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Police: Stun Guns

Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) police forces had access to and (b) police officers were permitted to use Taser guns in each of the last five years; and what forecast she has made of the equivalent figures for each of the next three years. [261756]

Jacqui Smith: In 2004, following a trial in five forces, the then Home Secretary agreed that chief officers of all police forces in England and Wales could make Taser available to authorised firearms officers as a less lethal option for use in situations where a firearms authority had been granted in accordance with criteria laid down in the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) manual of guidance on police use of firearms.

The Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) announced on 19 July 2007 that authorised police firearms officers in England and Wales would be able to use Taser in a wider set of circumstances. These officers are now able to deploy Taser in operations or incidents where the use of firearms is not authorised, but where they are facing violence or threats of violence of such severity that they would need to use force to protect the public, themselves or the subject.

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Following the success of a 12 month trial in 10 police forces, I agreed on 24 November 2008 to allow chief officers of all forces in England and Wales, from 1 December 2008, to extend the use of Taser to specially trained units in accordance with current Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) policy and guidance. This sets out that Taser can only be used by specially trained units where officers would be facing violence or threats of violence of such severity that they would need to use force to protect the public, themselves and/or the subject(s).

I announced on 24 November 2008 that the Home Office would be making available a one-off injection of funding to support the purchase of up to 10,000 Tasers for use by police forces in England and Wales based on their own operational requirements.

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Sexual Offences: Rural Areas

Chris Huhne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many recorded rapes against women in rural areas there were in each of the last 10 years; and what the sanction detection rates were in each case; [260931]

(2) how many cases of rape against women were recorded by each police force in each of the last 10 years; and what the sanction detection rate was in each case. [260934]

Jacqui Smith: The available information is given in the following tables. Sanction detection rates are only available from 2002-03.

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Table 1: Offences of rape of a female recorded by the police , 1998-99 to 2001-02( 1)
Police force	1998-99	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02
‘Rural’ forces( 2)
Cambridgeshire	79	97	102	144
Cumbria	43	33	37	44
Devon and Cornwall	163	150	168	165
Durham	54	58	45	71
Dyfed-Powys	37	49	46	46
Gloucestershire	51	63	85	49
Lincolnshire	59	51	63	103
Norfolk	99	82	103	103
North Wales	68	88	89	111
North Yorkshire	42	39	46	65
Suffolk	81	80	94	112
West Mercia	96	86	105	169
Wiltshire	84	78	72	85
‘Non-rural’ forces
Avon and Somerset	160	166	188	302
Bedfordshire	62	92	81	89
British Transport Police	—	—	n/a	n/a
Cheshire	105	62	80	69
Cleveland	47	45	36	54
Derbyshire	103	98	102	113
Dorset	49	61	67	108
Essex	174	184	153	190
Greater Manchester	514	512	508	526
Gwent	77	94	76	101
Hampshire	171	228	257	279
Hertfordshire	48	63	82	81
Humberside	117	160	134	151
Kent	154	131	169	171
Lancashire	147	136	182	174
Leicestershire	138	141	142	152
London, City of	4	1	2	9
Merseyside	167	219	214	256
Metropolitan Police	1,900	2,142	2,044	2,336
Northamptonshire	57	42	56	91
Northumbria	258	227	208	259
Nottinghamshire	153	210	211	227
South Wales	147	115	115	112
South Yorkshire	97	114	112	105
Staffordshire	110	175	182	197
Surrey	62	72	119	110
Sussex	190	198	237	215
Thames Valley	181	218	245	269
Warwickshire	29	19	25	30
West Midlands	355	481	499	553
West Yorkshire	400	449	348	406
n/a = Not available. (1) The data in this table are prior to the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard in April 2002. These figures are not directly comparable with those for later years. (2) The defining of rural police force areas within England and Wales has been taken in accordance with the ACORN (“A Classification Of Residential Neighbourhoods”) guidance as published in the Statistical Bulletin 01/02 “Rural Crime England and Wales”. The data cover 13 forces which ACORN defines as either ‘Most Rural’ (Dyfed-Powys, Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire and North Wales) or ‘Less Rural’ (Cambridgeshire, Cumbria, Devon and Cornwall, Durham, Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Suffolk, West Mercia and Wiltshire).

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