Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con) I beg to move, That this
House has considered the use of Stop and Search in the West
Midlands. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms
Rees, and to have secured the debate. I begin by referring to my
entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I am a
board member of West Bromwich town’s business improvement district.
The bottom line for this debate that I want to highlight is: stop
and...Request free trial
(West Bromwich East)
(Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the use of Stop and Search in the
West Midlands.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees, and
to have secured the debate. I begin by referring to my entry in
the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I am a board
member of West Bromwich town’s business improvement district.
The bottom line for this debate that I want to highlight is: stop
and search saves lives. It is one of the most effective methods
police officers have to take dangerous weapons and drugs off our
streets quickly, as I have witnessed in my constituency. At its
core, stop and search is about pre-empting dangerous situations
before they happen. It also acts as a deterrent to violent
individuals, if they know that the police are willing to use the
powers effectively. Not only does stop and search protect members
of the public, it also saves some perpetrators, who might be
vulnerable adults and children, from becoming further involved in
crime and illicit activities, perhaps giving them the chance to
change their path, once they face up to the consequences of their
actions.
I felt compelled to apply for this debate after reading the
comments of the West Midlands police and crime commissioner about
stop and search in the Express & Star on 2 November. That
came out of the recently published new crime plan for 2021 to
2025, in which he stated that
“if searches are only leading to an action in about a quarter of
cases, then it is legitimate to ask if the ‘reasonable grounds’
threshold for a lawful search has been met in connection with
many of the searches that take place.”
That concerns me, because not only can little be taken away from
those metrics, but officers going about their job to protect our
communities are undermined and the zero-tolerance messaging that
we should be seeing is compromised. Let me explain why I feel
that the police and crime commissioner’s comments on the ratio of
positive searches are not proportionate.
Were the police to pull over a car of four people because of
suspicious activity, and found either drugs or a weapon on just
one occupant of the car, that is treated as a 25% positive
outcome of the overall search under the official police
definition, as four people were searched in total. If a weapon
were found or recovered after the event took place, that would
not be recorded as a positive outcome at all, even if police
suspicions were right.
That shows that none of the data can be taken at face value, but
must always be viewed with nuance and context. If the police and
crime commissioner bases his measure of success solely on
positive search rates, he will in effect be limiting the use of
stop and search artificially to create more positive searches
from a pool of fewer overall searches. The statistics do not back
up that approach, and I am concerned that the policy will lead to
more knives and drugs on our streets, unchecked.
I believe that there is a positive story to tell about stop and
search in Sandwell in particular, where police officers use the
powers well: 751 searches were conducted in July to September
this year, with a 29.8% rate of positive outcomes over the past
six months. In Sandwell, officers use body cameras to capture
footage of searches; they have taken time to invest in training
to fill in any knowledge gaps; and they use the acronym GOWISELY
when conducting all searches to ensure that they act
appropriately and proportionately.
I will explain what GOWISELY stands for. This is what is to be
said as the stop and search takes place: grounds, a clear example
of the reasons for the search; object, what the officer is
looking for; warrant, production of a warrant card if officers
are plain-clothed; identity, the name and collar number of the
officer; station, the police station where they are based;
entitlement, the person must be informed they are entitled to a
copy of the record; legal, stating the legislation that permits
the search to take place; and you, the officers must explain to
someone that they are being detained for the purpose of the
search.
Like all other communities, we have a local stop-and-search
scrutiny panel that aims to ensure that stop and search is being
used fairly and effectively, and GOWISELY is also in place. In
these scrutiny panels, randomly selected body footage is shown to
the committee, which includes members of the public among others,
and the chair of the panel is always a member of the public. The
community hold the police to account, which is how it should be.
Sandwell has one of the most rigorous scrutiny committee panels
in the region, which even offers advice on best practice to
neighbouring panels. Any learnings or concerns are fed back to
officers directly.
However, I know that some panels struggle with retention of
members and some were not particularly well established before
the pandemic, which has caused difficulties. We therefore need to
invest in and expand such schemes truly to get the most out of
such vital resources. That is an idea I hope the police and crime
commissioner will take up, using Sandwell as an example for other
areas.
To add a further layer of best-practice sharing and scrutiny to
this process, each committee chair attends a meeting twice a year
at the Stop-and-search Commission, where they share best practice
and consider wider issues across the force. Scrutiny panels also
provide career opportunities for members of the public to get
involved in some really positive community work. If a young
person has chaired or been otherwise involved in one of these
panels, what a fantastic thing for them to have on their CV.
Indeed, local police inform me that one former chair of a local
scrutiny committee has gone on to become a special police officer
himself, because he was so inspired by the work the committee
did. That is the kind of story we want to hear. In fact, I have
accepted an invitation to sit on one of the local panels in
Sandwell next year, to observe what such panels do.
One thing remains true in all of this—proportionality is clearly
based on consensus, with both the public and the police being
confident about the methods and means being used. Indeed,
complaints against police officers in Sandwell over stop and
search are few and far between, which is really good to see. It
shows that the proportionality is there, that police feel
confident about using these powers, and that the body camera
footage boosts faith in the police and gives our communities
protection, as it will evidence the fairness and the
proportionality of any search.
However, in the police and crime commissioner’s crime plan, the
PCC cites complaints about stop and search as something to be
improved. Of course complaints need to be heard and responded to,
and lessons learned, but I am not confident that the life-saving
nature of stop and search is fully appreciated in the west
midlands, and that could lead to worse outcomes for local
people.
It is such outcomes that worry my constituents deeply. Despite
the fact that crime has been falling across most of the country
over the last year, in the west midlands we have seen a huge
increase in overall crime, and crime is an issue that floods the
inboxes of most west midlands MPs on most days. Our constituents
are worried, and rightly so.
I cannot stress enough the importance of backing our police
officers and giving them the confidence to act with conviction.
They need to have the confidence to know that their decisions,
when they are reasonable and proportionate, are backed by their
political leaders, which is the only way in which we can make our
zero- tolerance approach truly felt by all.
It would be a travesty if an officer were to be worried about
searching a suspicious individual because of the seeds of doubt
that the police and crime commissioner has placed in their mind
with their stance on the use of stop and search. The West
Midlands police and crime commissioner’s own website says:
“West Midlands Police was one of the first forces to adopt the
Home Office’s ‘best use of stop and search’ scheme. As part of
the scheme, it introduced a raft of measures to improve its use
of the power…There are also ongoing projects that are improving
scrutiny, teaching young people their rights when stopped and
searched, researching disproportionality, and increasing the
range of data we publish.”
That is all available to view on the website.
As I have just set out, there has been a lot of work in recent
years around stop and search, especially in Sandwell. I regularly
speak to local police officers in Sandwell and they are confident
about their grounds for stopping people and about the
proportionality of searches, and when they have not been
confident they have undertaken training to bolster their
knowledge.
It is no secret that we have seen some horrendous incidents of
violent crime in West Bromwich town centre in the last few months
alone. Only a few months ago, there was a horrendous incident in
New Square, West Bromwich, when a group of three men turned on
police with machetes after the police approached them. The brave
police officers at the scene handled themselves brilliantly, and
thankfully the wounds that they suffered were not fatal. However,
we should consider what would have happened if those individuals
had not been spotted. Those knives would have been taken right
into the heart of our communities.
