asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will state for 1965 and for last year how many cases there were of: Suspected murder; convictions for murder; missing persons; rape; other crimes of violence.

The numbers of offences of homicide, rape and other violence against the person recorded by the police, and the numbers of persons convicted of murder are published annually in Criminal statistics, England and Wales—Tables 2.7, 2.8 and 5.9 of the volume for 1981, Cmnd 8668. More detailed information on offences of homicide is given in Chapter 4 of the same publication. Figures for 1965 and 1981 are given in the following table. Comprehensive statistics on missing persons are not collected centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. However, information on the index maintained by the Metropolitan Police is published annually in the Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis.Certain recorded offences and convictions for murder:

ENGLAND AND WALES
	Numbers
	1965	1981
Offences recorded by the police
Homicide(1)	325	559
Other offences of violence against the person.	25,223	99,648
Rape .. .. .. ..	618	1,068(2)
Persons found guilty
Murder.. .. .. ..	57	126

(1) In the absence of a court decision it is not possible to distinguish between the offences of murder, manslaughter and infanticide: these are known collectively as "homicide".(2) Part of the increase in recorded offences of rape may have been associated with the introduction at the end of 1976 of legislation enabling rape victims to remain anonymous in reports of court proceedings.

asked Her Majesty's Government:At what stage the outcome of their study of detailed proposals or changes in the law for the protection of laboratory animals will be made available for (a) informal discussion with interested parties, and (b) public discussion, prior to final decisions on new legislation.

The Government's proposals will be available in the spring for discussion both with interested parties and publicly at the same time.

asked Her Majesty's Government:What is the number of remand, and sentenced prisoners held in police custody in each week since 1st September 1982.

The estimated numbers of prisoners held overnight in police custody up to and including the night of 18th January are as follows:

September		October		November		December		January
1	216	1–3	191	1	71	1	155	1–3	4
2	215	4	211	2	73	2	126	4	1
3–5	221	5	207	3	46	3–5	120	5	None
6	236	6	205	4	26	6	150	6	None
7	262	7	173	5–7	53	7	156	7–9	None
8	293	8–10	176	8	107	8	157	10	27
9	228	11	210	9	40	9	141	11	43
10–12	148	12	185	10	80	10–12	161	12	43
13	189	13	167	11	64	13	182	13	31
14	197	14	162	12–14	110	14	170	14–16	57
15	175	15–17	166	15	177	15	161	17	92
16	142	18	193	16	148	16	141	18	82
17–19	139	19	194	17	121	17–19	152
20	156	20	168	18	134	20	157
21	134	21	150	19–21	179	21	113
22	116	22–24	159	22	202	22	52
23	119	25	131	23	202	22–28	None
24–26	160	26	95	24	176	29	3
27	173	27	74	25	170	30	2
28	182	28	41	26–28	149	31	4
29	172	29–31	76	29	177
30	168			30	194

asked Her Majesty's Government:What recent acts of terror they attribute to the Palestine Liberation Organisation and to the Israeli Government.

It is not for the Government to assign guilt for individual acts of terror committed in the Middle East. We deplore all acts of violence, which can only disrupt the search for a comprehensive peace settlement in that region.

asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether they will point out to the United States Government that their failure to ratify the SALT II Treaty is the reason why SALT III, which was to have included medium-range theatre weapons in Europe, has not been proceeded with; and whether they will inform the US Government that they must either ratify SALT II forthwith or remove all American nuclear weapons and carriers from British soil and waters.

No.