To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department with reference to the answer to the hon. Member for Twickenham of 16 October 2009, Official Report, column 1175W, on crime, what the equivalent figures are for each year from 1998-99 to 2001-02. (303786)

The available information is given in the table. The offence groups used are those in place at the time the data were published. The offence of indecent exposure was included in the ‘Other’ offences rather than, as now, in the sexual offences group . There have also been changes with respect to two other rarer offences (bigamy and concealing an infant death close to birth). Figures are given for the old offence group of ‘Theft and handling stolen goods’ which is now split into ‘Offences against vehicles’ and ‘Other theft’.

In addition, the National Crime Recording Standard was introduced in April 2002. Because of this and the differences referred to above, the data given in the table are not directly comparable with those provided in the answer on 16 October 2009.

Detection rates are a ratio of crime detected in a period to crimes recorded in a period. They are not based on tracking whether individual crimes recorded in a period have eventually been detected.