That group of men was stopped by behavioural detection officers.
BDOs do what it says on the tin—they are trained to spot “out of
place” behaviour in the community and to challenge anyone
suspected of suspicious activity. They are specialists in
behavioural studies. It was a group of BDOs on patrol who stopped
this group of young men who were carrying machetes in the town
centre. The group of young men were noticed because of their
suspicious behaviour, including wearing thick, heavy clothing on
what was a warm day. After the officers managed to force the
group into a safer area of the shopping centre in order to stop
them, the men produced large knives from their bags and proceeded
to attack the officers. The officers’ training, knowledge and
bravery, and the actions of some brave members of the public,
meant innocent bystanders were not hurt that day.
It is important to mention that without the deployment of Project
Guardian to West Bromwich, those individuals might not have been
spotted, apprehended and taken off our streets. For Members who
may not know about Project Guardian, it is the West Midlands
police team that works across the region to tackle youth violence
and get dangerous weapons off our streets. If hon. Members need a
reason to back stop and search, they should take the opportunity
briefly to scroll through their Twitter account to find out
more.
The team are out every day using stop and search, among other
powers, to seize drugs and knives. They are on the front line,
assisting our local police teams to tackle this scourge on our
streets. Their work should be shouted about loudly so they have
the confidence to keep doing what they are doing to keep us all
safe. If officers are not confident in using stop and search, the
outcomes will not be successful. Training should be expanded to
help them learn from the best or, better still, to promote the
training of behavioural detection.
I would like to place on record my thanks to Lisa Hill from the
business improvement district, Chief Super- intendent Ian Green
and PC Rich Philips, who have led on stop and search in our area,
along with all our local police officers in Sandwell, who are
doing some amazing work in our community. The business
improvement district, local schools, colleges and MPs are backing
our police officers all the way. I thank the Minister and the
Home Secretary for their personal support and engagement with me
on these issues.
The use of stop and search is a major tool in fighting back
against county lines. Young people especially are exploited
across the west midlands and forced to live in towns and cities
outside their area to sell drugs. They go missing from school or
college, sometimes for weeks on end. Stop and search can help
save them when others in their lives have been unable to. That is
why it is important to view stop and search not just as a tool to
apprehend criminals but as a way to rehabilitate vulnerable
people who sometimes, through no fault of their own, have become
trapped in a life they do not wish to lead.
The use of stop and search in a proportionate and respectful way
saves lives. It takes dangerous weapons and drugs off our streets
and makes us all safer. Those who hold public office must send a
message loud and clear that bringing violent weapons and drugs
into our communities will not be tolerated. I do not think the
police and crime commissioner’s statement sent anything like the
right message. We should invest in training to get more BDOs on
the street, expand and promote internal training opportunities
for officers, and engage with the public even more through the
positive use of the stop-and-search scrutiny committees. That is
at the same time as putting 20,000 more police officers on our
streets by the end of this Parliament, which we are well on track
to deliver. We cannot just look at the figures when assessing
stop and search. Context is crucial. To quote again from the West
Midlands police and crime plan:
“How we measure, analyse and improve public confidence in
policing and public satisfaction with police services will get
better.”
I can tell police and crime commissioner that nothing promotes
public confidence more than using stop and search. I could go on
all day about my community’s experience with violent crime, but
it is important that we hear from others. I am looking to hearing
about other Members’ experiences.
14:43:00
(Birmingham, Erdington)
(Lab)
On 31 May this year, a fine young man, Dea-John, was hunted down
and knifed to death on the streets of Kingstanding. The following
day, I met his distraught mother, and the weekend following, I
was with thousands of others both to celebrate his life and to
bring the community together in opposition to the rising threat
of knife crime.
Only today, the police are carrying out a major operation—a knife
search, as they call it—in the Finchley Park area. I regularly
talk and work with our local police service on how they use stop
and search on the one hand, and on initiatives such as knife
arches in a number of local secondary schools, on the other.
There is no question but that stop and search remains essential
to effective policing, acting as a valuable tool in combating
pervasive, violent crime and keeping our communities safe as a
consequence. The key is that the use of stop and search has to be
appropriate. The need for the police to carry communities with
them remains paramount. Historically, that has not always been
the case, which has damaged police-community relations. Stop and
search remains, however, an important tool in our armoury, with
the caveat that its successful application requires ongoing
dialogue with communities. I am pleased that the West Midlands
police and crime commissioner has made clear commitments to that
end.
Although I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for West
Bromwich East () has secured the debate, I
disagree with her interpretation of what the police and crime
commissioner said. There has also been no mention thus far of the
single biggest problem facing the police service, to which I will
return. The police and crime commissioner has given no direction
to the chief constable to reduce or scale back stop and search.
It has been suggested in some quarters that he has, but that is
simply not true.
(Dudley South) (Con)
How does the hon. Gentleman interpret the parts of the police and
crime commissioner’s plan where he quotes reports that say that
stop and search does little or nothing to tackle crime, and where
he says that the measure of whether “reasonable grounds” have
been met should be whether at least 50% of stop and searches
result in further action?
Point made. The police and crime commissioner has said clearly in
his plan:
“Stop and search can be an appropriate and necessary tool to
detect and investigate crime and remove weapons from our
streets.”
I was with him on the streets of Erdington for most of the day on
Saturday last week. He was sending an unmistakeable message that
we should use whatever tools we have in our armoury to protect
the public, but that crucially, we must get the use right and
ensure that there are not counterproductive consequences as a
result of getting it wrong. His plan is about making stop and
search more efficient and effective with the intention of
removing more dangerous weapons from our streets.
The single biggest problem confronting the police service is the
loss of more than 20,000 police officers. Only last week, the
police and crime commissioner wrote to all hon. Members in the
west midlands—Labour and Conservative—to ask us to act together.
He detailed the unfairness of funding for the West Midlands
police, which is attributable to a decade of devastating
austerity for the police service. For example, over and above the
cuts that have been made to the police service, because of the
damping formula, it has lost out by an additional £40 million.
The west midlands is treated unfairly compared with some of the
leafy southern shires.
The facts are undeniable. Since 2010, the West Midlands police
service has lost £175 million and 2,221 police officers—25% of
the workforce—as a consequence. Many examples stick in my mind,
including the several hundred A19 officers whom I will never
forget. Seven years ago, just when crime was rising, people such
as Tim Kennedy, an outstanding detective constable, and Mark
Stokes, an outstanding inspector and expert in designing out
crime, were forced out of the police service in their prime at 52
or 53. It was a catastrophic mistake by the Government of the
hon. Member for West Bromwich East that should never have been
made.
The truth is that there has been a devastating impact on the west
midlands and my constituency in particular. The hon. Lady pointed
to the impact on her constituency too. Those cuts by a
Conservative Government have had a severe impact on neighbourhood
policing. Time and again—all hon. Members will have experienced
this —members of the public, who are overwhelmingly supportive of
the police service, say, “We rang and they took forever to come
out.” Or, “We rang and they told us they could not come out.” Or,
“Where are they? We never see them on the streets any
longer.”
That is the impact of years of Tory cuts to neighbourhood
policing. In parallel, there have been huge cuts to services that
really matter to crime prevention, for example, youth services,
youth clubs, mental health facilities and the probation service.
The human consequences are sad and all too obvious: knife crime
up, 17%; possession of weapons, up 28%.
The contrast with what a Labour Government did could not be more
stark. That Government, under Blair and Brown, saw 17,000 extra
police officers, 16,000 police community support officers, the
development of neighbourhood policing, and crime falling in this
country by 43%. As a consequence of the cuts made, that era of
progress has been thrust into reverse.
While we are all enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s reminiscences of
the good times, what is the police and crime commissioner’s plan
to get the positive outcomes up to 50% on stop-and-search cases?
We have not heard that; it is not in his plan. It has not been
mentioned today. How do we get there?
There are two things. First, on stop and search, it would happen
in exactly the way I have said—I have quoted the police and crime
commissioner’s own words and I have heard him say it personally.
It is about the vigorous but appropriate use of stop and
search—getting it right; avoiding counterproductive outcomes.
Secondly, he cannot put right all the wrongs of the past era
since 1997, but he is committed to recruiting an additional 450
police officers, which I welcome.
Why does the hon. Member think that Labour police and crime
commissioners in the west midlands have seen rapid increases in
the recorded crime rate over the past 12 months, where Labour
police and crime commissioners and Mayors in other urban areas,
such as Merseyside and Greater Manchester, have seen falls during
the pandemic? Why is the west midlands different?
The size of the cuts that have been made to the police service is
one answer to that. Can I throw a question back? If it is right,
as is undoubtedly the case, that the police service has been
starved of the necessary resources—and what the Government are
proposing will still leave us 1,000 short in the west
midlands—why do Government Members not join us to speak with one
voice and say to the Government, “Back our police service; invest
in our police service. We want to see a return to 2010, and an
end to an era where the public have been put at risk as a
consequence of those cuts.”? I throw that question back.
It is right for the hon. Member for West Bromwich East to bring
this debate. Are we simply going to focus on a crucial issue, and
then have no regard to the cost and consequences to the police
service of being starved of the necessary resources, and all that
has flowed from that? That cannot be the case. Hon. Members must
make up their minds, because we will probably have the police
grant settlement before Christmas. We need to stand together to
influence the Government. Would any hon. Member like to respond
to that? Why not unite with Labour colleagues to put the safety
and security of the people of the west midlands first?
I certainly welcome the hon. Gentleman’s appeal to put partisan
political point scoring to one side. He may remember that back in
the distant days of January 2016, we had a similar debate in this
very Chamber—I was sitting here, and he was sitting nearby as
shadow Policing Minister—at a time when the previous Labour
police and crime commissioner for the west midlands had asked us
all to come together on a cross-party basis to support a £5
increase in the police precept for the west midlands. I did so,
and my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull () also did so. Can the hon.
Gentleman remember how he briefed the local media after
Conservative Members had supported the Labour police and crime
commissioner’s increase in the precept?
Correct me if I am wrong, but was there universal support from
Tory colleagues at that point in time? No, there was not. Were
there some truly honourable hon. Members who took a stand in
support of proper funding of the police? Yes, there were, and I
welcome that.
I say this one final time: all Government Members are going to
have to make their mind up. The case for additional resources and
a reversal of the cuts of the past 10 or 15 years is
overwhelming, and the consequences being felt by our communities
are likewise overwhelming. Therefore, we need to stand together
and say to the Government that we badly need additional
investment of resources in our police service, not least because
the first duty of any Government is the safety and security of
their citizens. The Government often talk tough on crime, but the
reality is sadly the opposite. Our priority must be to return the
police service in the west midlands to 2010 levels.
The hon. Gentleman has said that the Government are not tough on
crime, but what I am saying is that the police and crime
commissioner wants to get a positive outcome for 50% of stop and
searches, with no plan to achieve that. It is fine to speak warm
words about working with the community and better communication,
but what I am asking for is a plan, and until a plan is produced
on issues such as stop and search and others that we are
concerned about, we are not going to lobby for more money to go
into the Labour police and crime commissioner’s bottomless pit.
Will the hon. Gentleman join us in asking his colleague to
explain what the plan is?
I can say without hesitation that I want to see a vigorous and
proportionate use of stop and search—there is no doubt about
that. That is what the police and crime commissioner was arguing
for in Erdington only last Saturday. Crucially, the hon. Lady has
just said that she will not give a commitment to stand up to the
Government and argue for the necessary additional resources. In a
matter of weeks, a decision of immense consequence will be made
for the safety and security of our citizens in the west midlands.
We need to influence that decision, so I urge all Members,
irrespective of party, to come together and make the case to
Government to back our police service through proper investment
in it. There is no question that we have to increase activity in
crime prevention, and a commitment to rebuild neighbourhood
policing will also be crucial.
The Dea-John killing is one of many that will always stick in my
mind. As Members of Parliament, we have all seen the
heartbreaking consequences for our communities of what has been
happening in recent years, in particular the growth of violent
crime as the number of police officers has decreased. Of course,
there are different views, but the communities that we represent
want to be able to live in safety and security. That means—I
stress this one final time—putting the public interest first and
backing the call for fair funding for the west midlands. I hope
that all Members of Parliament from the west midlands will join
together to do precisely that.
14:59:00
(Birmingham, Northfield)
(Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees, and I
thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East () for securing today’s
debate.
I will start by talking about stop and search as a tool that the
police are able to use to tackle crime. Just this week in the
Northfield constituency, we have seen our local police force
working with the National Crime Agency
They have conducted a successful operation on the Cock Hill
estate, taking four criminals and weapons in the form of a gun
and knives off the streets. That is an example of how these
powers are used every day to bring down crime in this country and
to make our streets much safer.
We have also seen the powers being used in areas such as the
Three Estates in Kings Norton, in my constituency. This time last
year, my inbox was full of messages from people who were worried
and concerned about the safety of their children and their
families on the streets of Kings Norton. However, in the course
of the last year, we have seen crime coming down, thanks to our
local police, including the impact team and the neighbourhood
team, who have been working together hand in hand to bring down
crime, using the powers that they have to make our streets
safer.
I want to say thank you to Inspector Michelle Cassidy and Chief
Superintendent Steve Graham, who have been an enormous support to
our local teams in the area; people such as Councillor Adrian
Delaney in Rubery and Rednal who have worked with the police and
local communities to bring down crime in Cock Hill and ensure
that we make it a safer place; and local residents such as
Natalie Chambers on the Three Estates, who helped to organise an
online Facebook group, sharing information with different
residents, empowering them and organising them in order to ensure
that the police have the correct information at the right time,
so that they can decide how to execute their powers and how to
bring down crime locally.
As many speakers have said so far, stop and search is a vital
tool. We have seen nationally how it saves lives. Last year, more
than half a million stop and searches were conducted—that equates
to 11 in 1,000 people—and 11,000 weapons were taken off the
streets of this country. There were 74,000 instances of people
being arrested also.
We see locally how this power is being used proportionately and
responsibly by our local police in the form of the GOWISELY
initiative, which my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich
East mentioned. It is these sorts of initiatives that, as local
politicians and community groups, we can help to scrutinise
through the panels. I am glad that my hon. Friend brought up the
panels, because they are certainly going to be picking up some of
the issues that she raised. I am going to have a look at my own
Birmingham panel and see how I can help and engage with it, to
see what we can all do to ensure that the powers are being used
wisely. It also means that local community groups feel that they
are having input into the process.
