Written question asked by Stephen Hepburn (Labour) on Wednesday, 21 May 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 2 June 2008. It was answered by Lord Coaker (Labour) on Tuesday, 3 June 2008 on behalf of the Home Office.

Offensive Weapons

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many incidents of knife crime were reported in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK in each year since 1997.

Answer: It is not possible to identify those offences which are knife-related from the data centrally collected on overall recorded crime. However, since April 2007, police forces have been providing separate aggregate data on serious violence involving knives. Home Office statisticians will assess the quality of these data and it is planned that figures for 2007-08 will be published in the main crime bulletin in July 2008. Since the data are collected at police force area level, it will not be possible to show the number of incidents at constituency or borough level.Statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland are a matter for the respective Secretaries of State.

Secondary information