Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the rate of recruitment and resignation of police firearms officers has remained stable over the past five years.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes information annually on the number of armed police officers in the Police use of firearms statistics. The latest available data is for the year ending 31 March 2024 and can be accessed at at Gov.UK.
There were a total of 6,473 armed officers as at 31 March 2024, a decrease of 3% (-178) compared with 31 March 2023 (6,651).
Of the 6,473 armed officers, 5,861 were operationally deployable armed officers (91%). This proportion was the same as the year ending 31 March 2023, and 2 percentage points lower than in the year ending 31 March 2022 (93%).
As at 31 March 2024, there were 3% fewer (-177) operationally deployable armed officers than in the year ending 31 March 2023. ‘Operationally deployable’ excludes officers who were absent due to sickness (long or short-term) or on restricted duties.
A 5-year armed officer uplift programme, with the aim to train and equip 1,000 extra firearm officers was announced on 1 April 2016 (separate from the recent recruitment of an additional 20,000 officers). Following the programme, the number of operationally deployable armed officers increased from 5,639 on 31 March 2016, to a peak of 6,621 on 31 March 2019 (Figure 4).
Since 31 March 2019, the number of operationally deployable armed officers has decreased by 760 (to 5,861 on 31 March 2024). This is the fifth consecutive year that the number has decreased. The number of operationally deployable armed officers is 4% (222) higher than before the armed officer uplift programme (31 March 2016).
Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of costs for the Emergency Services Network replacement service for Airwave; when the first police force will receive a functioning radio system; and when the roll out to all forces will be completed.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
In its 2021 Business Case the Programme estimated the total cost of providing critical emergency services communications between 2015/16 and 2036/37 to be £11.3bn. This is the combined cost of running the current system Airwave while developing ESN. A revised Programme Business Case setting out a new timetable and costs is expected early next year. This will reflect an extension of the evaluation period from FY2036/37 to FY2043/44 and extended run period for legacy Airwave systems by approximately three years. We plan for the network to be live for first users in early 2027 and are targeting full transition by end of 2029.
Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the current status of the Emergency Services Network replacement project for Airwave.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office has been in the process of two major procurements for ESN. The Mobile Services contract was awarded to BT/EE by direct award in July 2024 and the second contract is nearing finalisation and expected to be ready by the end of this year. Details will be published on the government commercial disclosure portal Contracts Finder. Airwave will be shut down only when it is safe to do so.
Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what information (1) the Home Office, and (2) other departments, have regarding the number of casualties caused by pedal cyclists and e-bikes to pedestrians in the past 20 years.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Shadow Minister (Home Office)
The Department for Transport publishes road casualty statistics based on personal injury road collisions reported to the police via the STATS19 reporting system.
Electrically assisted pedal cycles are included in the pedal cycle category depending on their power output.
The table below shows the annual number of pedestrian casualties where they were in collision with a pedal cycle from 2003 to 2022 (the latest year that data is available for). There may also be other vehicles involved in the overall collision.
Year | Casualties in collisions with pedal cycles |
2003 | 259 |
2004 | 236 |
2005 | 279 |
2006 | 226 |
2007 | 229 |
2008 | 261 |
2009 | 292 |
2010 | 341 |
2011 | 406 |
2012 | 432 |
2013 | 466 |
2014 | 498 |
2015 | 444 |
2016 | 460 |
2017 | 531 |
2018 | 482 |
2019 | 408 |
2020 | 308 |
2021 | 437 |
2022 | 462 |
Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what data or survey information the Department for Transport holds on (1) pedal cyclists breaching road traffic regulations, and (2) near misses or injuries caused by cyclists to pedestrians.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes data on Fixed Penalty Notices and other outcomes for motoring offences as part of the “Police Powers and Procedures: Other PACE powers” statistical bulletin. The most recent data, for 2021, are available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1118166/fixed-penalty-notices-and-other-motoring-offences-statistics-police-powers-and-procedures-year-ending-31-december-2021.ods
The Home Office collects data through a national fixed penalty processing system (PentiP), which includes some information on offences of pedal cyclists breaching road traffic collections. However, these data are not routinely published within the motoring offences statistics and are therefore not quality assured. Additionally, data are not collected on whether there were near misses or injuries sustained during an incident.