I am very glad that the police are being protected in these
incidents through police body cameras. I was glad that the
Government listened to the calls from the Police Federation to
have the images stored on a camera published, so that there are
checks and balances. Unfortunately, we did see many incidents in
which police were being filmed and the videos were being put
online, but the police were not able to publish their own video
footage to protect themselves from people making allegations
against them in relation to stop and searches and other
incidents. I am glad that the Government listened to the Police
Federation in that respect and moved forward.
Knife crime is a real concern in Birmingham. It is something that
has been around for as long as I can remember. The hon. Member
for Birmingham, Erdington () knows that I was born and
raised in his constituency, and lived there for 30 years. Five
people I went to school with—we were in the same year group—are
currently inside for murder. All those crimes were committed with
a knife. People I went to school with have been slain in Finchley
Park over arguments. The hon. Gentleman always gives very
impassioned speeches about resources, but these incidents were
pre-2010, in the times of plenty, when these sorts of things were
never addressed properly. They affected people and children, and
included the killing of children in local parks. We need to
address these issues, and these powers are at the heart of the
efforts to combat them.
It has been said that the police and crime commissioner is fully
supportive of the initiative of stop and search. If that is the
case, why has he thrown a cloud of doubt over stop and search
recently? Why has he thrown this cloud of doubt over the entire
process locally? He did not have to do so. He could have carried
on with the way it is at the moment without revising his action
plan. What has happened is that locally, in the media, it has
thrown a cloud of doubt over the process. I can imagine that it
really demoralises our local police, who go out day in, day out,
and face these challenges. They need political leadership as
back-up for what they are doing day in, day out, and it is
incumbent on all of us to make sure that they have that political
leadership behind them.
Unfortunately, with the current police and crime commissioner, as
with the last, we have seen a lack of political leadership. There
has always been a void between the decisions that they make and
the distancing away from those decisions and trying to blame the
Government all the time. There is not a single police station
left in my constituency. Decisions are made in Lloyd House in
Birmingham, which, coincidentally, had £30 million spent on it to
do it up at a time when the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington
said there were cuts. There was £30 million spent on an office in
the middle of the city centre. Local police stations were taken
away. My entire constituency does not even have a base that the
police can call home.
(Birmingham, Selly Oak)
(Lab)
The hon. Member makes an interesting point. I do not want to
score a point, but I have listened to debates, as have lots of
us, about police stations. How many police officers and staff
does he think are required to resource a basic local police
station? Our areas—his and mine—are served at the moment by
Bournville police station. If we had another half dozen
satellites, how many staff does he think would be required to
staff those? How long should they be open and what would that
cost?
The hon. Member makes an interesting point. I do not have the
figures to hand, but that £30 million would have gone a long way
to providing local police stations. Even if it is not an entire
police station that is open in the constituency—somewhere on the
high street, in the community, in an impact area—that money could
have been spent in local communities across the west midlands,
particularly in my section of Birmingham, rather than being spent
on a city centre office.
I have listened to the impassioned speeches of the hon. Member
for Birmingham, Erdington since I was a young man—or boy, even.
However impassioned he is, that does not make his point any more
right than anybody else’s. He has portrayed doom and gloom since
2010, and there is a reason why people, including me and my hon.
Friend the Member for West Bromwich East, rejected his doom and
gloom argument. People do not believe the arguments that the hon.
Gentleman has deployed over the last 11 years, because there is
always a void between the rhetoric and the actual doing. We have
had a Labour police and crime commissioner in the west midlands
from day one. When the hon. Gentleman goes around knocking on
doors, giving TV interviews and blaming the Government all the
time, they can see the gap between the rhetoric and the actions
locally. That is why they did not believe him during the
elections, and that is why I and my hon. Friend the Member for
West Bromwich East are in this Chamber at the moment.
It is incumbent on all of us to make sure that our police force
has the political leadership.
First, the hon. Member talks about what the police have to say.
If one listens to the Police Federation, the Police
Superintendents’ Association and the National Police Chiefs’
Council, they all speak with the same voice about the importance
of additional resources over and above what the Government have
thus far committed to. Secondly, does he agree with me that,
rather than engaging in political games, the thing that matters
is the safety and security of our citizens? Is it or is it not
true that as the numbers of police have radically diminished in
the west midlands, crime has significantly risen?
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, but as my hon.
Friend the Member for Dudley South () pointed out, that is not
replicated in other areas. Local decisions are made that have
local consequences. That is the void between rhetoric and reality
that I am talking about, which we see across all our
constituencies in the west midlands.
Finally, stop and search is an invaluable tool. It is needed to
make sure that our streets are safer, and the political
leadership needs to make sure that the police know that, when it
is required, we have got their backs.
15:09:00
(Birmingham, Perry Barr)
(Lab)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Ms Rees. I thank
the hon. Member for West Bromwich East () for securing this
important debate. As we have all said, stop and search is a
constructive and useful power. The police service, with their
cameras on, should be trained properly to respect the level of
search they will be conducting and how that will be reflected in
their numbers. It is important, it is needed and we should be
working together to do that.
I had a meeting with the PCC last Friday and that was one of the
issues we discussed. Another was resourcing my local areas with
more police officers and more police community support officers.
The reason I say that is that, on its own, stop and search is a
weak tool. In the past, we had local PCSOs walking up and down
the streets, speaking to people in their local areas and
understanding what the issues were, where there was instigation
of crime and what people were engaged in. What prevented the
stop-and-search process was the intelligence that we had on the
ground.
In my constituency, we had Rob Capella, who used to be a party
member—in my first election, he delivered a lot of leaflets and I
was sad to see him become a PCSO, but he is fantastic in the job
that he does. He has built a huge relationship and a huge amount
of trust in his local community and people come and speak to him.
Unfortunately, about 85% of his team is no longer there. It is
essentially just Rob doing most of the job that he had wanted to
do. He does not have the police officers to report back to and
carry out some of those necessary actions.
My constituency contains Lozells, Handsworth and Aston, which
have had particularly high levels of crime. When I took over the
constituency, very early on, we had the killings of Charlene
Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare—a hugely tragic event, which was
difficult for me as a new Member of Parliament to handle. I got
the community together, I got the black churches together, we got
the local enterprise people together and worked to deliver that
process. We delivered that because we all got over it together.
We did the same recently, as my hon. Friend the Member for
Birmingham, Erdington () said earlier, with the murder
of Dea-John, where we got the churches, the community and the
police together and we responded very quickly. My hon. Friend the
Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston () also joined us in that
process. It was the right thing to do.
We are prepared to bring together whatever is needed to ensure
that anything that happens is dealt with in a proportionate
manner and the communities understand what has gone on. We are
quite prepared to do that. However, the PCC explained to me how
difficult it is for the officers to do that policing work without
the support of additional resources and additional police
officers on the streets. While we confine ourselves to stop and
search, that is a small tool in the police’s armoury.
