To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has, for the last year for which figures are available, as to the number of private cars stolen from each police division or constabulary in the United Kingdom and the number recovered.

The available information relates to all theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle and is given in the following table. The figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland have been provided by the Scottish Home and Health Department arid the Northern Ireland Office and may not be entirely comparable with those for England and Wales, although the differences are thought to be small. From records held centrally, it is not possible to distinguish thefts of private cars from thefts of other types of vehicle.