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Home Affairs and Justice

I would like to follow up, if I may, the point made by the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne). The Conservative party was clear in government. I have here its campaign guide for 1994, which says—[Interruption.] It is out of date to this extent: that was when the Conservatives were in government. That is the whole point. When the Conservatives were in government, they consistently said, and it is repeated here in the guide, that the BCS endeavours to build up an accurate picture of the number of crimes actually committed, and that the BCS showed that while recorded crime had doubled between 1981 and 1991, it also showed that the actual number of crimes committed rose by only 50 per cent. in that period. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman not accept, as the BCS was established by the Conservative party, that it is independently verified by the independent statistics authority, which was set up by the House, and that that is the best measure of consistent trends over time?