Stop and Search

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

As a fellow London MP, representing constituents in Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, I have a personal view on this which I think is reflected by my constituents. Given a choice between £1 of their money being spent on more bureaucracy in the centre and £1 being spent on local police officers, we both know what their priority would be. It is for the Mayor and his office to explain to the public they serve their decisions and the allocation of their budgets at this time.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I was first stopped and searched in the wake of the Scarman report aged 12, and it was so scary that I wet myself. We got to a place where the Home Office did a review that found there was no discernible, significant decrease in crime with the use of stop and search, and the current Prime Minister reached a cross-party consensus on the issue in the House. I caution the Minister against his party breaking that consensus, which would damage relations with Britain’s ethnic minorities once again. It is finding the drug dealers and gangsters, and dealing with cocaine, that will reduce the knife crime on our streets, as the Minister knows. Why have we cut the Border Force and what are we doing about the drug market in this country?

[Mr Hurd]

I understand where the right hon. Gentleman’s passion comes from. I have a great deal of respect for his passion, and I also have a great deal of respect for the fact that he has stood up and offered to serve on the serious violence taskforce because of his passion and his insight into the problem and the drivers that underlie it, not least the drugs market. He and I have sat in on presentations on the subject.

To give some reassurance, I meant what I said at the Dispatch Box. There is no appetite or desire to go back to the bad old days of stop and search, but we have gone from a situation where over 1.4 million people were stopped in 2009-10 to one where 1 million fewer people were stopped last year. In the context of the problem we face—this scourge, this terrible spike in serious violence—we have to make sure that all the tools in the box are being used.

The reality is that stop and search is an effective tool. I will give one brief example. In one week in January, during Operation Engulf, 27 people were arrested outside Stratford station, and 10 highly offensive, dangerous, scary weapons were seized. Stop and search has its place, but it must be used lawfully and it must be targeted. Nothing about the Government’s approach to the reform has changed.