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Written question asked by Lord Alderdice (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 2 July 2019, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 16 July 2019. It was answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford (Conservative) on Tuesday, 16 July 2019 on behalf of the Home Office.

Lead: Theft

Question

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many churches in England have had thefts of lead in each of the last five years.

Answer

The Government recognises the distress and disruption that metal theft can cause, not only to businesses but also local communities of which churches are an important part.

The Home Office collects information from police forces on the number of metal theft incidents. These data are published annually by the Office for National Statistics and can be found in the ‘Property Crime tables’ here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/focusonpropertycrimeappendixtables.

The data show whether or not the theft was infrastructure or non-infrastructure related. Data are available for the year ending March 2013 to March 2018, however they are not broken down to show how many incidents were related to theft of lead from church roofs or the method or country of disposal for the metal stolen.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
HL16857
Session
2017-19
Attachment
Property Crime Tables 2017-18
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
Churches Lead Theft
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk