Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the Home Office will publish
data on the use of stop and search powers for the year up to
April 2021.
The Minister of State, Home Office () (Con)
My Lords, as announced on GOV.UK on 25 October this year, data on
the use of stop and search powers for the year to April 2021 will
be published tomorrow.
(Lab)
I am incredibly grateful to the Minister for that. She, like
others, will have read newspaper reports just last week conveying
suspicions that the data had been suppressed because the police
Bill is going through Parliament. Similarly, there are concerns
about the Government’s consultation on the Nationality and
Borders Bill, the results of which have not yet been published.
Will the Minister publish that data as well, certainly before
that Bill comes before your Lordships’ House?
(Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to correct some of
the inaccurate claims. The first was that the delay was due to a
record level of data, but that was a misrepresentation by
journalists; actually, the Home Office needed additional time to
quality assure more granular record-level data. Secondly, the
decision for delaying the statistics for the PCSC Bill was made
by the head of profession, in line with the code of practice for
statistics, and was announced at the earliest possible point on
GOV.UK.
(LD)
My Lords, I understand what the noble Baroness has said, but is
she aware how this delay looks? On last year’s figures, black
people were 18 times more likely to be stopped and searched than
white people when the police have the power to stop and search
without reasonable suspicion. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and
Courts Bill already contains new provisions to allow even more
stop and search without suspicion and, on Monday, the Government
laid 18 pages of new amendments to the Bill for debate next week,
further extending the ability of the police to stop and search
people without any reason to think the person they are searching
has anything on them. What equalities impact assessment has been
made of these new powers and what was the result?
(Con)
An equalities impact assessment has been done on the Bill, as is
done on every Bill, as the noble Lord knows. On how this looks, I
have explained the process for producing the statistics and I
hope that is satisfactory for the noble Lord. I was disappointed
that this Question was not being asked tomorrow, so that we could
debate it more fully, with the statistics before us.
(Lab)
I wonder if I can press the Minister to comment on the figure
just given by the noble Lord, , which is in the public
domain—that black people are 18 times more likely to be stopped
and searched than white people. Can she comment on this in the
light of the case reported in the Guardian of a 14 year-old black
schoolboy, who claims to have been stopped and searched 30 times
in the last two years, including on one occasion when he left his
home to put out rubbish? Does the Minister agree that stop and
search is often a crude tactic, that there is a well-founded
perception that it is based on racial stereotyping and that once
a young person—a child, in fact—has become a target, they tend to
remain one?
(Con)
The noble Lord, , has often quoted that
statistic and he is absolutely not wrong.
Noble Lords
Oh!
(Con)
I am sorry, my Lords; he is right. It has been a very long week
and it is still Wednesday.
The noble Lord is absolutely right on that, but of course a young
black man is 24 times more likely to be a victim of homicide than
a young white person, so the two statistics need to be looked at
together. It is true that no one should be stopped and searched
based on their ethnicity. The police engage with communities
daily and the Government have to abide by codes of practice, and
now use body-worn video, to ensure that what they are doing is
reasonable and proportionate, in the pursuit of tackling
crime.
(GP)
In tabling at this stage a new set of amendments on the issue of
stop and search without suspicion, the Government have stampeded
through all our protocols and processes. I have never heard of
that happening and I think the noble Baroness probably has not
either. Can she explain why this is okay, when we have already
passed Second Reading and have nearly passed Committee? Why do
the Government think this is all right? Could the Minister please
answer the question from the noble Lord, , which was specifically about
an impact assessment on the new stop and search amendments?
(Con)
As I say, the impact assessment is done on the Bill and it will
include the amendments that we propose. Amendments to legislation
are often put forward relatively late in the day. In Committee
and then on Report, there will be plenty of time to scrutinise
them. They are in response to violent crime increasing and the
Government’s real desire to tackle it.
(Lab)
The really important point is how we maintain public confidence
in the use of stop and search, which is one of the most
controversial of police powers. The Government intend to extend
that power to a wider range of situations, including when without
reasonable suspicion. The publication of the statistics tomorrow
will allow us analysis. How are the Minister and the Government
going to use those statistics to inform the public and thereby
keep public confidence?
(Con)
The noble Lord goes to the nub of the problem. Certainly, in
light of the case of Sarah Everard, trust in the police has to be
regained and rebuilt, because we must have trust in those people,
the vast majority of whom are there to keep us safe. The police
must be held to the highest standards, of course, which is also
crucial to public trust in them.
(Lab)
My Lords, the question around stop and search has been going on
for decades now, and I do not think we have improved how the
police conduct themselves around the black community. The
scrutiny that has been taking place seems not to be working. We
have listened to noble Lords bring the same subject up time and
again, as have I. The Minister talks about the report that is
going to be out tomorrow. Why has it taken so long for the report
to come out since April? We have not been given much time for
scrutiny. We have had so many reports of police misbehaviour
within public office—she just mentioned Sarah Everard. When are
we going to get to the point when we stop talking about stop and
search and the effect it has on the black community?
(Con)
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness and all the work she has
done. Despite the fact that we might have different views on how
to go about it, I think we both seek the same ends: trust from
communities in the police; and making sure that more black lives
are saved through reducing the amount of knife crime and making
our streets safer for everyone, including young black men. That
is at the heart of the Bill, and the collection of some of the
data will help us towards this end—to see whether our policies
are working and whether the pilots, when they are rolled out, are
more effective than we have been at reducing the number of knife
crimes.
