrne: This information is not held centrally. Training police officers in the use of firearms is an operational matter for individual chief officers.

Mrs. Dorries: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received on the deployment of (a) armed response units and (b) specialist firearms officers in Bedfordshire; and if he will make a statement. [71645]

Mr. Byrne: We have received no representations about the deployment of firearms officers by Bedfordshire police. The deployment of police officers is an operational matter for chief officers.

Mrs. Dorries: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were employed in (a) armed response units and (b) specialist firearms officers teams in each police force in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement. [71649]

Mr. Byrne: The number of Authorised Firearms Officers in each force in England and Wales since 1996-97 is shown in the table. We do not hold information on whether these officers are in armed response units or specialist firearms officers’ teams.

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22 May 2006 : Column 1526W

Number of authorised firearms officers (AFOs)
	1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05
Total	6,738	6,585	6,308	6,262	6,064	5,776	5,763	6,096	6,243
Avon and Somerset	165	161	153	150	135	116	84	122	118
Bedfordshire	46	42	50	46	45	48	53	58	56
Cambridgeshire	90	80	80	77	73	56	71	60	60
Cheshire	70	82	70	75	74	81	89	75	76
Cleveland	86	84	78	80	75	85	80	95	100
City of London	88	81	55	73	74	73	72	86	89
Cumbria	108	122	98	98	94	92	87	89	90
Derbyshire	110	100	87	77	81	80	69	70	74
Devon and Cornwall	151	147	82	119	100	108	115	132	123
Dorset	74	72	72	66	67	57	59	60	64
Durham	138	144	96	101	101	86	102	97	103
Essex	228	217	235	228	195	180	184	186	202
Gloucestershire	82j	84	79	77	72	71	80	82	93
Gtr Manchester	209	182	217	218	240	219	202	205	187
Hampshire	106	112	110	111	100	87	94	94	92
Hertfordshire	42	41	43	52	44	46	47	50	53
Humberside	90	102	102	97	102	96	96	96	101
Kent	150	150	130	136	136	113	93	90	94
Lancashire	132	125	132	143	132	138	129	122	115
Leicestershire	104	94	90	90	85	69	68	51	53
Lincolnshire	82	85	75	78	80	91	87	78	86
Merseyside	147	165	121	96	103	78	84	94	93
Metropolitan	2,035	1,971	1,951	1,977	1,940	1,805	1,823	2,060	2,134
Norfolk	98	102	109	110	114	104	109	114	125
Northamptonshire	92	92	92	75	77	51	56	52	50
Northumbria	173	126	123	114	109	125	99	90	93
North Yorkshire	108	95	83	59	66	66	64	60	56
Nottinghamshire	128	129	120	116	137	136	131	138	138
South Yorkshire	110	108	90	100	98	92	100	98	122
Staffordshire	78	86	92	81	67	71	63	67	76
Suffolk	82	96	101	98	90	90	80	96	88
Surrey	76	61	69	71	72	62	48	53	49
Sussex	180	146	156	131	118	120	141	134	130
Thames Valley	185	194	179	187	185	156	180	172	176
Warwickshire	41	38	44	54	45	50	51	46	53
West Mercia	155	159	139	129	130	125	131	139	141
West Midlands	88	95	92	93	83	111	110	124	134
West Yorkshire	131	114	128	110	117	116	132	140	130
Wiltshire	134	105	88	89	71	71	78	80	74
Dyfed Powys	70	71	67	65	61	77	62	58	79
Gwent	70	59	64	68	66	57	60	71	74
North Wales	72	90	97	92	67	83	75	73	65
South Wales	134	176	169	155	143	138	125	139	134

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