Stop and Search

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I totally concur with the noble Lord that, sometimes, what you see in a snapshot is not actually indicative of what happened in the round. Obviously, the police are operationally independent of government, but the safeguards, which include body-worn video and data, are very important in this area. We now collect more data on this than ever before, allowing local scrutiny groups, police and crime commissioners and others to hold the forces to account. However, I thank the noble Lord for that question because it is a very important point.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this was an exceptionally damaging report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. It talks about how the use of stop and search for drug possession is not an effective use of police time. As such, one option for the Home Office is perhaps, as it is the lead department on drugs policy, to update this and make it more relevant, bearing in mind this report. Is that something it will do?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

I think the noble Baroness takes one aspect of this—drug use—and conflates it with what is actually a much more complex issue. Possession of drugs, knives and offensive weapons are linked in a complex web of criminality and victimhood: young people carry knives to protect themselves. This is all linked and complex, and I go back to the point that any stop and search should be reasonable and proportionate.