No. 10 Morning Press Briefing From 17 July 2008

Morning Press Briefing From 17 July 2008

Briefing from the Prime Minister's Spokesman on: Crime and Information Commissioner...

Crime

Asked what the knife crime elements of the Home Secretary's statement would be, the Prime Minister's Spokesman (PMS) replied that we had been speaking quite a lot about knife crime in the recent days, and the purpose of the policing Green Paper today focused much more on for example reducing police bureaucracy and getting more time spent by policeman on the beat.

Asked what the Prime Minister had to say on the crime figures out today showing 22,000 knife crimes, and that every area of the country was affected, the PMS replied that knife crime was clearly an issue of concern both to the public and to the Government at the moment. That was why the Prime Minister and Home Secretary had been making clear in recent days and over the past week or so, that the Government was totally committed to get weapons off our street. Obviously this was against a background where in overall terms crime continued to fall.

The statistics out today show that violent crime was down by 12%, police-recorded sex offences were down 7%, vandalism was down 10%, police-recorded violence against the person was down 8%, vehicle related theft was down 11%, and domestic burglary reported to the police was down 4%. That was the overall background, but clearly the Government wanted to do more and was taking action to deal with knife crime in particular.

Information Commissioner

Put that the Justice Secretary had put down an order for the pay of the Information Commissioner to go up to £140k from £100k, and asked why he was worthy of a 40% pay-rise, the PMS replied that his understanding of the situation was that there was some specific issues relating to the role of the role of the Information Commissioner, but it was best to speak to the Ministry of Justice for details.

ENDS

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