My colleague from the Westside business improvement district
works very hard. He has a huge amount of entertainment venues in
his BID district, mainly around Broad Street in Birmingham, which
most people will know is quite well frequented from Thursday
until at least Saturday night and sometimes Sunday as well. There
is a huge challenge in trying to resolve some of the issues with
people. He employs wardens to work alongside the officers in the
area, but there are not sufficient resources. When the officers
come in and try to apply stop and search, it causes issues for a
number of people in the area and makes the situation tense, so
other people come in, with the risk of causing another incident.
We have to look at where and when we can apply stop and
search.
In my constituency, in January of this year, we lost Keon
Lincoln, a young boy of 15 who was shot and stabbed. It was
another hugely tragic event, not just for his family but for the
community as a whole, so we need to look at giving support. To
that effect, at my meeting on Friday, I also had the violence
reduction unit present to look at forging a multi-agency approach
to dealing with this issue. I want youth services, social
services, educationalists and the police to work together to
provide a resolution. I know it works, because when we had real
issues in the early ’00s, we got those teams together and it
worked. By 2008-09, we had some of the lowest crime rates in my
constituency because we worked together.
No one mechanism is good enough to effect change. I think we
would all say that stop and search has a place but has to be done
by properly trained officers. Again, more resources are needed to
do that. We also need to have enough officers to do that
properly, so that we can provide positive outcomes. In much of
the city, it is probably not safe enough for officers to do that.
They are professional servants of the community, but at times
they put themselves at risk because they do not have enough
support. It is very difficult. I praise them for the great work
that they do in protecting us all, but they need sufficient
resources.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield () mentioned the issue of
lower crime rates. The way that crimes of domestic abuse have
been reclassified has had the effect of lowering some of the
crime figures in Birmingham and around the west midlands. That is
something that we need to look it, rather than saying we are
reducing crime.
We have a huge amount of work to do. I commend the police
service, which does a fantastic amount of work in our area. The
PCC is engaging with us all, and I hope the Minister will engage
with him constructively to ensure that we all work together to
provide the best possible policing for all our communities.
(in the Chair)
I would like to call the Opposition spokesperson at 3.38 pm at
the latest, and we have two Back Benchers left to speak. Please
bear that in mind. I call .
15:18:00
(Dudley South) (Con)
Thank you, Ms Rees. I shall be very brief.
My father was a constable with West Midlands police for 29 years
and was stationed for much of that time in the constituency of
the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), working
in Aston, Handsworth and some challenging parts of the city at a
particularly challenging time in the late ’70s and early ’80s. An
awful lot has changed about policing since he retired, but it is
still the case that stop and search remains a vital tool for
combating the scourge of serious violence and keeping people
safe. We do not need to hear politicians saying that. The public
know that that is common sense. The police know it to be true.
Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Hanstock, the National Police
Chiefs’ Council lead for stop and search, said:
“The authority to stop and search people in appropriate
circumstances is a necessary power that allows police officers to
tackle violence in our communities and prevent people from
becoming victims of crime. Every day officers across the country
seize horrifying weapons and are preventing further injuries and
deaths by using their search powers.”
My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East () referred to parts of the
police and crime commissioner’s crime plan for 2021 to 2025. The
commissioner is right in one regard: stop and search is clearly
an intrusive process. However, on the scale of interventions open
to the police, it is very much at the lesser end of intrusion.
Given its impact on both individuals who are stopped and searched
and on perceptions of policing and fairness in the wider
community, we must ensure that the powers are used appropriately,
as the deputy chief constable said.
Certain individuals or groups of individuals should not be
repeatedly targeted and stopped such that it almost becomes
harassment. However, I fear that the language used by the police
and crime commissioner in his plan sends out a signal to the many
hard-working constables and officers in our communities across
the west midlands, and to our neighbourhood policing teams in
particular, that they should be extremely nervous of stop and
search and use it only if they have almost seen a person carry a
knife around a town centre—they need such a high level of
certainty.
The commissioner writes in the plan:
“If searches are based on a reasonable suspicion of finding
something or some other action following, then at least half
would need to generate a positive outcome. This is not the
case.”
That 50% positive searches test is not generally shared by
practising barristers or criminal solicitors, and it is certainly
not shared by the majority of police officers, yet by putting
that in his formal plan for the police force area, he introduces
such a note of caution that, in circumstances where an officer
has good grounds to believe that an individual may be carrying an
offensive weapon in one of our streets, town centres, communities
or pubs, they are more likely to avoid stopping and searching
than to carry out a stop and search. Even if there were positive
results in only 20% of cases, that could be a significant amount
of harm avoided and, indeed, lives not lost.
Proportionality is central to how appropriate the measures are.
Inevitably, as the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police
force, Sir Stephen House, said, if such powers are being used
properly and in the areas with high crime rates, certain groups
are far more likely to be stopped and searched than if people
were being stopped and searched in St James’s park—the outer
edges of the police force area—and the same applies in the west
midlands. We know that parts of the region have far higher levels
of crime and that, if we took a random sample in those areas, we
would find that on a demographic, ethnicity or socioeconomic
level, certain groups would be likely to be stopped more often
than if a similar exercise were done on the streets of Pedmore in
Dudley, or perhaps in parts of Meriden. We must ensure that these
powers are not being used discriminatorily. We have to ensure
that our police are comfortable and confident in exercising these
powers when they are needed—when they feel that they have good
and solid reasons to think that an individual may be carrying a
weapon. We have also to ensure that police will have people’s
backing, and that they will have the backing of decision makers
and politicians. Sadly, some sections of the police and crime
commissioner’s plan damage that confidence. They threaten to make
our region less safe. I hope that he will reconsider and edit his
plan.
On that last point about making the region less safe, the simple
fact is that, as the police service’s resources have
substantially diminished, crime has risen. Will the hon.
Gentleman therefore be joining fellow Tory colleagues and Labour
colleagues to make strong representations to Government to
reverse the cuts that have been made to our police service since
2010?
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I have a long history of
pushing Ministers, of arguing in private and indeed in this
Chamber, for greater funding and for changes in the funding
formula to benefit West Midlands police. I shall continue to do
so; I know that a number of my colleagues will continue to do so.
However, I would remind him—I think that it probably slipped his
mind—that five years ago, he, I think as a shadow Minister,
attacked me and my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull () for calling for council tax
hikes because we were backing the police and crime commissioner’s
call for a £5 increase in the policing precept.
We need a good level of funding. We have had increased funding in
the west midlands. The number of officers in the west midlands is
increasing. The previous West Midlands police and crime
commissioner failed to translate that into safer streets and
communities. I genuinely wish the new commissioner well; we need
him to succeed, and we need him to improve policing and safety in
our region. However, I fear that he is making the same mistakes
as his predecessor. Our constituents deserve better.
15:27:00
(Birmingham, Selly Oak)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Rees. I congratulate
the hon. Member for West Bromwich East () for securing the debate.
It is nice to have a focus on the west midlands. Listening to
her, there was very little difference between her positive view
of stop and search as a police tool and my own view. To be
perfectly honest, there is not that much difference across this
Chamber in that respect.
If I have a criticism of Conservative Members, it is that that
they suffer a little from selective and collective amnesia. I
wonder whether I can tell you a short story, Ms Rees. I have been
struck by the account given by some hon. Members—that the police
and crime commissioner may be putting at risk the valuable tool
of stop and search and may be undermining the confidence of the
police. You will remember, Ms Rees, that in April 2014, after
record falls in knife crime, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead
(Mrs May), the then Home Secretary, announced her dissatisfaction
with stop and search. She demanded a much more complex recording
system, with the deliberate aim of reducing the number of stop
and searches. The police were instructed that they could use stop
and search only when they believed that a crime would take place,
rather than when they believed that a crime may take place.
