Conservatives to triple stop and search and restore law and order

As the use of stop and search has fallen dramatically, knife crime and violent offences have risen conversely. In 2008/09, police carried out 1.5 million stop and searches, leading to more than 100,000 arrests. In the year ending March 2025, that figure was nearly 530,000, less than half the level a decade ago, resulting in 78,746 arrests.

This decline has had real consequences. Fewer searches mean fewer knives taken off the streets, and that makes the public less safe. Minority communities, who are statistically more likely to be victims of violent crime, are often those paying the highest price for this drop in enforcement.

Claims that stop and search is discriminatory are not borne out by the evidence. When the figures are compared to the offending population, the disparity between ethnic groups largely disappears. The success rate of stop and search is also near-identical across all ethnicities, proving the tool is being used fairly and effectively.

Our goal is to return stop and search levels to those seen in 2008 by tripling current numbers to get more knives off Britain's streets. Between 2019 and 2024, 69,000 weapons were removed through stop and search, averaging around 1,150 a month. Doubling usage to 2010 levels could take more than 2,000 knives a month out of circulation, saving lives and restoring confidence in public safety.

And when comparing the distribution of stop and search by ethnicity against the distribution of non-domestic knife-enabled murder victims, murder suspects, or robbery suspects who are black any “disproportionality” against black people is eliminated.

To achieve this, the Conservatives will give the Home Secretary the power to set national operational priorities, update PACE Code A to make clear that a single indicator of suspicion is sufficient for a lawful stop and search, and expand the use of section 60 “without suspicion” powers in high-crime areas approved annually by magistrates.

Hotspot policing will also be at the heart of this plan. Crime is highly concentrated. 4 per cent of London's neighbourhoods account for more than a quarter of all knife crime. Where police have used targeted patrols, results have followed. Essex Police's Operation Dial cut anti-social behaviour by nearly 9 per cent, while the Home Office's Grip programme saw a 7 per cent fall in violence and robbery.

This approach will be backed by technology. Live facial recognition has already helped police make over 1,000 arrests across England and Wales, between January 2024 and July 2025, including a 70 per cent reduction in robbery at the Notting Hill Carnival. The next Conservative Government will require every force to deploy facial recognition routinely in high-crime areas.

Taken together, these reforms will mark a new era of accountability and action: relentless hotspot policing, an expanded stop and search regime, and smarter use of technology to keep dangerous offenders off the streets.

The Conservatives will deliver this through a fully funded £800 million-a-year law and order plan, financed by our £47 billion Savings Plan.

Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said:

“The number of stop and searches has been halved, and with it, the deterrent that once kept knives off our streets.

“Every knife taken off the street is a life potentially saved, yet Labour don't have the backbone to stand up to these things allowing them to carry without consequence.

“The next Conservative Government will triple stop and search, target the hotspots, and back the police with the tools and powers they need. We will put the fear back where it belongs – in the minds of criminals.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

• There was a decrease of stop and search in the year ending March 2025. In the year ending March 2025 police in England and Wales conducted 528,582 stop and searches in total, a decrease of 1.4% compared with the year ending March 2024 (down 7,635 from 536,217) (Home Office, Accredited Official Statistics, 6 November 2025, link).

• The number of arrests following searches increased in the year ending March 2025 but still remains below the peak arrest rates of year ending March 2017 and March 2018. The number of arrests following searches under all legislation increased by 2,705 (up 3.6% to 78,746) in the year ending March 2025. This equated to 14.9% of all searches, a slight increase compared with the year ending March 2024 (14.2%), however it remains below the peak arrest rate (17.1%) in the year ending March 2017 and year ending March 2018 (Home Office, Accredited Official Statistics, 6 November 2025, link).

• The arrest rate for people based on self-defined ethnicity was broadly the same across all groups. People who self-defined their ethnicity as ‘Mixed or Other' (or, if they did not state their ethnicity, were perceived by the officer to belong to the Other ethnic group) had an arrest rate following a stop and search of 17.3%. Black people had an arrest rate of 16.7%, White people had an arrest rate of 14.5%, and people who self-defined or were perceived to be of Asian ethnicity had the lowest arrest rate (13.6%) (Home Office, Accredited Official Statistics, 6 November 2025, link).

Our plan will restore law and order in our country and keep the British public safe: 

• We will hire 10,000 extra police officers, backed by £800 million of funding. To combat Labour's cuts to policing, we would hire 10,000 extra police officers over three years as part of our plan to crack down on crime and support policing. This would cost £800 million per year once fully rolled out.  

• We will introduce proven intense hotspot patrolling in 2,000 areaswhich covers 25 per cent of all serious violent crime and robbery and should prevent 35,000 offences. We know that a disproportionate amount of crime is committed in a limited number of hotspots. We would therefore mandate routine year-round intensive hotspot patrolling of high-crime areas, including areas of high violent crime, street robbery, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour. We will build on existing hotspot policing with a target of 2,000 hotspots across the country, but on a more intensive basis. This would require an extra 5,550 police officers (Home Office, Research and analysis, 27 March 2025, link). 

• We will triple the use of stop and search, taking its usage back to levels in 2008. We would achieve this using the Home Secretary's new power to set operational priorities as set out above and changing PACE Code A 2.8A and College of Policing guidance to make clear that a single suspicion indicator is enough to merit a stop and search. This includes the smell of cannabis. We would mandate the more widespread use of section 60 suspicion-less stop and searches in high crime areas. This would mean amending section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to explicitly allow ‘without suspicion' searches to take place in the most intense violent crime ‘hotspots' at any time. These hotspots should be identified by the police and approved on an annual basis by a Magistrate (Home Office, Accredited Official Statistics, 14 March 2024, link). 

o   When comparing the distribution of stop and search by ethnicity against the distribution of non-domestic knife-enabled murder victims, murder suspects, or robbery suspects who are black any “disproportionality” against black people is eliminated.

(Policy Exchange, Your Money or Your Life, 29 July 2025, link).