Virendra Sharma – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2015-02-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Mayor of London on the level of violent crime in London.

Lynne Featherstone

Home Office Ministers have regular meetings with Ministerial colleagues and others as part of the process of policy development and delivery. As was the case with previous administrations, it is not the Government’s practice to provide details of all such meetings.

According to the latest crime figures published by the Office for National Statistics, the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows violent crime is down by 23% under this Government, and this is supported by NHS data on hospital admissions for assault which also indicates violence is falling.

The number of violence offences recorded by the police in the year to September 2014 rose by 16% compared with the previous year, with the Metropolitan Police one of the forces seeing a rise. The Office for National Statistics noted that the increase in police recorded violence is partly due to improved reporting and recording of violence and particularly of domestic abuse. This improvement follows Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary’s inspection of crime recording in every police force in England and Wales, which the Home Secretary commissioned in 2013, and which found significant under-recording of crime. The data shows that forces are acting on the findings.

We also know that some violent crimes like domestic and sexual violence are under-reported. We welcome more people reporting them to the police and we want to see more cases being brought to justice.