The level of crime in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest since records began in 1981, figures showed on Thursday. The British Crime Survey (BCS) showed offences fell by 9 per cent to 9.6 million in 2009/10, allaying fears a deep recession would cause a jump in offences.

The BCS is a collation of people's perceptions of crime and is one of the largest social surveys conducted in Britain. It is not related to actual crime figures, however. Actual crimes recorded by police forces across England and Wales fell by eight per cent to 4.3 million offences, a separate report showed.

Home office officials said there had been a "notable" fall in theft, burglary and fraud, but that levels of violent crime were largely unchanged. Both sets of crime figures show the number of offences is lower than when the last Labour government came to power in 1997.