I agree with Members that stop and search is essentially a
preventive tool, so it follows that there will be some occasions
when it is used and the people stopped will not be found to be in
possession of illegal items. However, it also serves as a
deterrent. That is especially important if we are talking about
youth crime and particular types of street crime. It is worth
while as well, and I would defend that.
I remind hon. Members that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead
said that the power should be used only when the police were
absolutely confident that a crime would take place. That had a
dramatic effect. There were 600,000 fewer recorded
stop-and-search exercises as a direct result of that
intervention. It resulted in a spiralling epidemic of knife crime
that we are still suffering from today. I say in all seriousness
to Conservative Members that if they are worried about the risk
of misplaced judgments on stop and search that could lead to a
curtailment, they are seven years too late. The former Home
Secretary and Prime Minister did that and created damage and a
lack of confidence in police forces across the country.
I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Birmingham,
Northfield, who said that the Opposition are taking up too many
scares, that the public do not believe us and that that is the
explanation for his and his colleagues’ election results in 2019.
If people do not believe what we say about crime, I would like to
hear his explanation of the election of the third Labour police
and crime commissioner in the west midlands 18 months later. The
assumption is that people may have some doubts about what has
been said in other areas, but when it comes to police and crime,
they do not trust the Tories, but they trust the Labour
candidate. Is that not a logical conclusion to draw?
Let me deal with the hon. Gentleman’s selective amnesia. Let us
not forget who has been in power for 11 years and takes overall
collective responsibility. Let us not forget who scrapped ID
cards, abandoned neighbourhood policing, and cut our police force
in the West Midlands by over 2,000. Let us not forget that, even
if we get the money that has now been promised, we will still be
1,000 officers short of the target. That is the overall reason
why we have a crime problem in our communities these days—there
simply are not enough police.
The hon. Gentleman made a reasonable claim—I hear it often—about
opening more local police stations. I asked him what that would
cost and to be fair, he said, “I haven’t a clue”. However, he
also said, “Well, it could be paid for with that £30 million.” I
want to make two points about that. First, staffing is a
recurring cost, so £30 million cannot keep being spent. Once
you’ve spent it, you’ve spent it. I did a quick,
back-of-a-fag-packet calculation and I assume that in the hon.
Gentleman’s constituency, my neighbouring constituency, if we
could open another four satellite stations—eight in all—at a very
minimum for safety, we would need about four staff in each. That
is another 32 officers, or officers and civilian staff. In
addition, of course, there would be the on-costs of rent, heat
and lighting.
Secondly, it is worth pointing out that the Minister for Crime
and Policing’s predecessor was tackled on the question of the £30
million. He pointed out at the time that it would save money
because the police headquarters could retreat into a central body
and the police could refurbish some of their equipment, so that
they could use high-tech policing, and create an environment
where they could do their job more efficiently. I did not say
that; it was the Minister’s predecessor, Mr .
The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of costs for rent etc. Would
it not be far more logical to combine some of the services in the
community, and team up with the fire brigade, ambulance services
and community hubs for the local authority? Maybe, if we were
really revolutionary, we could even merge some of the roles of
the police and crime commissioner into that of the mayor, which
would be much more sensible.
At a time when we are waiting six to eight hours to get an
ambulance for a 90-year-old woman, I am not sure that talking
about merging services is the best strategy. I am quite happy to
see certain resources shared, but in my view, that does not mean
concentrating them all in the hands of a single person. I would
point out that the reason we have separate police and crime
commissioners is that this Government forced it upon people at a
time when they did not want it. They were asked whether it should
be put to a public consultation, and they said, “No, we’re having
it anyway”. That is why we have police and crime commissioners.
It is part of the collective selective amnesia.
I am proud of the three elected Labour police and crime
commissioners in the west midlands. The late had a reputation for decency and integrity; worked hard to bring
communities together and showed real concern on issues such as
knife crime or illegal Traveller settlements; and I hope that
is not being attacked because
he is making fair funding and equipping the police with the right
resources the centrepiece of his first term.
I simply contrast that with the North Yorkshire Tory PCC who had
to resign after victim blaming; the Wiltshire PCC candidate who
had to resign on the eve of the count for failure to disclose a
conviction; and, of course, the Tory incumbent in Cleveland who
is a person of interest to the very force he is supposed to be
holding to account.
I hope that demonstrates how easy it is to politicise these
issues in a cheap and nasty way. It will not help any of us. We
should find the common ground that is staring us in the face. We
should work together on stop and search. There is an argument for
asking how we get to that aspiration of a higher conviction rate.
I am actually in favour of that, and the hon. Member for West
Bromwich East alluded to some of the ways in which we could do
that. I would not have too much trouble working with her on
that.
However, there must also be a recognition of the resource
deficiency in the west midlands. We are not doing our
constituents any favours if we decide to play party politics and
do not make the effort to work together. I will be dead
straight—that goes for us as well. We have to work on behalf of
our constituents because they are the people who are losing out
at the moment.
15:38:00
(Halifax) (Lab)
It is a pleasure as always to serve under you as Chair this
afternoon, Ms Rees. It is also a pleasure to follow what I
thought was a brilliant speech from my hon. Friend the Member for
Birmingham, Selly Oak (). I thank the hon. Member for
West Bromwich East () for securing this debate.
She made some really important points about the value of stop and
search and, like her, I am taking part in a Zoom scrutiny panel
about stop and search at 5 pm. Those meetings bring local
officers together with members of our communities, and play a
very important role. I share the hon. Lady’s sentiment that long
may that continue.
The hon. Lady and others are also right to send our thanks to the
frontline officers who have to take the decisions around stop and
search in real time, out on our streets. We should never lose
sight of that. In facing someone who may be carrying an offensive
weapon, officers very much put themselves at risk, and we pay
tribute to them for their service. Like the hon. Member for
Dudley South (), my father is a retired police
sergeant. I also have an uncle who is still serving on the
frontline, so I am thinking of them and the support they need
from us as they go about the work in our communities.
To be absolutely clear, Labour supports evidence-based and
intelligence-based stop and search. I very much recognise that it
can save lives. When stop and search is guided by those
principles, it is a vital tool in halting acts of violent crime
and in building trusted, consensus- led policing that is
supported and trusted by all local communities.
The commissioner’s new police and crime plan, which we have heard
so much about today, notes that only 25% to 30% of searches in
the west midlands area resulted in any policing outcomes, which
include cautions, arrests, drugs found and weapons seized. In
only 3% of all searches did officers find an offensive weapon.
Moreover, a freedom of information request released by West
Midlands police this year showed that, of those stopped and
searched per 1,000 of population, about 11 were black, eight of
Asian heritage and three white.
The duty of any police and crime commissioner is to consider
those statistics and to ask what the figures tell us about how
stop and search is being used. Is it proportionate? Is it
effective? Is it correct and is it prudent to assess whether the
reasonable grounds threshold is being met in connection with the
searches that take place?
