Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

There are a number of circumstances in which police officers ask for the ethnicity of the individual they have stopped—for example, they record that information for stop-and-search. That is why we know that in stop-and-search cases, people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are six times more likely to be stopped than young white males. Such information has enabled us to bring about changes in stop-and-search, which I believe are absolutely right, to ensure that nobody on the streets of this country is stopped simply because of the colour of their skin.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary talks about cutting bureaucracy, but does she seriously think that spending £50 million a year on the salaries and offices of police and crime commissioners is money well spent?

[Mrs May]

It was absolutely right to introduce police and crime commissioners. They have introduced a degree of local accountability to local policing that was not there when the police authorities were in place. I understand that the hon. Gentleman’s party thinks that at local borough command level, police borough commanders should be jointly appointed by the local council and the chief constable. That would be a wrong move; it would mean the politicisation of the police, and I suggest that his party think again.