ONLY one in every 20 burglaries in North Yorkshire ends in a conviction, it has been revealed.

Vale of York MP Anne McIntosh said the "very low" figure was sapping police morale.

In a written Parliamentary answer, Crime Minister Hazel Blears confirmed there were 11,511 burglaries in the 12 months to March 2003.

Police believed they had caught the offender in 1,211 cases - but only 683 ended in a criminal conviction.

Ms McIntosh raised the answer in a House of Commons debate with Solicitor General Harriet Harman. The Tory MP said: "The figure is very low, and I wonder what is going wrong and what damage is being caused to the morale of North Yorkshire Police, which brings cases to trial, where the offenders are not successfully prosecuted."

Ms Harman hit back: "In North Yorkshire, the police, prosecutors, courts and other agencies are working together to try to reduce the gap between the number of offences committed and the number of offenders brought to justice.

"That is happening locally as well as throughout North Yorkshire in general."

The conviction rate for all criminal cases in North Yorkshire magistrates court is 98 per cent.

For all cases in the crown court the figure was 90 per cent, Ms Harman said. York councillor Gilbert Nimmo, a member of the police authority, denied Ms McIntosh's claim that police morale was low in North Yorkshire.

He said: "Morale, from what I've seen lately, is going up. Because of Operation Delivery, I think it's never been better.

"There have been over 4,000 arrests since it started last September.

"Detection rates have increased. Burglaries have decreased a great deal, not only in York but in North Yorkshire."

Last week, the Evening Press reported new police figures revealing that the numbers of offences brought to justice with a conviction or caution had significantly increased by 8.3 per cent between December 2002 and 2003.

They also showed that nearly seven out of ten violent offenders were now being brought to justice, in comparison with 56 per cent in the same period last year.

Updated: 10:44 Monday, May 31, 2004