The Home Office has also been informed by the Department for Transport that they do not hold data regarding either part of the question.
Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what information and data the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority holds about injuries caused by pedal cyclists to pedestrians who have subsequently made a claim to the Authority.
Answered by Lord Bellamy
The GB-wide Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme (the Scheme) provides state-funded compensation to victims of violent crime who cannot pursue compensation or redress from other routes. The Scheme is administered by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA).
Payments are available under the Scheme for physical or psychological injuries resulting directly from a crime of violence, as defined in Annex B of the Scheme. Paragraph 4(1)(b) of Annex B specifies that a crime of violence will not be considered to have been committed if an injury “resulted from the use of a vehicle, unless the vehicle was used with intent to cause injury to a person”. Paragraph 4(2) outlines that a “vehicle” for the purposes of this paragraph means any device which can be used to transport persons, animals or goods, whether by land, water or air. Therefore, any application which relates to an injury caused by a cyclist will only be eligible if the vehicle was used with intent to cause injury to the applicant.
It is possible that CICA holds information which falls within the scope of this request, however it can only be extracted from the CICA’s database through manual search of case records at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many pedestrians received treatment for injuries caused by bicycle collisions in each year from 2010 to 2023.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Shadow Minister (Home Office)
The information requested is not held by the Department.
Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many injuries have been caused to pedestrians by cyclists over the last five years; and what percentage of those injuries have been classified as (1) serious, or (2) slight.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The number of pedestrian casualties in Great Britain injured in a collision with a pedal cyclist which was reported by police using the STATS19 system in each of the last 5 years for which data are available is shown in the table. Note however it is known that a majority of non-fatal collisions are not reported to police.
Year | Total injured casualties | Percentage with serious injury | Percentage with slight injury |
2017 | 528 | 26% | 74% |
2018 | 481 | 32% | 68% |
2019 | 402 | 34% | 66% |
2020 | 304 | 35% | 65% |
2021 | 436 | 32% | 68% |
Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many road traffic collisions involving a cyclist and a pedestrian were reported to the police in England and Wales in each of the last five years; and what was the recorded severity of the injuries resulting from those collisions.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton
The number of reported personal injury collisions between a pedal cyclist and a pedestrian in England and Wales, and the resulting casualties by severity of injury, in each of the last 5 years for which data are available is shown in the table.
Year | Total collisions | Total casualties | Fatalities | Seriously injured casualties | Slightly injured casualties |
2017 | 488 | 626 | 4 | 147 | 475 |
2018 | 428 | 544 | 1 | 159 | 384 |
2019 | 362 | 448 | 4 | 144 | 300 |
2020 | 278 | 343 | 4 | 112 | 227 |
2021 | 384 | 462 | 0 | 140 | 322 |
Asked by: Lord Hogan-Howe (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number of officers the Police Service of Northern Ireland needed to safely provide a police service for the people of Northern Ireland.
Answered by Lord Duncan of Springbank
Policing is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland and operational capability is a matter for the Chief Constable. The PSNI’s main budget is allocated by the Department of Justice from the Northern Ireland block grant.
The UK Government has provided the PSNI with the additional security funding it has asked for and needs to ensure that they have the resource (including officers) to tackle the SEVERE threat from Northern Ireland related terrorism. This additional security funding boosts PSNI’s ability to tackle the terrorist threat while ensuring day-to-day policing isn’t compromised.
PSNI received £230m in additional security funding in the last Parliament and £160m in this one. In addition, the UK Government has, to date, provided PSNI with over £16.5m in EU Exit funding to help manage pressures and contingencies arising from ongoing EU exit preparations. This has enabled PSNI to recruit 206 additional officers this financial year.