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5 Feb 2009 : Column 1516W—continued
Business: Crime
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what recent assessment she has made of levels of crime against businesses; and if she will make a statement. [250355]
Mr. Alan Campbell: Crimes against business that are reported to the police are recorded in national crime statistics. Some of these, such as robbery of business property, shoplifting, and theft by an employee are counted and recorded separately. The latest published statistics for these offences are for the year 2007-08 and show:
Shoplifting decreased 1 per cent. from 2006-07 to 2007-08, from 294,282 to 290,625 offences.
Robbery of business property decreased 3 per cent. from 2006-07 to 2007-08 from 9,454 to 9,141 offences.
Theft by an employee decreased by 3 per cent. from 2006-7 to 2007-8 from 16,323 to 15,858 offences.
We continually monitor trends in these crime types through the monthly submissions from police forces to the Home Office. Many crimes committed against business are, however, grouped with other un-related crimes and we are therefore planning to increase the range of business crimes which are counted separately. The separate recording of commercial burglary, for example, is being trialled in some police forces later this year.
We recognise, however, that some business crime may not be reported to the police and so are undertaking a scoping exercise to investigate the possible scope and methodology for a new survey of commercial victimisation. Previous surveys in 1994 and 2002 have provided a fuller and more accurate assessment of levels of crime against specific sectors (small and medium sized enterprises in the retail and manufacturing sectors).
The Government take very seriously crime committed against businesses and we are working closely with key business organisations, police and other Government Departments to tackle it. We have made it clear in our public service agreement ‘Make Communities Safer’, and in the policing Green Paper ‘From the Neighbourhood to the National: Policing Our Communities Together’ that crimes against businesses should be addressed by forces and their local partners. This is backed up by the reforms set out in the Green Paper to empower local communities, which will strengthen the voice of local businesses who are at the heart of many communities, in how their neighbourhoods are policed. The National Police Improvement Agency will shortly be publishing practical guidance for police forces on how to identify and address the specific needs and priorities of local businesses.
Crime: Merseyside
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on how many occasions Merseyside Police have (a) closed premises that are being used for drug dealing or use causing disorder or serious nuisance, (b) issued penalty notices for truancy, (c) designated an area with a history of anti-social behaviour, (d) used the new controls to tackle the misuse of air weapons and replica guns, (e) used their new powers for dealing with public assemblies and trespassers, (f) used their new power to move on trespassing encampments where a relevant site is available, (g) used their new powers to intervene in neighbourly disputes regarding high hedges, (h) issued penalty notices to 16 and 17 year olds for disorder and (i) used their extended stop and search powers where reasonable suspicion is held that articles made, adapted or intended for use in offences of criminal damage are being carried in the last 12 months. [251344]
Mr. Alan Campbell: The information requested covers the operations of a number of different Government Departments and would require consultation between them, therefore providing the information requested would entail disproportionate cost.
Crime: Retail Trade
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department who the members of the National Retail Crime Steering Group are; and what its terms of reference are. [253146]
Mr. Alan Campbell: The current members of the National Retail Crime Steering Group are as follows:
Alan Campbell MP (chair): Home Office
Stephen Robertson (co-chair): Director-General, British Retail Consortium
Jane Milne: Director of Business Environment, BRC
Catherine Bowen: Crime Policy Adviser, BRC
Alan Brown: Group Security Director, Tesco
Phillip Willsmer: Head of Operational Risk, Co-op
Peter Kaye: Head of Business Protection, John Lewis
Mike Cherry: Home Affairs Chairman, Federation of Small Businesses
Rosina Robson: Senior Policy Adviser, FSB
James Lowman: Chief Executive, Association of Convenience Stores
John Curtis: Deputy Director, Government Office West Midlands
David Fuhr: Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
ACC Allyn Thomas: ACPO Business Crime lead
Doug Russell: USDAW
Its terms of reference are as follows:
The purpose of a National Retail Crime Steering Group will be to drive a National Retail Crime Reduction Strategy focusing on reducing retail crime. This strategy will be based on the Terms of Reference agreed by the membership and will improve the co-ordination and delivery of retail crime reduction initiatives by all stakeholders.