In the commissioner’s new police and crime plan, he laid out
three targets to make stop and search more effective. West
Midlands police will aim, as we have discussed, to increase: the
positive outcome rates for reasonable grounds stops and searches
to no less than 50%; the proportion of reasonable grounds stops
and searches where an offensive weapon is the object of the
search; and the number of weapons found.
Despite what has been suggested, the commissioner has no plans to
scale back stop and search, nor does he wish to abandon it
entirely. Instead, he is thinking to create a more efficient
policy. An effective policy will focus on taking more weapons off
our streets, while we build in the community policing that became
so difficult thanks to 10 years of austerity under this
Government.
The commissioner is taking those steps because, in his
constabulary and across the UK, the Government have made stop and
search a less effective and trusted tool. The beating crime plan
released by the Government in July 2021 permanently relaxed
conditions for the use of section 60 stop-and-search powers,
under which officers may search someone without reasonable
grounds in some circumstances. That dismantled the best use of
stop-and-search scheme, introduced by the then Home Secretary,
the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), in 2014, which
introduced evidence and intelligence-based stop and search.
The hon. Member for West Bromwich East noted the increase in
crime in her constituency and across the region. In the West
Midlands police force area, crime is up. Specifically, instances
of violence against the person and crimes recorded involving the
possession of weapons rose from 111,934 in the year ending
December 2020 to 137,549 in the year ending June 2021, according
to the Office for National Statistics. Those are indeed somewhat
shocking figures, and I appreciate the hon. Member’s efforts to
raise the issue with the Minister today. The fact is, however, we
are seeing increases in violent crime across the country.
In Cleveland, we saw an increase from 24,359 instances of
violence against the person and crimes recorded involving the
possession of weapons, to 25,360 in the year ending June 2021.
The area covered by Cleveland police was the second worst place
in the UK for knife crime in the year ending March 2021.
According to the Office for National Statistics, proportionate to
the population, the force area experienced more crimes involving
bladed weapons than Greater Manchester police or London’s
Metropolitan police. Between April 2020 and March 2021, 122
incidents of knife crime were recorded per 100,000 of the
population. Indeed, only the West Midlands police recorded more,
at 156.
More generally, the Office for National Statistics reported that
between April 2009 and March 2010, 13 per 1,000 people were
victims of violence against the person; and between July 2020 and
June 2021, 32 people per 1,000 were victims of violence against
the person. I am sure that all hon. Members will recognise that
those increases are serious and I know that the hon. Member for
West Bromwich East’s police and crime commissioner is keen to
engage with her and all hon. Members about how we drive forward
the effectiveness of the stop-and-search approach in order to
address the systemic factors that have caused such a marked
increase in crime, in not only the west midlands, but so many
areas of the country.
Since 2010, West Midlands police has lost 2,221 of its officers
as a consequence of the Government’s cuts, and we have lost
21,000 police officers nationally, as so many Members have said.
The force is due to receive 1,200 back over the coming years,
leaving West Midlands police with more than 1,000 missing
officers. Since first coming to power in 2010, the Government
have reduced the nationwide police budget by £1.6 billion in real
terms. Since 2010, West Midlands police has lost spending power
of £175 million.
I am afraid to say that the Conservatives’ negligent underfunding
of our police forces means that the country is experiencing
record levels of knife crime and that nearly nine in 10 cases are
going unsolved, which has contributed to the stark increase in
crime in the west midlands. There has been no levelling up when
it comes to the West Midlands police and instead we have left our
communities less safe.
Can the Minister update the House on when the long-overdue
revised police funding formula might be ready? I understand that
, the police and crime
commissioner, recently wrote to all the region’s MPs on a
cross-party basis to ask for a fair deal for West Midlands
police. I hope that all hon. Members, as other hon. Members have
said, will join his plea in that letter to the Government.
As the hon. Lady said, there has been an increase in crime in the
west midlands. For violence with injury, the number of offences
in the west midlands was up 10% on the previous year. In her own
police force area, it was down 5% on the previous year. What does
she think that her police force is doing better than West
Midlands police?
It is an interesting question. One size does not fit all when it
comes to tackling knife crime, as the dynamics of it are
different in different areas. It might be the approach to the use
of weapons, unfortunately, in domestic violence or to gang crime,
or it might be related to drugs. To suggest that one size fits
all when it comes to tackling knife crime is misguided.
We need to look to violence reduction units, community
partnerships, police officers, police forces and police and crime
commissioners around the country to find out what the most
effective tools are to address knife crime and violence and to
truly drive it down. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has
pointed to the great work done by West Yorkshire police. I share
his sense that it is doing a fantastic job and I will pass that
on to my local officers.
I thank hon. Members for their contributions. My hon. Friend the
Member for Birmingham, Erdington () made a typically passionate
contribution about how we have to take local communities with us
on stop and search if we are to be truly effective, and about the
devastating consequences of cuts to policing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood)
told us the story of his local police community support officers
and the valuable work that they do to establish trust in
communities. We should never lose sight of their contribution,
which is valued by communities and policing alike. I come back to
the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly
Oak that the west midlands will still be 1,000 officers short by
the time the Government have finished restoring the police
officer numbers that they have cut since 2010.
I very much hope that we can have a productive discussion about
how to improve stop and search. I am reassured that there is a
great deal of consensus in the Chamber and a commitment to work
with the police and crime commissioner to do that in the west
midlands. It can be a vital tool in keeping our communities safe,
but it must be driven by evidence and intelligence, and have
public support, for it to be effective.
Nevertheless, it would be wrong to think that stop and search is
the silver bullet for crime prevention. Although it can be
incredibly effective as a last defence against violent crime, the
Government must begin to tackle the systemic factors that have
driven the increase in crime under their watch. The hon. Member
for Birmingham, Northfield () made a point about police
station closures. I have lost a police station in my
constituency—
(in the Chair)
Order. Could you bring your comments to a close, please?
I certainly will, Ms Rees. If the hon. Member for Birmingham,
Northfield thinks that those decisions are not based on the cuts
imposed on police and crime commissioners and regional forces by
the Conservative Government, he is mistaken. I hope that we can
all make the case for well-funded police forces doing that work
in our communities in future.
15:48:00
The Minister for Crime and Policing ()
Thank you, Ms Rees, for presiding over a tight and passionate
debate about crime in the west midlands. Given that I devote
pretty much every waking hour to crime generally, it has been
great to hear. I start by paying tribute to the police officers
who are tackling the incidents in the constituency of my hon.
Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (), as she outlined. She and
I have conversed often about crime in her part of the world, and
I will do my best to try to help her now, as in the past.
I am pleased to hear that Project Guardian is now in play in my
hon. Friend’s constituency and I hope that it will have an
effect. Notwithstanding its impact, she is right to bring her
constituents’ concerns to this place, along with other hon.
Members. Fighting crime is a priority for most of my
constituents, as it is for all hon. Members present. As a result,
it is one of the chief priorities that the Prime Minister has
placed before the Government for us to make progress on and drive
numbers down.
I am very pleased that hon. Members are feeling the effect of
Operation Sceptre, our national programme of weeks of
intensification in the fight against knife crime, which has been
mentioned. However, it is obviously always tragic to hear about
these terrible incidents, particularly the killing of young
people.
