ATTEMPTING to defend a "misleading" claim about crime statistics made by Boris Johnson, Kwasi Kwarteng suggested that the Prime Minister was not counting fraud in a statement to MPs.
The Business Secretary said Boris Johnson was referring to “personal injury and crime in relation to individuals” when he told MPs “we have been cutting crime by 14%”.
It followed a Home Office press release which said latest data showed “crime continues to fall under this Government”, quoting Home Secretary Priti Patel as saying it demonstrated the Government’s approach “is working”.
But the UK Government has since been placed under investigation by the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) after receiving complaints about the claim.
Despite a fall in most crimes during coronavirus lockdowns, some are now reaching or exceeding pre-pandemic levels – with rises in some offences like fraud offsetting reductions seen elsewhere, the Office for National Statistics said last week.
The figures also showed police recorded the highest number of rapes and sexual offences in a 12-month period, while separate Home Office data detailed how the proportion of suspects being taken to court has fallen to a new record low and remains the lowest for rape cases.
In a letter to Alistair Carmichael, the LibDem home affairs spokesman who raised the issue, UKSA boss Sir David Norgrove said the Government had presented crime figures in a “misleading way”.
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Pressed on Johnson's "stretched relationship with the truth" by BBC journalist Sophie Raworth, Kwarteng saw no issue with the way the PM had presented the figures, despite Norgrove saying fraud and computer misuse figures "should" be included in totals and instead shows total crime "increased by 14%".
#SundayMorning: Why did the PM say the govt has cut crime by 14%, when he didn't include fraud & computer misuse... that means total crime increased by 14%... what he said wasn't true
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) February 6, 2022
Kwasi Kwarteng: What people experience in their daily lives in terms of fraud, not fraud... 🤣 pic.twitter.com/JzJ2JVu4Pb
Kwarteng told the BBC's Sunday Morning show that he did not know “what the evidence is” for the PM’s claim not being true.
“All I know is certainly on the doorstep, people are saying that there is progress being made,” he said.
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Challenged on the need for the Prime Minister to be accurate in the Commons, Kwarteng agreed and narrowed the definition of crime to "burglaries, personal injury and physical crimes" as things people talk about while acknowledging that fraud is "really, really important".
Raworth told the senior Tory that what Johnson said in the Commons was therefore not true.
Performing some linguistic gymnastics, Kwarteng said: "The point the Prime Minister was making is that the crime that people experience in their day-to-day lives, in terms of fraud, er, in terms of burglary, rather, not fraud, but in terms of burglary, in terms of physical injury, er, has gone down. That's absolutely right."
It all comes after the minister who was responsible for tackling fraud, Lord Agnew, dramatically quit the Government over the “schoolboy” handling of fraudulent Covid-19 business loans.
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In his letter to Carmichael, Norgrove wrote: "I agree that Office for National Statistics (ONS) measures of crime must be used accurately, and not misrepresented.
“In this case, the Home Office news release presented the latest figures in a misleading way.
“Likewise, the Prime Minister referred to a 14% reduction in crime, which is the change between the year ending September 2019 and the year ending September 2021. This figure also excludes fraud and computer misuse, though the Prime Minister did not make that clear.
“If fraud and computer misuse are counted in total crime as they should be, total crime in fact increased by 14% between the year ending September 2019 and the year ending September 2021.
“We have written to the Home Office and to the offices of the Prime Minister and Home Secretary to draw their attention to this exchange.”
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