Police: Body-worn Videos

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

Body-worn video is an incredibly useful tool for the police, not only to bring criminals to justice, ultimately, but to protect the police against accusations regarding how they treat potential criminals. That latter factor is very important. Clearly, we make policy decisions and the police implement them. They are operationally independent of us and it is for them to issue those decisions. Of course, the National Police Chiefs Council’s advice on the whole framework of their use is very important.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]]

My Lords, given the success of body-worn cameras in helping to de-escalate matters and providing evidence where a crime has been committed, does the Minister think that the time has come for all police officers to wear body-worn cameras?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My noble friend makes a good point, but we have to be careful here. The use of body-worn video has to be lawful, necessary and proportionate, and I think that is why the call for its use in stop and search has been made. Its use generally has to be incident specific. I take the point that my noble friend makes, but it is probably not useful or advisable in all circumstances.