I make no apology for being a stout defender of stop and search,
and I am very pleased to hear that consensus across the Chamber
today. It has not always been thus, and I hope that Opposition
Members who have spoken passionately about the use of stop and
search will speak to their colleagues who have, for example,
opposed our recent proposed expansion of section 60 stop and
search—the deregulation, as it were, of section 60 to a certain
extent to make it more dynamic and usable. As a number of Members
on both sides of the House have pointed out, stop and search is
about saving lives, particularly against the background of knife
crime.
I have seen that effect for myself: back in 2008, when I became
Deputy Mayor for policing in London, we were facing a rising tide
of knife crime and teenage killings in London. That was at a time
of enormous expenditure by the then Labour Government, with the
numbers in London at an all-time high, yet the number of young
people being killed was rising on a weekly basis. Against the
background of the previous Mayor’s rather relaxed attitude, we
came in and sorted that out, driving numbers down. In 2008, 29
teenagers were killed, and by 2012 we had got that figure down to
eight. That was eight too many, but that decrease was due to the
assertive use of that particular tactic in a critical emergency
situation. That is why stop and search, particularly section 60
stop and search, is so important. As the hon. Member for
Birmingham, Selly Oak () mentioned, it is preventive.
We know that the knives are out there tonight in people’s hands.
We need to find them and remove them, because otherwise some of
them may be used, often to deadly effect.
Stop and search is also preventive because taking knives away
from people means they are less likely to be victims. A person is
much more likely to be stabbed and injured, or even killed, if
they are carrying a knife themselves. Stop and search is
unequivocally about saving lives, but it is also preventive
because of the psychological effect of raising the likelihood of
being caught—the perception of detection. We know that the
perception of the likelihood of being caught is the greatest
deterrent to any type of crime, so by making sure that stop and
search is high-profile—that it is seen, that there are knife
arches at transport nodes and at schools, and that stop and
search is being done in the community—we will stop people
carrying knives in the first place, because they will think they
are more likely to be caught. I urge all parts of the country
where there is a violence problem to use stop and search
judiciously and proportionately, but nevertheless recognise it
for the vital tool that we all agree it is.
As my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East has said, we
need to be careful about the use of data on stop and search,
because although data can inform when properly interpreted, it
can also deceive. There is a famous case of a pair of drug
dealers who went from London to the Purbeck coast, down in the
south-west. They were intercepted, stopped and searched, and
drugs were obtained. However, because they were from a different
background from the local population, being stopped and searched
in that part of the world became 44% more likely for a person of
black, Asian or minority ethnic background, just because of those
two cases.
Understanding what the data is telling us is key to maintaining
the legitimacy of stop and search, and while we often talk about
the disproportionality in those who are stopped, searched and
found with knives, or stopped and searched anyway, we never seem
to talk about the other side of the argument, which my hon.
Friend the Member for Dudley South () outlined. That is the
disproportionality of victimisation: those people who, sadly, are
killed also display a disproportionality that the police cannot
ignore. Understanding what is actually happening in the data is a
critical part of the mission.
Stop and search can be done well—there is no doubt about it.
There are parts of the country where it is done extremely well.
Liverpool, for example, prides itself on the way it conducts,
handles and promotes in the community its stop and search. Of
course, transparency with local people is absolutely critical.
Buying in their consent is critical, particularly in those
communities and neighbourhoods that are disproportionately
affected by knife crime. As a number of Members have said, that
takes political leadership. If the police are going to get out
there and do this work, they need the political top cover. We
politicians are the living consent, by the people of the areas we
represent, to do this kind of work and we should be the
interlocutors, as should police and crime commissioners.
All those years ago, when we were doing this work in London, the
then Mayor, who is now Prime Minister, and I toured London,
speaking to audiences large and small, in village halls and the
Brixton Academy, to buy in this idea that what we were about was
saving the lives of their young people. That is the mission that
we all need to be joined on, shoulder to shoulder, including
police and crime commissioners. I know that the actions of the
police and crime commissioner in the west midlands is the subject
of this debate, but I know that he will stand for that purpose
and that he will do his best to try to sell this tactic, as
Government Members have said, as a critical one for the police to
use.
I say that because we are all concerned about crime in the west
midlands. We need to reinforce constantly the often difficult and
confrontational things that the police do, underline the
legitimacy of what they do, and illustrate to our electors and
the wider community that the police have a difficult and
challenging job, which sometimes involves doing unpalatable
things, but that fundamentally their purpose is to save life and
build neighbourhood safety. If we could all join on that mission
together, I think we can point towards success.
Mr Mahmood
Will the Minister give way?
I do not have time, I am afraid; I hope the hon. Gentleman will
forgive me.
I am hesitant to engage in what I have to say is this rather
hackneyed debate about cuts, which I have heard the hon. Member
for Birmingham, Selly Oak engage in many times, and I have
certainly heard his party’s Front Benchers engage in it many
times. It is now getting on for over a decade that that debate
has been had, through numerous elections, most of which we have
won, not least the last one. Indeed, we also won the last round
of police and crime commissioner elections, when—I must point
this out to the hon. Gentleman—we won 70% of the seats available.
By the way, the votes for the Conservative candidate in the west
midlands increased to 239,000, from 44,000 back in 2008, so we
might catch his party at the next election—let us see where we
get to.
Notwithstanding that, we have given commitments at the Dispatch
Box about the funding formula. My hon. Friend the Member for West
Bromwich East and other Government Members from the west midlands
have certainly engaged with me about the need for that change in
the funding balance, and we will be running that programme over
the next couple of years. I have given a commitment that we will
have the formula in place before the next election, assuming that
the next election is at the end of this Parliament—who knows when
that will come?
However, I urge Members to recognise that police and crime
commissioners make a difference, and that someone cannot walk
away from the decisions that were made in the intervening 10
years and say, “Nothing to do with us, Guv.” Decisions made over
that decade by police and crime commissioners mean that as we get
into a time of investment in policing—I am very happy about that,
and we are now over halfway through our growth in the number of
police officers—where we start from is a product of those
decisions. There are some forces in the country that fought hard
to preserve police officer numbers, not least in London, where I
did the same, because we faced the same cuts during our time, or
the same reduction in resources, because of the crash and the
needs of the country’s finances. We fought to preserve numbers
and, as a result, London is in a better position now to advance
on police officer recruitment. I am afraid that the west midlands
made a different set of decisions during those 10 years, driven
by the thinking and the priorities, or whatever it might be, of
the police and crime commissioner there.
I understand that the imperative on the Opposition side is to
blame us for everything that goes wrong, and we want to blame the
Opposition, but I am not walking away from some of the decisions
we made during those 10 years—absolutely not. They were driven by
bigger issues than us: geopolitics and economics; and a desire to
get the country’s balance sheet back into good shape. At the same
time, Opposition Members have to accept that the police and crime
commissioners of those years—there have been three of them—made a
set of decisions that put the west midlands in the position it is
in now. If that is not the case, I am not sure what they were
saying to people in elections about what difference they were
going to make.
I hope that in future, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly
Oak quite rightly said, all of us can focus on making sure that
the west midlands is as safe as it can possibly be, and I will
join with everyone here on that mission.
(in the Chair)
I am sorry, , but there is no time left
for you to wind up. I apologise.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the use of Stop and Search in the
West Midlands.
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