1. Assess and improve the tools available to measure the scale of retail crime nationally, and encourage CDRPs to evaluate retail crime reduction initiatives locally.
2. Identify and document initiatives currently being undertaken by Government, police, local business crime reduction partnerships and retailers to combat crime.
3. Identify and promote good practice for retailers to adopt in working with Government, police and local partnerships, to reduce retail crime (and the underlying causes of crime.)
4. Assess and improve local engagement between retailers and neighbourhood police, taking into account local crime reduction plans.
5. Investigate the opportunities for improving retailer involvement in Home Office and Ministry of Justice policy development.
6. Encourage the retail sector to include crime prevention at the heart of all its business policies and practices.
Driving Under Influence
Keith Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many people were (a) arrested and (b) convicted for drink driving in each of the last 12 months; [251529]
(2) how many people in Leicester were (a) arrested on suspicion of and (b) convicted of drink driving in each of the last 12 months. [251742]
Mr. Alan Campbell: The information requested on arrests is not available.
The arrests collection held by the Home Office covers arrests for recorded crime (notifiable offences) only, broken down at a main offence group level, covering categories such as violence against the person and robbery. The offence of drink driving is not a notifiable offence and does not form part of this collection.
Available information provided by the Ministry of Justice on convictions at all courts for offences of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs for the year 2007 (latest available) is provided in the following table. Data for 2008 should be available in the autumn of 2009.
The data provided cover both drink and drugs offences combined, as convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs cannot be provided separately.
It is not possible to separately identify data for Leicester, thus data for Leicestershire police force area have been provided in lieu.
| Findings of guilt at all courts for offences of driving etc. after consuming alcohol or taking drugs( 1 ) by Leicestershire police force area and England and Wales, 2007( 2,)( )( 3) | |
| Number of offences | |
| Police force area | Findings of guilt |
| (1) Data provided cover summary offences of driving etc. after consuming alcohol or taking drugs (which cannot be reliably distinguished separately). (2) It is known that for some police force areasthe reporting of court proceedings,in particular those relating to summary motoring offences, may be less than complete. (3) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. Source: The Office for Criminal Justice Reform - Evidence and Analysis Unit. | |
Norman Baker: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department with reference to the answer of 19 December 2008, Official Report, column 1076W, on driving under the influence, when she expects the statistics for the number of breathalyser tests by (a) month and (b) region for (i) 2007 and (ii) 2008 to be published. [254118]
Mr. Alan Campbell: Statistics relating to 2007 for the number of breathalyser tests by month and region will be published within the annual statistical bulletin covering Motoring Offences and Breath Test Statistics, England and Wales. This bulletin is due for publication in spring 2009. No date has yet been set for the release of the 2008 data.
Police: Recruitment
Derek Twigg:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many former police community support officers were recruited as
police officers in (a) 2005, (b) 2006, (c) 2007 and (d) 2008. [252774]
Mr. Coaker: The requested data are not collected centrally.
Theft
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many incidents of (a) theft and (b) retail theft have been reported in (i) England and (ii) North Yorkshire in each year since 2000. [253145]
Mr. Alan Campbell: The number of police recorded crimes for the main offence groups of ‘offences against vehicles’ and ‘other theft offences (excluding shoplifting)’, and separate figures for shoplifting, are given in the following tables.
| Table 1: Number of offences recorded by the police, 1999-2000 to 2001-02 | |||
| 1999-2000 | 2000-01 | 2001-02 | |
| Note: The data in this table is prior to the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS). These figures are not directly comparable with those for later years. | |||
| Table 2: Number of offences recorded by the police, 2002-03 to 2007-08 | ||||||
| 2002-03 | 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | |
| Note: The data in this table take account of the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard (NCRS) in April 2002. These figures are not directly comparable with those for earlier years. | ||||||
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