To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many crimes involving firearms have occurred in each of the last five years in the (a) the Bury St. Edmunds constituency, (b) Suffolk, (c) Norfolk, (d) Essex and (e) Cambridgeshire per head of population; [109341](2) how many firearms have been handed in to police in each of the past five years in

Available published data on the total number of recorded crimes in which firearms (including air weapons) were reported to have been used are given in the following table.

	Suffolk	Norfolk	Essex	Cambridgeshire
1997	17	75	269	134
1998–99	34	59	317	141
1999–2000	69	56	344	186
2000–01	136	57	356	146

Numbers of firearms offences were published on a calendar year basis up to 1997, and on a financial year basis thereafter.There was a change of counting rules for recorded crime on 1 April 1998, which will have the effect of increasing the number of crimes counted. Numbers of recorded crimes before and after this date are therefore not directly comparable.Available published data on the number of recorded homicide offences in which firearms were reported to have been used are given in the following table.

Number of homicide offences involving firearms
	Suffolk	Norfolk	Essex	Cambridgeshire
1997	0	0	1	0
1998–99	0	0	1	0
1999–2000	0	1	1	1
2000–01	1	1	1	1

Details of firearms offences have not been collected by parliamentary constituency.Information on the number of firearms that have been handed in to police are not routinely collected centrally.