Stop and Search: West Midlands

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Holly Lynch (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 (Steve McCabe). I thank the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards) 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 (Mike Wood), 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 Simon Foster, 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.

[Mike Wood]

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?

--- Later in debate ---

[Holly Lynch]

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 (Jack Dromey) 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 (Gary Sambrook) made a point about police station closures. I have lost a police station in my constituency—

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Order. Could you bring your comments to a close, please?

[Holly Lynch]

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.

Injunction to Protect the M25

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement and for giving me advance sight of it.

Tackling climate change is the single greatest challenge of our generation, and I trust the Minister agrees with me that it must be at the heart of everything we do. We are at a critical moment. In less than 100 days, COP26 will be over and our chance to keep the planet’s warming below 1.5° will have been either grasped or abandoned.

Climate protests range from blocking roads to shutting down transport networks in London, with protesters gluing themselves to cars and roads. These are often very dangerous tactics that require a very particular police response. The police have been in an incredibly difficult position, and they have at times faced criticism on various fronts. Yesterday, as the Minister said, we saw Surrey police arrive on the scene just minutes after the first call, clearing both carriageways incredibly swiftly.

Labour is clear that the right to protest is a fundamental freedom and a hard-won democratic tradition of which we are deeply proud. The right to protest is precious, but we must always be clear that protests have to be lawful. Where they are unlawful, we back the police on the frontline to make the best operational judgment on how to deal with the issues as they arise on the ground. Our police are not helped by armchair critics of their tactics. We know that the police are having to take dynamic decisions in often dangerous circumstances, and I pay tribute to them in the House today.

Anyone who has seen the footage from over the weekend of officers having to follow protesters who were rushing on to the motorway in an attempt to keep both them and drivers safe will recognise the bravery required. There is clearly an issue when people, who can be held for only 24 hours, then return to our motorways, so action is required to assist our police in that respect.

This injunction has now been granted to National Highways by an independent judge, and people are committing a contempt of court and face possible imprisonment if they breach it. I urge people not to breach the injunction and instead to make their views known lawfully in all the ways outlined by the Minister. That said, I look to him to tell us what resources will be made available to support the police to make additional arrests, if required.

I hope we can agree that insulation must be a focus of this Government’s agenda as we move towards this existential crisis. Although we agree on the need to ensure protesters, motorists and police officers are safe, the Government must do all they can to drive climate change up the agenda, and on that we will hold them to account.

[Kit Malthouse]

I thank the hon. Lady for her unequivocal support for the police, which we do not always hear in this House. I am grateful to her for that. It is undoubtedly the case that the police forces affected have had to move extremely quickly to deal with these guerrilla tactics, and we are grateful to all the police officers, as always, for often putting themselves in harm’s way.

I am also pleased to hear the hon. Lady recognise that the right to protest is not an unqualified right. We all treasure it, and we all know that great advances have been made in our society because of it, but it has to be done within a framework of respecting the rights of others, and I hope we are encapsulating a better balance in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that is currently in the other place. I hope she will review her party’s opposition to the Bill and possibly support it when it returns to this Chamber.

Finally, I hope the hon. Lady shares my extreme frustration at the damage such protests do to the cause of fighting climate change. For my own part, I have been an advocate of the hydrogen economy for well over 20 years. I chaired Hydrogen London for eight years and I fought tooth and nail to equip London with the means to transition from a combustion economy to one driven by electrochemistry. For those of us who have been at that coalface for many years, it is extremely disheartening to see people screaming in frustration and filled with negativity about the notion of climate change being a battle that we still have to win, but it also holds out an exciting future for our country.

I am pleased that we have consensus on both sides of the House and, as we deal with these protests, I hope that we can count on that consensus in the future.

Courts and Tribunals: Recovery

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Just a gentle reminder that we have two further debates this afternoon that colleagues will have spent a lot of time preparing for, and we are anxious that they should have enough time to air their views during those debates, so concise questions and brisk answers would be welcome all round.

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has already spelt out, Halifax county and family court and Calderdale magistrates court were two of the 86 courts that were closed under this Government in 2016 alone. We were promised video links and a technological revolution in access to justice, but four years later, we have had absolutely none of that. The pressures were just transferred to other regional courts, which now face intolerable backlogs because of the virus. Those court buildings are still standing empty, so why not reopen some of them to get the justice system moving again?

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady will know that, in some instances, we have been able to do that. There are other instances where the buildings are no longer in the control or ownership of HMCTS, and some of them, having been looked at, were not in the right sort of condition to be used—hence the fact that we have been wide ranging in our approach to Nightingale courts, which we will be scaling up as part of phase 3. I am looking at over 60 courtrooms that can be developed across the country. The important point she makes is about technology. I can assure her that, during this crisis, cloud video technology has already been rolled out to every courtroom, and it is making a real difference to the lives of victims and witnesses. If there are local issues in Calderdale, I would be more than happy to talk to her about them in order to address any particular issues in her constituency.